“Most of [Baltimore County] school system’s computers are PCs running Microsoft Windows software, but not in the labs for the graphic and multimedia programs, until now. School system leaders say the move makes sense because it will make it easier to provide technical support and because graphic design software is available for both platforms,” Liz F. Kay reports for The Baltimore Sun. “…the Apple logo has given way to the waving Windows icon in Baltimore County schools’ graphic design and multimedia computer labs…”
Kay reports, “Still, some say future graphic artists should learn using Macs. ‘If people are specifically interested in a career in graphic arts, to not be exposed at all to the Mac is probably a disadvantage,’ said Kevin Keane, president of IAPHC, an international graphic professionals’ network.”
“The Baltimore County Public Schools . . . has embarked on a quality journey, a journey that will take us to our goal of becoming one of the premier school systems in the nation.” – quote from the website of Dr. Joe A. Hairston, Superintendent of Baltimore County Public Schools.
“Students and staff can share information efficiently if everyone uses compatible equipment. ‘All of this can happen only if we’re all on the same operating platform,’ said schools spokeswoman Kara Calder,” Kay reports.
“The debate over Macs versus Windows reaches levels of almost religious fervor, with bloggers and Web sites monitoring every statement made for or against either operating system. Most agree that graphics firms chiefly use Macs because their software was originally designed for that operating system,” Kay reports. “Until recently, up to 90 percent of most printing plants used Macs, said Keane, the president of the graphic professionals’ network. It’s now easier to work in either platform, but he estimated about three-quarters of businesses still use Macs.”
“Jill Schuchart, a student in Eastern Technical High School’s multimedia communications program, said she and other classmates were disappointed when they heard the news. They remembered how the PCs always crashed at the multimedia program at Parkville Middle,” Kay reports. “She recalls thinking, ‘Oh, great. It’s going to be like in eighth grade again, when we couldn’t work on our projects.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Obviously, Baltimore County Public Schools’ initial plan — to substitute lead paint chips for sliced turkey in school lunches — was deemed less effective than the above scheme in achieving their ultimate goal of impairing their children’s mental abilities. Someone ought to tell these geniuses in Maryland that Macs can run Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows natively, before they flush any more of the taxpayers’ money down the toilet. It’s not a religious argument; it’s an argument about providing the best you can for your students or shackling them to cheap, limited, mediocre Windows-only PCs due to budgetary concerns or, even worse, due to the type of plain old ignorance evidenced in Baltimore County.
What’s better for education, Mac or PC? Info: http://www.macvspc.info/
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Related articles:
Boot Camp could be big win for Apple Macs in schools – April 12, 2006
Dude, you got a Dell? What are you, stupid? Only Apple Macs run both Mac OS X and Windows! – April 05, 2006
State of Maine awards middle school contract to Apple Computer for 34,000 iBooks – March 21, 2006
Apple beats Dell: lands deal to supply 12,675 iBooks to Henrico County Middle Schools – February 09, 2006
Apple Mac is #1 in European education market, pushes Dell down into second place – February 03, 2006
Okay, well at least you’re honest.
I guess that’s just where we differ.
The idea that Dell wouldn’t offer all public school districts their best price on their latest hardware without the district begging, hunting, or poring over price lists is horrible corporate behavior.
I mean trying to get a few bucks extra per unit from a for-profit corporation or a consumer is one thing, but intentionally shafting a public school district for profit ranks pretty low in my book.
I still find it hard to believe that you are seriously okay with that, but whatever.
@ Jobs,
“…No magic, no tricks, no one per household.” Sorry Jobs, but those ten Dells that we got for our lab had to be purchased in two separate orders via telephone because there was a limit of five per order. The website may have let us purchase all of the units at once, but they were more expensive on the website for some reason and we never could get the web-quotes and phone-quotes to mesh.
“…you generally get more bang for your buck with each new series of Dell machines.” I don’t disagree. But you neglect to mention that this is true of Macintosh as well. I have been using Apples since the IIe and PCs since the PC Junior. There have been many innovations that have allowed Macintosh to deliver “more bang for my buck”. Remember what Mac OS X and what would later become iLife were like in their beginnings? I don’t remember Safari or a GarageBand-like app in 10.0. Indeed, Macs have consistently introduced new technologies first in the consumer marketplace. You can find examples of such here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Macintosh#Effects_on_the_technology_industry
That’s all for now.
