“It was insanely great, the computer for the rest of us, and out to change the world. The Apple Macintosh marks its twentieth birthday this week, and–hubris and hype aside–the Mac has made an acknowledged impact on personal computing,”Peggy Watt writes for PC World.
“A graphical user interface manipulated via mouse, new usability standards, still-evolving multimedia support, and simply cool design are among the Mac’s credits, say industry observers, PC users, and Apple pioneers. PC World asked many longtime industry players, including some involved in the Mac’s early days, what the Macintosh has taught the PC–and, essentially, the computing industry. And, on the flip side, what has the PC taught the Macintosh,” asks Watt?
“‘Obviously, the PC got two key components from the Mac: the graphical user interface and introduction of a mouse for navigating information,’ Tim Bajarin, president of the consultancy Creative Strategies says. ‘Until that point, everything around the PC was driven by a very text-based architecture.’ Bajarin also credits the Macintosh with introducing desktop publishing and multimedia computing, ‘which is the Macintosh not only handling drawing and pictures, but true imaging and sound and video,’ he says,” Watt writes. “…Credit the Macintosh with helping push Microsoft to greater power, several industry veterans suggest.”
“So what has the Mac, in turn, learned from the PC? Jobs would say nothing, Bajarin says, ‘but in reality, it helped Apple understand the much greater importance of retail, helped Apple hone in its marketing strategies.’ Consultant Rob Enderle says Apple may finally be learning the lesson of the PC’s example of standards and licensing. The companyrecently licensed IPod technology to Hewlett-Packard, which will release its own version of the music player. ‘I think the real story is what both sides didn’t learn from the other,’ says Enderle, managing partner of The Enderle Group. ‘Apple showcased over and over again what marketing-driven products could do, most recently with the IPod, and the PC industry still doesn’t get it. On the other hand, if there was ever a stronger example that the power is in standards and the ability to take those standards across manufacturers than Microsoft and the PC industry demonstrate, I don’t know of it–and Apple didn’t get that.'” Watt reports.
Full article here.
what standards? You mean, quicktime, rendevous? How about forced adoption, windows media, etc.
Once again, calls for Apple to have “standards across manufacturers” – which really means, “license your operating system and let it run on everybody’s hardware – even if the hardware is cheap or thrown together.”
Although the Mac’s operating system and interface are far more intuitive than Windows – the Mac’s real strength is that IT WORKS. As a PC Windows user, I lost weeks every year due to system instability and flaws. I lost reports, databases, photographs and time time time.
Since switching to an iMac 2 years ago, I’ve not lost even one hour to system flaws. I’ve never lost data.
All this is possible not only because the Mac is based upon stable Unix – but also because Apple retains tight control of hardware. If Apple licenses clone manufacturers, the Mac’s stability will be undermined.
I can share and receive practically any data with Windows users now… I don’t need Mac clones to undermine the Mac cache and Mac reliability.
Besides… the Windows users are adopting Mac cross-platform data standards…. QuickTime, iTunes.
Let the better machines win!
“Let the better machines win!”
Ahh, if only the world were a merit-based place!
THINGS APPLE DIDN’T LEARN FROM WINTEL:
1) Monopolistic activity.
2) Cartel organization and behavior.
3) Restraint of trade.
4) Theft of intellectual property,
5) Vulnerability to virus/worm attack.
6) System instability.
Enderle is calling for the Mac to adopt standards. Will he also push his request towards Redmond?
I think not.
Man that Enderle is bozo.
What standard is he even talking about? Hmmm Rob? TCP/IP? HTTP? SSL? CIFS? HFS? Want me to continue Rob.
Get educated before you say Mac isn’t following standards. At lease when the do, they don’ abortionize RFC’s like Microsoft. Check out how Microsoft implements X.500 or DNS if you want a good laugh Rob.
Man…I have been using a Mac since 1993, and on the Internet since 1994. I have NEVER had a virus. Can you say the same on your Windoze box Rob?
Moron.
Jimi
Apple designing hardware and OS TOGETHER is what makes the Mac platform as great as it is. If that contributed to low marketshare, I’m still glad that’s their strategy! If I wanted broadly-adopted mediocrity I’d take Windows.
(And yes, my first “Mac” was a clone!)
Totally unrelated but I don’t care: my iPod will not sync with my Mac!! Yesterday, I just plugged it in to update a few new songs, and iTunes froze up, followed by the Finder. I left it for a few hours, came back and the spinning ball was still merrily on its job.
