SAPessi

As the title says somewhere something went wrong. That “somewhere” can be located in time rather then in space, the early 80s to be precise, when Apple computer met its first big competitor in the consumer computer market: IBM.
IBM equipped its computer with the first version of DOS (Disk Operating System) which was licensed by Microsoft at a ridiculously small price. The first challenge for Apple and its first mistake; it didn’t even try to compete with Microsoft’s prices. Also it was over-confident of its OS superiority. This was of course, until they noticed that they were inexorably loosing market share.

Apple not only lost the battle, it didn’t even bother to present itself on the battlefield. This was because of a series of mistakes that drew most of its customer base away before it could even begin to try to impress them. Last but not least the Apple III computer which tended to overheat and eventually melt itself due to the fact of Steve Jobs’ assertion that fans were “inelegant” and his decision not to put one in said machine.

After what can only be defined as the flaming [non]success of the Apple III, the company decided to work with Xerox and shortly afterward released the Apple Lisa, the first computer with a graphical user interface a mouse and almost all the amenities we now consider part of a computer.
Obviously Apple felt this was big news. Unfortunately the market didn’t agree and it wasn’t exactly inclined to spend the very large sum of more than 10000$ a computer.

Following the less-than-successful Lisa, Apple released the first Mac and launched it with the famous super-bowl Ridley Scott’s advertisement in 1984.
The Mac managed to become a strong brand despite its limitations, biggest of all a closed architecture. Things began looking bright again for Apple.
To quote Bill Gates:
“To create a new standard, it takes something that’s not just a little bit different, it takes something that’s really new and really captures people’s imagination and the Macintosh, of all the machines I’ve ever seen, is the only one that meets that standard.”
“The next generation of interesting software will be done on the Macintosh, not the IBM PC,” so said Bill Gates in BusinessWeek (November 26, 1984).

Regrettably, however, in 1985 Microsoft decided that it could have had its say on the matter and released the first version of Windows.
What a sad moment in history this was. It is one of those instants that you’d gladly omit from the film of bygone days (such as when your parents catch you smoking for that first time!)

By the time Apple reacted to the news (reaction which turned out to be a lawsuit against Microsoft and nothing actually useful) and attempted to snatch back its market share, the IBM PC had been reverse engineered and cheaper clones of the computer, also running windows, started brainwashing mankind and lowering its expectations as to how a computer should operate.
Steve Jobs left the company because of an internal dispute and Apple appeared destined for demise.

A funny fact is that Jobs and Wozniak decided to call their company Apple because their main competitor at the time was Atari and the word Apple comes before Atari alphabetically and thus also in the phone book. Alas the world and people minds seldom work in alphabetical order (And those neat minds that actually do so tend to become deranged earlier than other “ordinary” people).

Now we have a somewhere and a something that went wrong, and as much as it pains me to admit this it wasn’t Microsoft or IBM’s fault.
Everything that happened to Apple was a consequence of its own mistakes.

Lets now jump to the open-minded-multimedia-filled-rather-more-evolved 21st century. Apple is not dead. Quite the contrary. It’s very much alive and well, and very thriving.
Steve Jobs is back and the record losses Apple suffered throughout the 90s were reversed and the company has finally started producing the top of the line systems we were used to see it release in the beginning. It is also most profitable once more.

The hardware is remarkably good.

However it is something you could get in any computer store if you’re prepared to spend that amount of money.

The design, on the other hand, is one of the many strengths of Apple computers, for not only are they smooth and stylish but also highly usable.
Apple has also reinvented the music market on the net. Its iTunes was a really fruitful and profitable step against piracy. This is something all the major record labels have been unable to achieve in their pursuit in prosecuting music pirates.

However, the real splash came in 2001, Apple unveiled its new operative system, Mac OS X. Based on Jobs’ NeXTstep it married the stability and reliability of a Unix system with the ease of use and the graphical interface which Apple has always been renowned for. In my opinion it is also a work of art, something that will finally make a difference in the long-lasting skirmish between the two computer giants.

Apple’s attacking with ‘the tiger’ (or as it were with its entire feline family) and Microsoft’s defending with its ill tempered koalas. Windows XP, though being a huge step ahead compared to its forebears is still not up to the challenge Apple is presenting.

I never cease to be amazed by the fact that users have been reclining for so long on Windows bed of nails that they have eventually become convinced that it really is comfortable.
And don’t tell me that Macs have still a closed architecture whereas PCs are configurable to your whims because the switch to a Unix-based system opened Apple doors to the open-source community which gladly accepted the invitation and regardless of how I’d rather use Apple “closed” software than spend time answering stupid question my PC asks just to give me a suspiciously soft feeling that I’m configuring the address book and not wasting hours of my time.

I’ve been using a Mac for three years now and I never felt like going back to PCs and Windows. I know for a fact that many Mac users and pc-to-mac-switchers agree with me.
As it happens Apple market share has been getting considerably bigger each year lately. Be that as it may I still feel Apple is not getting the attention and the commends it deserves for the software and hardware it’s been producing.

Now I could go on enumerating all the noticeable technical features included in Mac OS X like pre-emptive multitasking and memory protection; but few of the readers would understand and follow such a geeky locution. Hence I’ll just point out all the incredible front-end and usability properties:

Starting with the amazing-looking Aqua interface. Exposé, a window management system that gives you easy access to any opened application.
The Dashboard with its seldom-useful-but-cool-nonetheless Widgets and the Spotlight desktop search system, a metadata search engine which helps you find any kind of document on your computer in a matter of seconds.
These are components that can really change the way you interact with a computer. And considerably improve the quality of your life by decidedly lowering your computer-induced stress.

Not yet satisfied with such an impressive list of technologies which sets Mac OS X two steps ahead of the direct competitor (Windows) Apple is preparing to launch the latest version of its OS in late 2006 or early 2007. It will incorporate a garbage collection system that’ll help keep the system memory clean thus making your computer even more stable.

Hopefully with the transition to Intel processors the price of Apple hardware will decrease and companies will stop turning the blind eye towards Macs thus increasing Apple visibility on the market.

After 5 years of great achievements I think this company deserves a bit more consideration.

“What’s an Intel chip doing in a Mac? A whole lot more than it’s ever done in a PC.”

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