Funny, “Jobs” could be mistaken for Mac Dude…
“Macs have consistently introduced new technologies first in the consumer marketplace. “
Referencing your article.
Apple may have been the first to BUNDLE some of these, certianly not the first to SELL a machine with them nor were they the company that innovated and INVENTED them. First use of these pre-dates Apple by many years in some cases.
WYSIWIG – Xerox
Long file names – Unix
3.5″ floppies – Sony
PC Sound – Creative Labs
SCSI – Shugart(Segate)/NCR
USB – Compaq, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC and Northern Telecom.
Firewire – Apple, Sony.
802.11 – Alvarion BreezeCom, Lucent, Netwave Technologies , Symbol Technologies, Proxim
CD-ROM – Philips, Sony
DVD-R – Pioneer, Sony
Touchpad – Synaptecs, Alps
Trackball – Atari
Hard Disk MP3 Player – Creative Labs
Heck When you look back at it, sounds like Apple is mostly inspired by Sony, Xerox and Creative Labs.
If any of these kids decide to go any further in the creative fields, they’ll find Macs in most of the tertiary labs they might enter. They’ll then realize their schools were clueless.
“they plan on replacing the old G3 iMacs in the Graphic Design lab aty the high school with new Dells”, from further up.
I’m glad they aren’t doing that in my school. They’ve got new Dells in the ICT room (computer lab for you americans) and they are slow as shit, the server login takes years, running windows xp obviously. In our graphics room we have G3 iMacs which im glad to say are being replaced by new iMacs (although im a bit confused, either theyll get G5 ones or have photoshop running slow thru rosetta). Anyway, my point is that these new dells are crap, if its just because they run windows. OS9 boots in a snap and has much more features than windoze. Apple should release OS9 for X86, for free, just to show windoze users how shockingly bad XP is, that apple’s os from almost 10 years ago beats it in terms of speed security and whatever.
MW=hot, the server room (windoze server) is bloody hot in our school, im sure an xserve wouldnt be that bad.
Jobs: Apple might not have been the first to develop certain technologies, but it was certainly the first to make them accessible to the mainstream market.
@ Jobs,
MacJack took the words right out of my mouth. Apple was the first to use many of the technologies in your list in a meaningful way in the consumer marketplace. BTW, you’ll notice that Dell is absent from your list of innovators.
i smell a macdude in here somewhere…
MacJack
For some reason, some Pro Apple people living in their bubble think that whenever Apple launches something that it’s new AND unique AND developed by Apple.
That’s the point I’m refuting.
The point is they weren’t always the first to use them meaningfully in the consumer market, and the reality is that the best that can be claimed in a lot of these instances was that Apple was first to bundle a technology everyone else was already widely selling as an option.
These days the world moves faster, and the “firsts” in hardware more often than not come from the PC side.
First 3.7Ghz dual core dual processor Intel workstation (4 cores)? Apple? No.
First 20″ notebook? Apple? No.
First shipping Core Duo machines. Apple? No.
First ultralight (~3lb) core Duo notebooks? Apple? No.
First use of latest graphics chipsets. Apple? No.
You’ve gotta wonder if Apple will Ever be on the leading edge for hardware again or remain a fast follower like Dell.
You forgot to mention “trusted computing.”
@ Jobs,
Let’s cover your most recent list one at a time:
• “3.7Ghz 4 cores…” No argument there!
• “First 20″ notebook” Maybe it’s just me, but I cannot envision using a laptop that large. Also consider the fact that Apple was the first to bring 17″ notebooks to market (unless I am misremembering). I remember reading articles at the time which said that laptop sizes would only go up from 17″. Thus, Apple was actually the catalyst for the 20″ laptops that are coming into existence today.
• “First shipping Core Duo machines.” Whether or not Apple was the first to ship I cannot say. But I do remember that Apple purchased so many of the new chips when they launched that companies such as Dell had problems obtaining the new chips for a time. I am fairly confident that Apple was the first to manufacture in volume with the Duos.
• “First ultra-light (~3lb) core Duo notebooks…” Maybe, I don’t know enough to comment.
• “First use of latest graphics chipsets.” The last time I remember Apple making a splash with a graphics chipset was with the 30″-capable card in the PowerMacs. I think that we will see significant progress in this area when the PowerMacs are replaced with Mactels.
