Twenty years ago, on January 24, 1984, Apple launched the Macintosh. The machine—which introduced the first mass-market graphical user interface, mouse and 3.5-inch floppy drive—revolutionized the computer industry and changed millions of lives. Find over at MacMinute a collection of articles and special reports on the 20th anniversary of the Mac.
Happy 20th Birthday, Macintosh
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Now if Apple’s site would only acknowledge this date.
Yes, I agree, not ONE single word about that birthday on Apples website.
Thats a shame. It schold be easy for them to put up a virtual birthday cake or something like that.
I am a Mac-only user from Oct. 12th, 1985.
Remembering the last sentence of the famous 1984 ad: “So 1984 won´t be like ‘1984’” with all the Orwelian meaning,
I do ask myself and everyone if the Mac has succeded in this area: Do we beat the Big Brother? Do we keep out of his fierce control?
3% of the cumputer (Apple’s) users (and also unx and linux) are out of his control –alhough maybe not out of the influence– of the ‘Bill’ Brother. (Back in ’84 it was ´Ibm’ Brother.
Thanls, Apple.
Apple didn’t revolutionize the computer industry with the GUI/mouse. The industry was alread headed in that direction with production models/prototypes from Xerox, Three Rivers, Visi Corp, Microsoft, Digital Research, MIT (X windows).
See for yourself:
<http://toastytech.com/guis/guitimeline2.html>
The 3.5-inch floppy (like most new formats) would have found its way into most computers on its own merits… it didn’t need Apple.
They never stated that they have invented the gui itself, but they invented the gui an affordable home computers. Thats a fact.
Or how many private people where able to by a Xerox Alto back in 1984??
yes, revolutionized.
sure there were prototypes.
how many computers were targeted at the consumer market in 1984? how many of those had mice or 3.5″ floppies. oh, none?
mac bashing is almost reflexive in pc users. at least in this case, it’s unwarranted–the success of the macintosh paved the way for adoption of those technologies.
Happy Birthday Mac. 😀
“oh, i forgot – Microsoft invented the GUI ??? *lol*
Back in 1984 Microsofts GUI was called MS-DOS 3.2. ;-)”
They were just “headed that way” and had to wait until Apple did it so they could steal it. Even then, it took them 10 years.
oh, i forgot – Microsoft invented the GUI ??? *lol*
As many of us know the GUI was invented at Palo Alto, a RANK XEROX research facility.
Happy birthday to the Macintosh, it was the first to give the GUI some very usefull application.
“So much anger.. damn that rap music” lol. I think a lot of people just like to take shots at macs because they have some insecurity issues. The fact was Apple made personal Computing what it is today, and with style too. They killed the idea of cheap beige boxes(not thats bad, I have a few of my own). Apple deserves its own credit for innovating. Right now it seems they are content to play niche player, and as long as they;re profitable its not really a problem. Personally to me, Apple develops stuff that just works and works well. This is do to the fact they control everything, which I know some people dont like. Too me though its about choice and if someone wants choice they get linux or BSD which I also believe are two fairly good oses.
Even in a non linux story you go a flame it. I have seen you on and off for the last week do nothing but bash Linux, and honestly, I’m sick of it. I’m sure a lot of others are sick of it as well…
Truth is always ugly – Just see how many anti-M$ zealots bashing M$ everywhere they could on OSNews. This is not a linux story, but someone mentioned GUI previously, so I guess Mac, Windows, Linux/oss desktops are three things that matters.
If you are sick of others’ behavior, you might as well ask yourself why that happens, maybe others are also sick of something similar out of your behavior – force and resistance are always proportional.
Happy birthday, our BSD brothers, MacOS X users!
The 3.5-inch floppy (like most new formats) would have found its way into most computers on its own merits… it didn’t need Apple.
Apple happens to make high priced machines for the consumer market, so LCD screens, firewire ports, superdrives, etc.
For me, Apple’s products always represent something with shocking elegance and designed with their users in mind.
force and resistance are always proportional.
