Apple Computer, founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steven Wozniak, began as a garagebased operation assembling a hobbyist computer that shipped with little more than a
central processor. That machine was quickly replaced by the Apple II, which over time
introduced features like color displays and disk drives—in short, innovations that now
define computers. Apple grew phenomenally in its early years, and sales of the Apple II
eventually reached one million. But it wasn’t merely technical innovation that drove
Apple—it was also design and marketing.
Although Wozniak was the company’s brilliant engineer, Jobs was its brilliant—if often
manic and abrasive—salesman. He took Apple far beyond hobbyists into the mainstream
consumer market, delivering “Computers for The Rest Of Us.” Until Apple, computers
were either primitive hacker toys or mainframes used by governments and corporations.
By stressing utility for mere mortals—and designing ever more elegant products—Apple
prospered. Although Jobs was forced out in the mid-80s (and the company floundered in
his absence), he returned in 1997 to inspire its most “insanely great” computers, as well
as the groundbreaking iPod, a personal music player with exceptional sales and influence.
Apple’s real breakthrough came not with hardware, however, but with software. Drawing
both on in-house work and research that Xerox developed but never exploited, Apple
produced the first commercial graphical interface for its 1983 Lisa computer. Although
the Lisa failed in the marketplace, it showed the future, departing radically from other
operating systems that required users to type in arcane codes. When the Macintosh
shipped in 1984, it announced its friendly attentions with a large, apparently handwritten
“Hi.”
The Macintosh simultaneously kick-started desktop publishing, an entire new industry
that enabled users to create professional documents without expensive hardware. It also
became the indispensable tool of multimedia designers. Similar easy-to-use software like
iMovie and GarageBand now bring near professional-level video and music to
nonprofessionals.
The Macintosh ‘s most loyal customers remain home and education users, as well as
multimedia designers. It has had, however, little success within corporations and
government, where Microsoft’s Windows dominates.
Indeed, Apple’s relationship with Microsoft mirrors its earlier one with IBM whose
Personal Computer, introduced in 1981, immediately became computing’s de facto
standard. Despite its cheeky advertisement when the PC shipped (“Welcome, IBM.
Seriously.”), Apple ceased being a genuine competitor. The Macintosh, however,
proclaimed that Apple—although itself a multibillion-dollar company—was not run by or
made for the faceless drones of business: Its 1984 Super Bowl TV ad showed a
Technicolor young woman vanquishing an auditorium of black-and-white automatons in
the thrall of Big Brother.
IBM was replaced as Apple’s nemesis by Microsoft, which had written the IBM PC’s
operating system but shrewdly retained the right to market it to other hardware
manufacturers. Microsoft soon became computing’s leviathan. “The war’s over,” Steven
Jobs said when he returned to Apple, “and Microsoft won.”
The Macintosh remains the computer that business doesn’t use, despite its elegant power,
its multimedia superiority, and its users’ devotion. Few billion-dollar companies can
claim Apple’s counter culture status, the hippest kid with the coolest toys.
References
Carleton, Jim. Apple: The Inside Story of Intrigue, Egomania, and Business Blunders.
New York: Times Books, 1997.
Linzmayer, Owen W. Apple Confidential: The Real Story of Apple Computer, Inc.
Berkeley, Ca: Publishers Group West, 1999.
Malone, Michael. Infinite Loop. New York, Doubleday, 1999.