Let me also address some of the items from another of your lists. I could probably refute most of these if I had a few hours to spend on this activity!:
• “3.5” floppies” – Sony invented the disks. But as I remember, it was the original Macintosh that was built around the 3.5″ diskette. The 3.5″ could have turned into another Betamax for Sony had it not been for the Mac.
• “PC Sound” – I recently watched a TV special that was called, “How William Shatner Changed the World,” or something like that. In the special, it is said that the Macintosh II was the first consumer computer capable of playing a song in full stereo sound via hard drive.
• “USB” – Wasn’t Apple an original member of the USB Implementers Forum?
• “Touchpad” Apple has recently innovated with the Scrolling TrackPad.
• “Hard Disk MP3 Player” – I would argue that the iPod was the first hard disk MP3 player of any commercial relevance.
Other items that we should discuss include:
• Desktop publishing – It is widely accepted that Apple played a crucial role in the development and implementation of the desktop publishing revolution.
• Microsoft Office – Macintosh got the MS Office suite before Windows. Perhaps this is because Windows was not stable enough?
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• PPC – Apple (along with IBM and Motorola) invented the PPC architecture. This architecture is still relevant today because all three of the major video game consoles in the most recent generation are using the PPC architecture.
The End
Oops! I was trying to say that I don’t have time to refute all of the items on your list. The items I have commented on I am obviously trying to refute.
• “First 20″ notebook” Maybe it’s just me, but I cannot envision using a laptop that large.”
Agree but doesn’t make it any less true. I’m sure there’s some people who’ll happily lug one of these beasts around.
“First shipping Core Duo machines.” major point though is that others were first, lots of people did claim Apple had a big lead with core Duo, in fact they were just first to announce and dozens of other machines shipped before them.
“I don’t know enough to comment.”
Should be easy, does Apple have one? No. Do others, yes.
” I think that we will see significant progress in this area when PowerMacs are replaced with Mactels.”
Probably, but not SOONER than all the Windows gaming card vendors start selling one.
“The 3.5″ could have turned into another Betamax for Sony had it not been for the Mac.”
Yes, there were competing 3.5″ disk formats, and the Mac was a solid reason for it’s more widespread adoption, Apple didn’t use it first, nor invent it.
• “PC Sound” – I recently watched a TV special that was called, “How William Shatner Changed the World,” or something like that. In the special, it is said that the Macintosh II was the first consumer computer capable of playing a song in full stereo sound via hard drive.
You could argue whether the Macintosh II’s 8 bit stereo sound with 7.5kHz low pass filter was “full stereo” vs the Soundblaster’s later 16 bit, 22kHz sound. but both PC and Mac had other “sound cards” available about the same time, with the timing win going to the PC.
• “USB” – Wasn’t Apple an original member of the USB Implementers Forum?
No.
• “Touchpad” Apple has recently innovated with the Scrolling TrackPad.
Years after PCs have this feature, albeit implemented diffently with a scroll area on the pad.
“I would argue that the iPod was the first hard disk MP3 player of any commercial relevance.”
No argument there, but my point is they were not first and didn’t invent it. They just saw someone else’s product and did an Apple version.
“• Desktop publishing – It is widely accepted that Apple played a crucial role in the development and implementation of the desktop publishing revolution.”
Agree.
“• Microsoft Office – Macintosh got the MS Office suite before Windows. Perhaps this is because Windows was not stable enough? “
Or business people were happy with Lotus 123, Word, Wordperfect etc. And at the time they were much more robust business apps than the Mac Office suite, albeit much less pretty. But I agree most of the “office” GUI apps did orginate on or come out first on the Mac. but using your argument, it was the PC that made them popular.
“• PPC – Apple (along with IBM and Motorola) invented the PPC architecture.”
Which at least as far as PCs are concerned is the looser of the speed race. Arguably the 68k was a nicer processor than the x86 architecturally, but Mororola just couldn’t keep up with Intel’s price and performance improvements.
For Power PC, Sure lots of embedded devices and even some high end IBM servers use it, but you can bet that Motorola, IBM or Apple are not really that happy with how the PPC story played out.
Apple’s a two time looser in the processor horse picking race. By finally going to Intel they’ve assured 1) they will never again have the big performance disadvantage that built up over the last few years 2) They’ll never have anything faster than anyone else either.
