30 years in Apple products: the good, the bad, and the ugly – Engadget
Has it really been 30 years since two buddies
named Steve sold off their prized possessions (Woz's HP calculator and Jobs' VW van) to raise money and launch a
company? Has it really been 30 years since the two Steves, tired of selling blue boxes, built the Apple I and began
selling it for $666.66? Yes, it has, and if you don't believe it, just compare Jobs' hairlines from '76 and today. And
while the company has become known for many things, from its groundbreaking GUI to the iTunes Music Store, we know
Apple has always been a hardware company at heart. So here's to you, Apple: the good, the bad and, yes, the ugly from
the past 30 years. Happy Birthday.
The good
We're not going to go on about the contributions
Apple's made to consumer electronics and personal computing. We don't really actually think they're all that innovative
a lot of the time, they just have a knack for taking what's out there, what's a little higher end or out of reach to the
average user, and bringing it to the mainstream at just the right time. Apple is Apple because they bring that
technology home, and then package it with a friendly user experience and with an eye for style. High tech, good user
experience, stylish presentation, it's not like those aren't things being done elsewhere, just usually not all together
at the same time. Perhaps that's the essence of the Apple mystique. We've gathered some of the more groundbreaking
devices of Apple's career; oh sure, we could have rounded up more, but we had to be fair to the bad and the ugly,
too.
1976 – Apple I
Where it
all began. It took a Palo Alto man with a flair for showmanship and a curious love of turtlenecks (and bowties) to
convince his garage-dwelling, technologically-gifted friend with a love of facial hair to take the simple computer that
he was building for personal use and distribute it to the "masses." Unlike other computers of the day, which
came in kits and required an engineering degree to assemble, the 200 original Apples shipped as complete circuit boards
(although users still had to add their own cases, keyboards, and monitors — kinda like a Mac mini, actually). Sure, the
specs of the Apple I seem humorous today — 1MHz processor (even back then they were "thinking differently"
and eschewed the popular Intel chip of the day), 4KB RAM (expandable to 32KB), 1KB of video memory, and a maximum
resolution of 40 x 24 characters — but the $666.66 price tag of the machine was vital in crafting the company's
philosophy: providing consumers with the easiest PC on the market to use and maintain (and also to look at, if not to
afford).
1977 – Apple ][
While the
Apple I may have been a great toy for computer hobbyists, the Apple ][ was something entirely different: it was the
first successful mass-market personal computer. First released in 1977 with just 12K of ROM and a maximum 6-color
screen resolution of 280 x 192, the Apple ][ took the computing world by storm. The computer remained a mainstay of
Apple's product line even after the first Macs were released; the last version, the ||gs, was released in
1986, and looked a lot like the first Mac II (which was released the following year -- by then, Apple had also
developed a Mac-like GUI for the earlier computer). With its bundled software, relatively affordable storage via
cassettes and floppies, the original ][ and its offspring became popular with corporate users and students alike
(you'll still find some of them deployed in schools around the country). By 1981, when IBM launched its first PC, Apple
was the undisputed leader of the PC market, with an income of about $300 million, all fueled by the ][. Within a few
years, of course, IBM (and, more importantly, cloners such as Compaq) dominated the market, and the ][ became known
mainly as a tool for students. But the ][ proved that there could be a mass market for computers, and helped spur the
entire computer revolution of the 1980s.
1984 – Macintosh
The
original Mac, hyped in the classic "1984" commercial and formally introduced by a bow-tied Steve Jobs at
Apple's 1984 shareholders' meeting (where the computer quipped about how glad it was to be taken out of Steve's bag),
really did change the world of personal computing. Though GUI-based computers had been available earlier (including on
Apple's own Lisa), the first Mac brought the concept to the masses. And while the original Mac was underpowered (no
hard drive, just 128K RAM) and overpriced ($2,500), it was cheaper than competing GUI-driven computers (uh, that would
be Apple's Lisa, again) and more intuitive and user-friendly than most other PCs, which were still using MS-DOS. Though
the Mac never garnered a level of market share comparable to DOS (and later Windows) based computers, its influence on
the industry was indelible.