Wtf?
force and resistance are always proportional.
Wtf?
Ask Isaac Newton. Generations are “brain washed” this way.
You woulda thunk that after 20 years Apple would be a bit better than a shrinking 3% of the computer market – what’s there to celebrate – survival? No wonder Apple is’nt celebrating anything.
Wouldn’t that have been the Apple Lisa in 1983?
http://lisa.sunder.net/mirrors/Simon/Lisa/Index.html
Oh, come on people. Xerox didn’t invent the GUI. That stuff has been around since the 50s. Xerox furthered the development. Apple hired Xerox’s developers after they left Xerox (Xerox had no plans to market the GUI, which the developers wanted to do). And if you have ever used and Alto or Star (in a museum) and then used a Macintosh you would see how VERY different they are. Xerox had a GUI, but it would have never worked with the public. The Macintosh worked. It brought the idea out into the mainstream.
no, Apple didn’t “invent” the GUI but have u seen screenshots of some of those early GUI prototypes? Apple did a hell of a lot to modernize it and make it usable, that first 1984 Mac was a quantom leap over the Xerox stuff. The concepts of icons representing objects and the house doing actions against said objects, like opening, draging, etc – thats all Apple. The GUIs as we know them now all owe Apple quite alot for making many, if not all, of these fundamental concepts. I don’t want to hear Apple “stole” it from Xerox either, I hate that – they paid for it. It wasn’t a MS style underhanded move, they openly paid for the rights to the technology. Xerox was sittin on their thumbs anyways, Apple saw a goldmine.
Would you people just shut up and let Apple have their day in the sun? Can you not shut your holes and not troll for one day?
Most of you attacking Apple were not old enough to have even cared about what a computer was when Apple dropped the Mac. You weren’t there for it all, you weren’t there for any of it. Many of you, teenagers and early 20-ers, weren’t even there through the 90’s where things were the most tumultuous.
So why don’t you keep your ‘this URL proves Apple wrong!’ comments to yourself and stop acting like you have any right to bash anything computer related, because you weren’t there to help create any of it so you have no right to speak.
Aguante la Mac, down Windows, down Linux.
“”Or how many private people where able to by a Xerox Alto back in 1984??””
This begs the response:
How many people can afford to buy a Mac in 2004?
Now if I can just figure out if Wozniak’s beard was an integral part of the design process… :>
It’s kinda stunning to think that the first Mac came out only 20 years ago though. Home computing sure does evolve rapidly.
Mac – Elegent, not affordable
Linux – Free, not approachable
Windows – not Mac, not linux and damn good for average joe
“How many people can afford to buy a Mac in 2004? ”
I can, I don’t make that much money and I’m 21 years old. I have a 15 inch PowerBook. I am sick of people saying Macs cost too much, is $799 too much for starters? How about $1100 for laptop? Doesn’t seem too pricey to me. Apple also gives great discounts for students and govenment employees.
>Mac – Elegent, not affordable
>Linux – Free, not approachable
>Windows – not Mac, not linux and damn good for average joe
Not affordable? I beg to differ. I did a thorough comparison a month or two ago as part of an OSNews debate I was involved in. Performance wise, Macs and PCs are very similar. The major price difference is at the high end.
Linux not approachable? I know what you’re talking about, but it is not unapproachable… it takes a while to figure out. I don’t like how much linux can be rough ’round the edges, but it is certainly approachable if you want it to be.
But you did say something useful: Windows is very good for the average user. But so are Macs!
Finally, a very happy birthday. I have to say, that anyone who can survive in the computer industry for this long must be doing something right, even if they have only 3% of the market!
For all tose griping about Apple’s market share, no one could put it better than Steve Jobs himslef …
Apple’s market share is bigger than BMW’s or Mercedes’s or Porsche’s in the automotive market. What’s wrong with being BMW or Mercedes?