Apple was first or made popular…
WYSIWIG – Xerox
Not really as Apple’s GUI ended up quite a bit different (read – usable and not an in-house experiment)
Long file names – Unix
No big deal, better than 8.3
3.5″ floppies – Sony
As mentioned by another, drive was Sony but Apple lead way in it’s use (away from 5″ floppy)
PC Sound – Creative Labs
??? Apple has always (?) had sound on board vs separate sound cards in PCs
SCSI – Shugart(Segate)/NCR
Who said Apple had to invent it, it just used it while PCs were suffering under other “crippled” buses (SCSI was easy and great re daisy chaining devices, unlike the PC world… see Macs “plug & play” vs Wintel “plug & pray”)
USB – Compaq, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC and Northern Telecom.
USB was non too popular UNTIL Apple made it THE interface for the original iMac, thus all the “fruity” coloured USB devices that exploded onto the market after the coloured iMac (printers, drives, scanners, hubs, mice, speakers, etc)
Firewire – Apple, Sony.
Sony had little if anything to do with Firewire until after Apple presented it to a standards group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewire); Firewrie was supposedly used internally in the Mac before going external
802.11 – Alvarion BreezeCom, Lucent, Netwave Technologies , Symbol Technologies, Proxim
And Apple was the first to make it a standard (or customizable) and popular feature; basically – first available built-in wifi (despite M Dell’s claims he was first… Wintel world maybe but after Apple overall)
CD-ROM – Philips, Sony
Yes, and Apple the first to come standard as it “popularized” multimedia (after it helped create the desktop publishing market… Apple with the Mac, Adobe with Postscript)
Touchpad – Synaptecs, Alps
Apple first to widely use (laptop); imprived with 2-finger design
Trackball – Atari
Again, Apple to first use in laptop while everyone else was using the IBM “eraser”
Hard Disk MP3 Player – Creative Labs
Basically ignored until Apple “did it right”
Let’s add…
– Desktop Accessories (todays Widgets… tomorrows Gadgets)
– true “plug & play” ve Wintel “plug & pray” (see above re SCSI
– working/usable drag & drop
– Aliases (copied as Shortcuts)
– ergonomic design of today’s laptop (keyboard at back with wrist-rest area)
– consistency is software GUIs/functionality (ie, from the Apple User Guidelines Handbook… Command P = Print; Command C = Copy, etc… MS and it’s developers still haven’t gotten it right, still too INCONSISTENT); before (and even after) Apple, it was a nightmare in the Wintel world with each company having it’s own keyboard/user layout (remember keyboard templates?)
– Quicktime – first software-based “multimedia” playback (without need of dedicated hardware); soon copied by Microsoft and Intel (Apple successfully sued MS & Intel (all used Canyon Software to help code) after QT code found in Video for Windows)
– consumer usable/friendly apps (ie, iMovie (copied as MovieMaker when MS rushed out WinME); iDVD; Garageband (both supposedly being copied in Vista)
etc, etc.
Even some Vista graphic elements are lifted straight from Aqua (ie, glassy/transparent (blue) buttons). How pathetic.
Apple seems to often (first) use what’s best for the end user rather than what’s cheapest or proprietary.
Bottom line… Wintel world has usually sat back and watched Apple to see whether to add features/enter a market (ie, was it successful? Yes? then “me too!”).
Gates/MS are particularly good at this tactic.
PS:
The sound chips in the Mac II were made by ….. Sony.
While Apple was an important PLATFORM for desktop publishing, it’d be hard to argue that the main innovator was anyone but Adobe.
and when it came to Office was it Apple or Microsoft who was the innovator?
Apple can hardly claim to have invented the PowerPC architecture That would go to IBM.
Nor the 68k processors, that would be Motorola Perhaps heavily influenced by Digital Equipment’s PDP processors also a nice symmetrical design.
Hey Jobs ( even though I hate to use that name) your way to much of a loser to have the name Jobs.. Maybe you should get a mac and get a LIFE instead of chasing down all of us Mac users..
“everyone else was using the IBM “eraser”
Personally I prefer the eraser, quicker and more precise than a touchpad but that’s just me.
And claims that Apple “Did it right” or were “more successful than others selling it” doesn’t negate the claim that they didn’t invent the technology.
And nobody said that Apple wasn’t a CUSTOMER for any of the innovation in the computer industry. Thy’re just not the SOURCE of all innovation as some would have you beleive. that honor is spread around between HUNDREDS of companies.