1989 – Macintosh
SE/30
While the original Mac may have been underpowered but inspired, the SE/30 showed that the platform
had staying power. The first compact Mac based on Motorola's 68030 processor, the SE/30 was also capable of using up to
32MB of RAM, compared to just 4MB in its predecessor, the SE. Introduced in 1989, the SE/30 essentially marked the high
point for the original Mac form factor. Future models based loosely on this design, including the Classic and Classic
II, used the same processor (but at 16MHz), but were less expandable than the SE/30. Which is why it's no surprise the
SE/30 became a popular server platform, and was common in data centers throughout the 1990s (in fact, the image above
shows an SE/30 currently in use as a web server — we're not including a link, since we don't want to bring it down).
1991 – PowerBook 100
The PowerBook
100 gets its spot on our "good" list for being Apple's first real laptop — and for being a lightweight,
well-designed computer as well. But it almost didn't make it. When it was first introduced in 1991, the PowerBook 100
sold for $2,500 — far too much for a machine with a 16 MHz processor, 2MB RAM and a 20MB hard drive. Price cuts the
following year brought it to just $1,000 (though an external floppy drive was another $250). The PB100 proved that
Apple could make a decent portable — when they subcontracted out the design work to Sony's portable computing team,
anyway — and began a line that would continue until this year, when Apple began dismantling the brand in favor of the
MacBook (Pro).
1994 – QuickTake
Before the iPod was even a glimmer in Apple's eye, the company made another push into mainstream consumer
electronics that, although ahead of its time, helped create the framework that allowed the digital photography market
to flourish. The first Apple camera, the QuickTake 100 (which was built by Kodak), hit stores in 1994 with a VGA
resolution, 1MB of internal flash memory, and JPEG, TIFF, and BMP support — and of course, only worked with Macintosh
computers. Apple later released a Windows-compatible version of the camera called the 150, and gave the brand its last
hurrah after only three years in the form of the media card-friendly QuickTake 200 built by Fuji (anyone remember the
5v card?). Ultimately, Kodak and fellow quick-take manufacturer Fuji went on to create their own successful digital
camera businesses, and Apple stayed out of the CCD game until the 2003 introduction of the iSight.
1995 – Power Macintosh
9500
There isn't anything very hard to "get" about the Power Mac 9500. It just merely
contained the most muscle and most expandability of any computer Apple had ever unleashed upon the public. Starting out
at a whopping 120 or 132MHz, the machine eventually ramped up to a Photoshop-munching dual 180MHz PowerPC 604 processor
before being replaced by the better looking but less ambitious 9600. The 9500 was the first Mac to toss those NuBus
slots for the industry-standard PCI expandability, of which it had a whopping six slots. The computer also had a
daughtercard architecture, which allowed easy processor upgrades and kept the box alive well into the G3 and G4 eras.
The machine was coveted by graphic designers and musicians, and it shouldn't be much of a surprise to see one humming
along somewhere crunching through some Pro Tools files or powering a legacy scanner.
1998 – iMac
When the iMac debuted in May of 1998, Apple wasn't doing so hot. They'd
churned through their third CEO — Gil Amelio — since Jobs had been ousted in 1985, but recently acquired Stevie's
NeXT Computer, and sat him down once more at the head of the Apple table. With Jobs back in the driver's seat it came
time to clean house, and those beige box Power Macs and Performas needed a radical counterpoint. Enter the Jonathan
Ive-led Bondi blue Internet Mac, the iMac — a return to Apple all-in-one basics. No floppy, no weird plugs, no
nothin'. Just some simple lines, some USB ports, and a low price (for an Apple, anyway) that sold an unreal amount of
units — well enough to lift them out of their financial funk and put them back on their way to shareholder happiness.
But not without first starting a seemingly inescapable iTrend iCliché that permeates buzzwords
and marketing naming conventions even today.
2000 – Apple flat
panels
Like many of Apple's products, their displays weren't the first of their kind on the market, nor
were they particularly affordable during their initial run. But the devices really came of age as Apple launched the
first mass-market widescreen LCD head to consumers in July of 2000. They'd already marketed their own line of
flatscreens for years, but your average user was still quite fresh to the idea of a 1600 x 1024 LCD monitor when they
loosed the 22-inch Cinema Display on the world for $3,999. We'd like to think it unofficially ushered in the age of
widescreen flat panel monitors, actually. Of course the Apple Display Connector didn't take hold — and proved itself
something of a gadfly standard for years to come — but the impact of the first 22-incher was as clear as the acrylic:
CRTs were dead, alright, and we've never looked back.
