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30th Anniversary of the Mac


Jeff Wexler

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Macintosh 128K (1984)
 
As clunky and expensive as it was, the original Mac was the first mass-market personal computer to feature a graphical user interface (GUI) and mouse. Today, we expect any electronic device from TVs to ATMs to come with a graphical user interface. And thanks to the GUI, PCs, laptops, smartphones, and tablets were able to evolve into devices for the everyday consumer. The Mac was the one product that started it all.
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And here's the 1984 spot:

 

 

I was a little late to the game and didn't buy into Macintosh until the Mac II, which would've been about 1988. I refused to buy a Mac until 1) you could easily open up the box, 2) it had two disk drives [which was important in the 1980s], and 3) it was color. The Mac II did all of the above. 

 

Note that the Mac II didn't come out until after Steve Jobs left, because he was adamant that users shouldn't open up the box. I think Jobs was a genius on many levels, but he was also a stubborn idiot about a lot of issues (like these).

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See, that's an obvious "un-Jobs" things to do. They never acknowledged anniversary dates with him in charge.

 

Yeah, it was also un-Jobs of Apple to open up the box and allow users to get into it and upgrade the machine in 1987. Not everything Jobs did was smart, nor was it good for the user. 

 

I think he was a brilliant guy in many ways, but he also had some pretty rough personal flaws. Walter Isaacson's best-selling biography covered this in great detail. 

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The Isaacson biography is pretty fascinating. I think he said that one day his interview recordings will be given to a library.

I'm sure there is some Jobs quirk that lead to no anniversary acknowledgements for Apple or the Mac. It might have been as simple as him thinking it looked lame when other companies did it.

I think it's a good sign they are acknowledging the 30th. That tells me don't meet in a conference room thinking "what would Steve do?!??!" For every decision.

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The Isaacson biography is pretty fascinating. I think he said that one day his interview recordings will be given to a library.

 

Isaacson has said he cut about 20-30 pages out of the book "out of consideration for the Jobs family." I suspect there's some more bad personal things he opted to leave out because it didn't really add to what was already said. (Interestingly, Jobs did not have final say over the book -- it was all totally the author's decision.)

 

I said a couple of years ago when the book came out: I had heard from many people that Jobs was a brilliant, troubled, very difficult, opinionated guy. The book showed me he was far worse than I ever expected. But I gotta say, the guy had great taste and great ideas. 

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Yeah, it was also un-Jobs of Apple to open up the box and allow users to get into it and upgrade the machine in 1987. Not everything Jobs did was smart, nor was it good for the user.

 

Even a step further, there was that very brief time that Mac "Clones" were licensed ... 

I had two of the Motorola models called the Starmax - change that to HAVE - I know I've still got one of them around. 

That all went away when Jobs regained leadership.   

 

Perhaps the Mac OS might have had greater penetration earlier had other manufacturers been permitted to engage ...

 

MF

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Even a step further, there was that very brief time that Mac "Clones" were licensed ...  I had two of the Motorola models called the Starmax - change that to HAVE - I know I've still got one of them around.  That all went away when Jobs regained leadership.   

 

I was crushed when Jobs took away the Mac clones. That was a terrible day. 

 

But Apple is doing very well in terms of sales. At the moment, they have nearly 14% of the PC business, if you believe Gartner's analysis:

0110-gartner-1.jpg

That makes them the third leading brand after HP and Dell, which is not a bad place to be.

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  • 4 weeks later...

And here's something I missed, a 90-second long commercial from Apple to commemorate their 30th anniversary:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJahlKPCL9g

 

No hints, but let's just say it was not shot on a Red or an Alexa or a Sony. As I always say, you have a brilliant guy lighting the scene and framing the shot, and good people editing and doing the post work, you can make beautiful-looking stuff out of damn near anything.

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