When you look for things Apple actually invented, particularly on the hardware side, you don’t find many things.
“Hey Jobs ( even though I hate to use that name) your way to much of a loser to have the name Jobs.. Maybe you should get a mac and get a LIFE instead of chasing down all of us Mac users..
“
Respond with rational arguments please, not rantings.
And “get a life” just to clarify it for you, owning iLife is NOT what people mean when they say “get a life”.
“Scrolling TrackPad… Years after PCs have this feature, albeit implemented differently…” That’s the point. Apple made the leap of allowing a person to scroll on any part of the trackpad. I’m sure that this comes in “handy” for some people (lol).
“They’re just not the SOURCE of all innovation as some would have you believe. that honor is spread around between HUNDREDS of companies.” You and I in in agreement there. Apple is far from the only innovator in the computer industry. I’ll even give Dell credit where credit is due. Dell — and Gateway to a lesser extend — has forced computer prices down industry-wide. That is a good thing as long as innovation and reliability remain unaffected.
Speaking of Gateway, that reminds me of another Apple innovation — the Apple stores. I’ll grant you that Apple may have gotten the idea from Gateway, and Dell is set to have a couple of their “clever” (ahem) stores open in time for the 2006 holiday season. But Apple is the company that “got it right.”
Apple is like Lucasfilm in the 70’s and 80’s. Had there been space battles in movies before? Sure! But Star Wars: A New Hope was the first to “get it right” in a lot of people’s books. On the other hand, Microsoft and Dell are like Lucasfilm in the 90’s and 2000’s. They milk their past successes — Star Wars franchise etc., Windows/Office, and bargain-box respectively — for every penny that those successes are worth. And an ignorant public consumes both without hesitation. In the now eternal words of Darth Vader, Noooooooooooooooooooo…[breaths]…ooooooooooooooo!
P.S. Thanks MacCanuck for the great post!
“in “handy” for some people (lol).”
The reviews are mixed with some people saying it doesn’t work very well. Anyway, hardly a leap.
Personally I hate all the “extra” features people are trying to put on trackpads and turn them all off (including double tap to click) but again, that’s probably just me.
I don’t think Dell ever set out to be an innovator, just an efficient assembler of boxes. They’re letting someone else do the innovation and picking up the promising looking ones. So from that point of view they’re doing just what they set out to do.
But when you look at it, on the hardware side Apple are similar, wait for those other companies to come up with an idea and pick what they think are good ones.
On to Star Wars, I think the older public who remember the first launch of the originals consumes star wars movies because the first couple were good and innovative, and now they can’t help but want to see how the stories end, despite knowing that they’re probably not going to be that impressed by each later offering.
That too seems a lot like Apple. A lot of innovation in the early days of personal computers, not much lately.
Jobs:
and when it came to Office was it Apple or Microsoft who was the innovator?
That would probably be Apple since, IIRC, Apple had Appleworks (credited with being the first integrated office suite) out for the Apple II.
It went back and forth between Claris and Apple and a Mac version came out (around ’84-85?) while MS was still creating Word and Excel (separate apps) for the Mac.
My main bone of contention is that if anyone “invents and innovates” in the computer world, it’s Apple, unlike the Wintel side and particularly Microsoft that manages to include the word “innovate” (or variations) in almost every second sentence yet rarely does.
In fact, MS is nothing more than basically an ethically-challenged acquisition and marketing entity.
Aside… More MS “present partners” (read “future victims”) on the horizon with the new “iPod killer” MS-branded mp3 player and music service? Good bye Creative, Samsung, Toshiba, Sony, Napster, MTV/Urge, etc. You were good suckers… oops, “accomplices” while it lasted.
Some (people/organizations) never learn. Same with some so-called educators (ie, the ones in Baltimore) 🙁
…
“My main bone of contention is that if anyone “invents and innovates” in the computer world, it’s Apple,”
My contention is that that’s your perception, not reality. Look at thte list, see who was actually innovating.
Now putting all those apps together in the one box, is that innovation? Or is creating the individual categories?
Spreadsheets: VisiCalc, Microsoft(Multiplan), Lotus
Word processors: IBM, Wang, Wordstar, WordPerfect
WYSIWYG word processors: Xerox, Apple, Microsoft.