2001 – PowerBook
G4
The PowerBook, in its many, many incarnations, had been a laptop trendsetter since its inception. One
of the first consumer laptops available with 802.11b — ever heard of it? — even through the Sculley and Spindler years
it managed to be Apple's competitive edge targeted at businessmen and stylish consumers alike. Which is why Jobs had
something to prove when taking his first real stab at revamping their flagship portable line. What we wound up with was
the first consumer widescreen laptop, a device unique for being thinner and lighter than almost any full-size consumer
laptop of its day, constructed from exotic Titanium, featuring standard WiFi, and a slot-loading DVD. Sure the paint
coating on the Titanium tended to rub off exposing the coppery-looking metal beneath, the hinges were prone to
snapping, and the top of the line 500MHz / 256MB / 20GB model would set you back $3,499, but the brand was firmly
cemented in the minds of consumers, and thin was officially in.
2001 -
iPod
Besides the Walkman, one's hard pressed to think of a consumer electronics brand that's had such an
impact on consumers' lives, lifestyles, media, and the way use and understand content. Love it or hate it, whether or
not you use an iPod, have ever owned one, or were rabidly obsessed with the Rio PMP300 (which came out three years
prior) like we were, the iPod line — from its then overpriced $400 5GB player in 2001 to its still overpriced $400
60GB player now — has captured the wallets and the imaginations of gadget lovers the world over, and set the tone for
a new century of consumer electronics. With over a billion songs sold on the iTunes Music Store for playback on the 42
million iPods alive and kicking in the world in the last five years, it's pretty easy to see that this may be the
definitive device for an entire generation.
2006 – MacBook Pro
In
2005 Jobs announced, to many an Apple users' chagrin, that they'd be transitioning their entire line of products to
Intel's x86 processors. There were uproarious outbursts: consumers cried foul for yet another Apple platform change,
and analysts and stockholders bemoaned expected lost sales due to the Osbourne Effect. But Apple finished their first
Intel-based portable ahead of their expected schedule, and by the time the PowerBook had reached the end of the line in
late 2005, its successor, the MacBook Pro was announced. Make no mistake about it, the PowerBook paved the way for
elegant portable computing, and the MacBook, for what it's worth, more or less rode on its coattails. Besides losing
0.1-inch around the waist and FireWire 800, and gaining iSight, an Apple Remote sensor, Front Row, and, of course,
Intel's new Core Duo processor, the MacBook Pro is essentially identical to its late predecessor. The real difference
between the PowerBook and the MacBook Pro was less evident than subtly tweaked aesthetics or spec bumps; despite years
of hemming and hawing about the superiority of the G4 chip over its x86 counterparts, the Intel-based MacBook Pro
handily outperformed all previous Apple portables, and signaled yet another new beginning for the company (along with
the Intel iMac and Intel Mac mini, of course).
The bad
We
like a good Apple as much as the next guy, but if you think we're gonna let 'em off easy for their flubs, flops, or
complete misjudgments of their consumer base, well, you might not realize we dislike a bad Apple as much as the next
guy, too. Sure, they may have some regrets over the years (seems to us like most probably come from simply pricing
themselves right out of the hands of potential buyers) but occasionally concept
and forward thinking become high
concept and too-forward thinking, and what you wind up with is a device
that people just aren't ready for yet — or devices that just aren't ready for people yet.
1980 – Apple III
Despite its commercial failure, the Apple III (or III, if
you like) — which was the first model designed after Apple's incorporation — represented a number of significant
advances in the personal computing industry at the time. Like the members of the II series before it, the 1.83MHz III
and its successor the III were mass-produced MOS processor-based computer / monitor / keyboard packages with color
video, audio support, and integrated BASIC. That's where the similarities end, though, as the III, with its $3,500 base
price, was targeted specifically at business users and thus sported such niceties as the Sophisticated Operating System,
built-in floppy drive, 256KB of RAM, and dedicated numeric keypad. Even with these innovative features and Apple II
emulation, hardware problems with the III (which were addressed, but too late) along with the perceived "lack of
software" that has dogged Apple throughout its history, doomed the III series to a paltry sell of 65,000 and
eventual abandonment in 1985.