Forced restart at the power button, as my poor little iMac would not respond. When rebooted (took 15 minutes), all my icons where missing and apps would not open, just continuously bounce.
Left it off until today, turned it on: OS X seemed back to normal. Trashed iTunes and iPod preferences in my Library, restarted, and opened up iTunes, attached iPod. Tried to sync again (my iPod was completely erased… all my backed up data gone, but still on my hard drive), but no, after 109 of 987 songs, froze up my whole system! Crash proof OS X my ass! ( I know, technically it didn’t crash.. once again, too pissed off to care.) After looking around the Apple support site, I am clearly not the only one with this issue. So frustrating!! Please, someone help me out here.
Also I did the Apple hardware test, found no problems. 7 after 3rd failed attempt, I “restored” the iPod with iPod Software Updater. Nothing changed.
Doesn’t Enderle ever get tired of his own voice?
And maybe the lesson of the future is that if you want true functionality, you license both the hardware and the software (ie iPod and HP). Maybe soon we’ll be seeing HP branded clients running OSX, built by Apple, but encased in the HP blue plastic boxes connecting to Xserves?
This was beginning to be an interesting article until it suddenly came to the word “Enderle”.
Everyone is wondering why Apple does’nt support the WMA format, but no one is asking why Micro$in is not supporting the AAC format, when it kicked everyones buttooskis last year.
How can Apple innovate if they spend all their time trying to make their stuff halfway function on multiple cheap third party hardware. With 5 billion in the bank, why should they even care? No one is saying Rolls Royce is going out of business.
I agree, the article was interesting until Enderle’s name came up. Maybe instead of (or in addition to commercial plot warnings) MDN should always put an Enderle warning in the headlines. That way everyone could keep their breakfast down.
Aggravated:
Calmly take your Mac and iPod down to the nearest Apple Store, and go right to the Genius Bar. They don’t charge a single cent if they can solve the problem right there. It sounds like they might be able to easily help you. Only once in 10 years, has and of my friends and family had to pay for an Apple tech to fix their old iMac. But it was worth the $65 for them to completely analyze and fix the aps on the hard drive. When he got it home, the early G3 acted like an all new Mac.
About twice per month (of heavy use, 3D graphics, always on), I find a need to restart my iMac. I don’t know of any sane person that would claim that the Mac is “crash-proof”. It just seems that way when compared to anything running Microsoft’s Windows.
Upon a restart, the Mac does a Disk Doctor routine, other housekeeping, and resets some prefs, and is not a bad idea.
More on topic…
It seems that no one in the PC-biased community/media can saying anything good about Apple’s products without putting some sort of dig in there. It’s all PC politics.
I don’t think that Apple learned anything about retail or “standards” from Microsoft. If the PC world really had any amount of innovation, there would be Dell OS and HP OS. But, that would require huge amounts R&D and a significant amount of imagination and intelligence.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a company making the entire product to help insure a more stable platform. But, since open public jealousy isn’t “cool” for any corporation to display, they resort to bitterness and petty fault-finding; not unlike a disgruntled ex-lover.
Enderle is a paid tool who usually masquerades as an actual journalist or worse, an anal-yst. He is neither. There are 60 year-old Bourbon Street whores who haven’t been bought and paid for as many times as Enderle.
Well, I learn one thing about some PC users:
They are hypocrates and ingrates. The same people calling Macs toys are using their WinXP now. What happens to their beloved DOS? What’s more they use their Windows for playing games (yeah, that is some werious work, guys)!! At the same time, these people just can’t acknowledge that without Apple, they won’t have their Windows, FireWire, USB, Plug ‘n’ Play, etc.. They should thank Apple for inventing or popularizing these technologies.
And they have the nerve to call us zealots!
Does Enderle ever remove his head from his ass?
Standards and licensing? Is this all he can understand? Apple, thank God (Steve), is not iterested in comoditizing the industry like some companies out there. They make “insanly great” products for people who appreciate them. If Apple produced computers and software just to sell at the lowest price, innovation would die and we would all be forced to use crap like Dull and Microsuck.
[Everyone is wondering why Apple does’nt support the WMA format, but no one is asking why Micro$in is not supporting the AAC format…]
Bill doesn’t pay royalties, he only collect them.
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– – –
[But, since open public jealousy isn’t “cool” for any corporation to display, they resort to bitterness and petty fault-finding; not unlike a disgruntled ex-lover.]
Such hatred for a tiny, irrelevant company. Weird, huh?
