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A Look at Apple Since the Second Jobsian Dynasty |
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 On the cusp of the birthday of the Macintosh, I figured I'd stop and take a look at the state of Apple. Apple has come a long way in just a few short years. Ever since the beginning of the second Jobsian Era, Apple has been steadily crawling back from the brink of nothingness. Granted, it wasn't nothingness to longtime Mac fanatics; Apple still had good stuff during the reigns of Amelio, Spindler, and even the short-lived stewardship of Schneider from One Day at a Time - but of course to others in the industry, Apple was one step away from the grave. In the mid-to-late 90's the Apple Death Knell counter was working overtime, Apple was losing money hand over fist, and the product line was convoluted and confusing ("Hey kids, do you want to buy a Performa 6116CD or a PowerMac 7100/80?").
Well, change is a good thing. Jobs stripped Apple down to the core (bad pun intended), which is making Macs. The original iMac was debuted, and whether or not Gil Amelio actually came up with the plans for the iMac as he claims, it was Jobs and his crew who put forth the finished iMac and made it a success. The four-category product lineup was introduced soon after, with the iMac and iBook for consumers, and the PowerMac and PowerBook for professionals. That changed shortly after, with the introduction and subsequent axing of the Cube, which by the way was such a cool design that PC companies are finally getting around to making knockoffs of it.
Along the way, Apple has come closer to MegaHertz parity with the Wintel world. The G3 came and (pretty much) went, the G4 is the processor in most Macs nowadays, and the G5 is now here to hopefully let Apple compete toe-to-toe with the Wintel world in terms of brute processing power. (Most Mac folks know the MegaHertz Myth, which is that MegaHertz is not the sole factor in a processor's speed, but Wintel users and the Tech industry as a whole judge tend to judge solely on that factor)
Apple has since branched out (again, the bad apple/Apple puns), offering a handheld music player that is currently revolutionising how, where and when people listen to music. The Jobsian vision continued with Apple taking the music industry by the hand and leading them into the digital age. Instead of combating illegal music downloaders with legislation, Apple came up with a solution (granted, not the ONLY solution, as mentioned yesterday) that makes just about everybody happy...not to mention solidifies Apples foothold in the music biz!
Apple has also shown that they listen to the market and to their customers, by offering a rack-mountable server and RAID array - the Xserve and Xserve RAID.
OS X is one of the most beautiful things on the face of the planet (second only to maybe Marge Schott). OS X is stable as a rock, has features out the yin-yang, can run all your Mac applications and games, supports just about every industry-standard protocol, and can run all that open-source goodness like Apache, PHP, MySQL, etc.
Apple has further developed the digital hub strategy and made software to make your life easier and more fun with iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, the aforementioned iTunes, and now GarageBand. Apple also started .Mac (playing off of Microsofts own poorly named .Net), which may not be for everyone, but I don't think anyone can refute that it can be really useful. Apple even developed their own chat software (iChat AV) and companion Webcam (iSight) with a combined experience that is so far above what other clients can do it just make you want to wet yourself. (Let's just hope that support for other messaging platforms is in he works for the next version)
Apple is not without faults, but then no company is. There have been some support issues, most recently the iBook logic board problems, but Apple takes care of just about any gaffe with it's usual quickness and grace.
Compared to any other computer maker out there, Apple is in PRIME position to do some real damage when the economy picks back up. What other single entity has all the different good stuff that Apple does, and under one roof to boot? Apple of course will have to maintain focus and juggle all the different pots it now has in the fire ("Stay the course ... a thousand points of light ... just daaaait") but things have gone well so far under Steve's guidance.
Saturday is the anniversary of the Macintosh. Whether or not Apple will debut a new product like an iMac G5</> or G5 Cube, or just faster PowerMacs, it's nice to think of how far we've come in so short a time.
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January 22 2004, 12:47 PM EDT, by
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Comments:
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| okcalla |
1/22/04, 3:47 PM EDT |
maybe theyll debut a dual 2.0 g5 ibook. mmm G5... anyway but when the economy picks up hopefully apple will get a boost from th ipods. as well i dont think longshot will be out from microsoft will be out yet. i think there already behind as always so that will be a major plus for apple.
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| Matty |
1/22/04, 10:01 PM EDT |
excert from the Apple's families xmas newsletter
"our younger son Mac is turning twenty soon but the event will be quite small, we are already planning something big for his 21st . Mac is in the last year of college and doing very well. in his spare time is mucking around with making movies, and playing in his garageband. "
so next years(05) theme at apple will be mac gets a real job
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| rlhamon |
1/22/04, 10:47 PM EDT |
Wow ... 20 years of Mac Mania!!!
I think Saturday I'll head to the shopping center and buy me some Levi Jeans (Stone Wash) and a new long sleeve black shirt ... a turtle neck if they have one.
Then I'll be ready for the big day ... Happy Birthday Mac
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| Bill Palmer |
1/23/04, 3:48 AM EDT |
I'm thinking that in the sprit of goodwill, perhaps Steve could find it in his heart to bring back Schneider and, you know, give him a desk job or something.
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| speedyrev |
1/23/04, 9:57 AM EDT |
All Hail King Jobs! Live Forever!!!
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If you go to a party, and you want to be the popular one at the party, do this: Wait until no one is looking, then kick a burning log out of the fireplace onto the carpet. Then jump on top of it with your body and yell, "Log o' fire! Log o' fire!" I've never done this, but I think it'd work.
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