1983 – Lisa
Yes,
we've included the Lisa in our "bad" category. But that doesn't make it a bad computer. On the contrary, the
Lisa incorporated features that were unique at the time: an optional hard drive, a document-based graphical user
interface, multitasking, bundled office suite, and consumer-upgradeable innards. It was a groundbreaking computer, far
more advanced computer than the original Macintosh. However, with an initial price tag of about $10,000 (that's almost
$20K in today's dollars), the Lisa was doomed from the start. Even slashing the price and rebranding it the
"Macintosh XL" didn't help; so, Lisa ends up on the "bad" list. But if it had been positioned
differently in the market and hadn't had to contend with competition from the Mac, it could have easily topped the
"good" list, and we could all be running LisaDraw, LisaWrite (and presumably LisaWeb and LisaTunes) on our
iLisas and Lisa minis right now.
1993 – MessagePad and Newton
OS
While we're sure that several of you will take offense to the MessagePad series being
categorized as "bad," we'd argue that the problematic OS, bulky design, relatively high price point, and
difficulty in syncing with a PC rightfully resigned Apple's devices and others powered by the Newton OS to market
failure. That's not to say that the MessagePads or the OS lacked good features or weren't ahead of their time; to the
contrary, many staples of the modern PDA such as upgrade slots, flash storage for data integrity, data-sharing among
PIM applications, and rotating screen orientation were standard on the platform. Unfortunately, even regular hardware
and OS upgrades, which added more storage, speed, better screens, handwriting recognition could not overcome the
perceived lack of value that the original Message Pad ($700), 100 series ($500 to $600), 2000 series ($800 to $1000) or
even the QWERTY-sporting, clamshell eMate ($800), offered. While Apple stopped production of the hardware and support of
the software in 1998 after Jobs 2.0 axed it, there is still a fervent community of developers who continue to write
drivers, software, and emulators, who will likely keep the Newton alive indefinitely.
1997 – Twentieth Anniversary
Mac
If you're waiting for Apple to unveil a media computer, maybe you should try looking back instead of
forward. In 1997, the company released its 20th Anniversary Mac (despite the fact that the company's 20th birthday was
actually a year earlier, in 1996). The flat-screen PowerPC-based computer included a Bose-designed integrated speaker
system, radio and TV tuner — along with a $10,000 price tag. While it was a sleek computer that foreshadowed future
flat-screen models such as the iMac G5, it ended up being something of a bust — even as a limited edition model — and
today you can pick one up on eBay for about $1,500 with upgrades including a faster processor, RAM, larger hard drive,
USB, Ethernet and Firewire.
2000 – Power
Mac G4 Cube
The Cube wasn't a bad computer. On the contrary, the 8 x 8 x 8-inch Mac suspended in clear
acrylic was blissfully fan free, fairly full-featured, and sexy enough to earn a place in the Museum of Modern Art
alongside the original Mac. The real problem with the Cube was two-fold: the $1,800 introductory price tag put the
machine out of reach for most mere mortals, but the knockout punch came from the box's lack of unreadability. The pros
who could afford themselves a Cube ended up with G4 towers for the expandability or dual processor options. By the time
Apple started slashing prices to $1500 and finally $1300, it was, as usual, too little too late, and the Cube was taken
off assembly lines in 2001. Yet another in the long line of computers to be worshipped by Apple followers, but shunned
by their pocket books.
The ugly
Let's
face it, not every device in Apple's career has been lustrous, no matter how illustrious Apple may be. Now, we're not
saying that Apple's continued success has been reliant strictly upon aesthetics, but there are a number of reasons why
1985 through 1997 were the lean years, and we don't think John Sculley's, Michael Spindler's, and Gil Amelio's sense
of style exactly helped. Hey, even Jobs can't escape the fact that some serious fuglies made their way out the
door under his watchful eye. We could make a gallery of Apple's egregiously uncomely, but we picked a few of our fav
eyesores that we're no longer cursed by the gadget gods to gaze upon (at least not until we put together this piece,
anyway).