– – –
[…PC users: They are hypocrites and ingrates]
Neighbor came to me first week of December – fed up with WinViruses, and seemingly eager to get ‘any’ Mac (and ‘High-speed internet’). He has a friend that can get him a ‘deal’. But, he wants to get some info first before making a decision. Good idea, I always strongly suggest FACT finding. KNOW what you want, what you need AND what you’re paying for.
He comes to me a few days later with some brochures, he’s sure he’s buying the eMac – tho’ he likes the iMac. But, he needs more time. He has to wait for his ‘freind’ to call him. Well, the a month goes by, I barely get hello whenever I see him. Hey, he’s old.
Yesterday, (really, the 24th) I meet him and his wife in the elevator (no escaping). (I surmise that his avoidance of me indicates he’s bought a cheapo FutureShop Special.) He doesn’t even say hello, before he’s asking me for help because he can’t get his new ‘high-speed internet’ up and working.
I barely have to try to ‘fish’ for the answer that I’m sure to hear.
–
Mb: Uh, I don’t know anything about how PC ethernet cards need to be formatted. All Macs have built-in ethernet, and they don’t need to be configured.”
N: Well, can’t you help, anyway?
Mb: Well, I’d rather not. If I bugger up something that I’m not familiar with…”
N: But, aren’t they the same?
Mb: Like I said, I don’t know how to install or configure the card in a PC.
Walks to their car grumbling at me.
–
He ‘saves’ maybe 200 bucks, then wants free tech support. And I’m the bastard? Whatever.
Hey, I don’t care what you buy. Just don’t expect me to learn – at my expense – how to ‘fix’ your computer – and then do it for free.
– – –
[..people calling Macs toys…]
The PCs are the only REAL BUSINESS COMPUTER. Yet, they have the most games!
About standards, they do have a point. Now I know WMA isn’t a standard in the technical sense of the word(though it is widely used, however not approved by a standards body.) But there are many things that are standardized, such as hardware. You have a memory consortium to agree on the best standard for RAM(thank you, no more RAMBUS), A disk drive set for approving things like the vaunted SATA, and chipset manufacturers. The list is much longer, but they do adhere to standards (thanks in no part to Microsoft)
As for forced upgrading, Apple is just as guilty the rest of them as in removal of floppy drive, removal of serial connections (now you’ve got to buy a USB printer!)removal of VGA adapters on the video cards, you know, the little stuff. If they adhered to the standard of DVI only on thier video cards, you don’t have to pay licensing fees to build it into the card. DVI works just as well, and the cards would be cheaper.
Now this is just opinion (like every other post in this site) but suppose if Apple were the predominant force in the PC market. I’m not so sure if they would adhere to standards like PCI-X and DDR memory. Industry standard ethernet conectivity would be dubious as well. They sure as hell wouldn’t have a hypertransport bus with the processors (AMD Technology). So standards…yeah, I’d say the x86 world has taught Apple some important things.
P.S. I know it’s great to shout from the mountaintops how long your computer has been running without a reboot, but think about all the power it’s sucking (yes, even in a ‘sleep’ mode). If everyone turned off thier computers when not in use, we’d have enought extra power to run an entire metropolitan area. Not to even think of the polution it’s causing to generate said power.
“… (thanks in no part to Microsoft)” – Trandoshan
Funny, it is Microsoft who does not like a standard not defined by Microsoft. “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish” is their standard practice re: standards. If you don’t believe me, look what MS did to HTMl, Java, MPG4, etc.. See, what they do to XML recently with their Office.
In the past, Apple tried to go their own way, inventing their own solution even if the rest of the industry went the other way. But that was in the past. The “new” Apple adopts standards (the real ones, not MS-distorted standards) since that is the way they can survive, that they have to be more compatible to the rest of the world than Windows.
“As for forced upgrading, Apple is just as guilty the rest of them as in removal of floppy drive, removal of serial connections (now you’ve got to buy a USB printer!)removal of VGA adapters on the video cards, you know, the little stuff.”
That is, my friend, is called progress. Sometimes, you have to be pushed to move forward (and pay for it with your $$). Had Apple not pushed it, Apple users would have paid more for their hardware. Floppy drives, serial ports, etc. cost money to be included. Considering that floppy’s future is dead, it’s a good thing Apple started the process of retiring it. The fact was, at least for me, I used ZIP disks even when my Mac came with a floppy drive since floppies were so unreliable (I had so many dead floppies it covered one of my cubicle walls). I even lost a backup when I needed it. Do you really want your computer to have a 5 1/4″ floppy drive or a punch card reader?