1989 – Macintosh
Portable
Apple's first attempt at a portable computer may not have been quite as bulky as early
suitcase-sized Compaqs and Osbornes, but by the time it came out, those hulking behemoths had already been replaced by
boxes closer in appearance to modern laptops. Into this market, Apple launched a 16-pound, non-backlit monster.
Although Apple initially claimed that the machine's active matrix display meant it didn't need a backlight, the company
later relented and added one. But by then it was too little, too late, and the machine was mothballed in 1991, as Apple
prepared its first real laptop, the battery-powered, 5-pound, backlit, affordable (after a price cut) PowerBook 100.
1991 – Macintosh
Quadra
The Quadra 700 kicked off the Quadra pro-line of Macs, and was Apple's first foray into tower
computers. The Quadra line stayed at the top of the heap until 1994 when the Power Mac line came along with their
too-cool-for-school PowerPC 601 processors, but for 68k computing the Quadra was hard to beat. The highlight of the
line was easily the Quadra 840av, which was not only among the first Macs to best 33MHz, at a blazing 40, but included
video in and out capabilities, along with real time editing capabilities thanks to a special Digital Signal Processor
from AT&T. Unfortunately the first of the Quadras weren't so hot up in the face, which just goes to show that looks
aren't everything, not even for Apple.
1992 – Macintosh
Performa
The Performa series, Apple's foray into retail and family computing, wasn't quite as
aesthetically challenged as the other members of this "ugly" list — but it was definitely the awkward
teenager of the 90s Mac family. The Performa series merely consisted of rebadged systems from their main line, starting
with the Macintosh Classic (Performa 200) in 1992, and ending with the Power Macintosh 6400 (Performa 6360-6420) in
1997. The real "crime" committed by Apple with the Performa was merely the sluggish computers and beige box
aesthetic typical for Apples at the time, making anything bearing the Performa badge easily snubbable by the Mac elite.
The Performa was neglected by the sales staff due to relatively high prices, and suffered terribly in stores where it
sat alone on the shelf, rarely making it home with shoppers who were just looking for something in the way of
IBM-compatible.
1996 – Network
Server
During the Michael Spindler years when Apple began losing consumer interest as they increasingly
attempted to pander to corporate customers, a rogue Unix box made it out the (back) door. It was the Apple Network
Server, a pudgy, bulbous box that ran a PowerPC chip at up to 200MHz, rook up to a gig of RAM, and had up to six 9GB
hot swappable SCSI drives in RAID — not your run of the mill Apple. Its purpose, however, wasn't entirely transparent,
as its aim was to butt into the enterprise server market with a $11,000 – $19,000 price tag. But the fact that it was an
Apple rendered this monstrous non-sequitur of box almost unsaleable: corporations surely didn't want an Apple server –
running AIX or not — in their data centers, and Apple power users neither had the money to afford one, nor the desire
to learn how to use AIX. Its sales were abysmal, and it was quickly nixed after only 14 months on the
market.
2001 – Flower Power
iMac
There was nothing technically wrong with the "Flower Power" iMac. The computer had plenty
of power for a little bit of iMovie enjoyment, and the "SE" version even included a CD burner for enjoying
Apple's new iTunes music player. Unfortunately, the computer was subject to one of the most hideous case designs of all
time, thanks to special techniques developed by Apple that allowed them to apparently imprint drug-induced patterns
onto molded plastic. We all know Jobs and the early Apple crew were hippies — perhaps the idea for the Flower Power
came to him in an acid flashback — but to make matters worse, it was accompanied by the almost equally atrocious
"Blue Dalmatian," and plain Jane blue iMac in the low end. All three were quickly replaced by the much
classier "Indigo" and "Snow" iMacs, leaving Flower Power and Blue Dalmatian forever relegated to
enjoyable Mac-centric cartoons and the desks of a few hippies who thought the color schemes were the best thing since
"Freebird."
–By Marc Perton, Evan Blass, Paul Miller, and Ryan Block