>Mac – Elegent, not affordable
>Linux – Free, not approachable
>Windows – not Mac, not linux and damn good for average joe
Not affordable? I beg to differ. I did a thorough comparison a month or two ago as part of an OSNews debate I was involved in. Performance wise, Macs and PCs are very similar. The major price difference is at the high end.
That’s true – But IMHO, performace is not all. I tried Mac at a few local computer shops, and am not impressed by their GUI responsiveness, I am running xp mostly on a Celeron 800.
Linux not approachable? I know what you’re talking about, but it is not unapproachable… it takes a while to figure out. I don’t like how much linux can be rough ’round the edges, but it is certainly approachable if you want it to be.
Well, not every one has the desire to figure out how to make linux approachable. If a guy just purchased a 802.11g wireless card, most likely he just want it work, not how to find informtion and do a few patches in attempt to make it work.
I agree that for Mac, 3% is irrelevant, after all Porch doesn’t have 97% of market share, nor does a Leica camera.
Of course you’re totally right, but I wonder how long until someone tries to mod you down. You know the “reality distortion field”.
Apple’s market share is bigger than BMW’s or Mercedes’s or Porsche’s in the automotive market. What’s wrong with being BMW or Mercedes?
So true, as Mac is not an “also run” and just like BMW, Mercedes, its distinctiveness and elegance are from both inside and outside.
…especially if your car runs a flavour of Windows…
Well found this on /.
http://www.1999gt.com/petrag/mac/commercial.mov
The ad 1984 anoncing the release of the first mac
I too find it strange that they do not mention it on their website, but that to me only means that they’re waiting for monday, and will announce something big (i can hope can’t i?)
Now if only I could buy that iBook i’ve been wanting for a while…
The comment by Roger Ebert in one of the Macworld articles is a classic.
“since any reasonable person would choose a Mac over a PC, Apple’s market share does provide us with an accurate reading of the percentage of reasonable people in our society.”
@Ralf: “They never stated that they have invented the gui itself,…”
I never asserted or implied that “they” stated that “they” invented the GUI. What is your point here?
“… but they invented the gui an affordable home computers. Thats a fact.”
First of all, by most people’s definition, pricing a product does not constitute invention.
Secondly, if you are asserting that they were the first to make “affordable” a computer with a GUI, that assertion is a vague and disputable generalization… not a fact. There are many questions that must be answered before your assertion can be considered factual: what was the street price of Xerox Alto and Star and the Three Rivers Perq (three undeniable predecessors to the Apple Lisa)?; did the production version of Visi On exist before Lisa, with Apple merely beating Visi Corp to the release?; what was the price of Visi On?; what is the definition of a GUI (does it include simple menus and mice?, if so there might have been other early GUIs that qualify for consideration)?; what is the definition of affordable?; etc. Definitions are disputable by nature.
“Or how many private people where able to by a Xerox Alto back in 1984??”
Well, since the Alto was released in 1973, ten years before the Lisa, it was probably considered obsolete by 1984. I cannot answer your question about how many private individuals could buy an Alto in 1984… perhaps you could enlighten me with hard numbers.
@you=idiot: “sure there were prototypes.”
Not just prototypes, but released, production models, as well. I listed three of these units above. If you deny the fact these GUI units were released years before the Apple Lisa was released, then why don’t we make a little wager, say US$50,000. Come one, “you=idiot”, why don’t you put your money where your mouth is?
“how many computers were targeted at the consumer market in 1984?”
I’m sorry, but I cannot answer this question factually. Again, we encounter a dispute on what constitutes “targeted at the consumer”, and there were many computer makers by 1984. Perhaps you can enlighten me with the hard numbers. Anyway, I’m not sure about the relevance of how a computer is “targeted”… I think the product itself is more important.
“how many of those had mice or 3.5″ floppies. oh, none?”
I cannot say how many computers were “targeted at the consumer market in 1984”. I can give some idea of how many used mice… let’s see, Perq, Star, Visi On, Gem, Window System X… that makes at least five mice/GUIs systems, and all of them existed in 1984.
In regards to the use of 3.5″ floppies, I cannot say… probably very few mini-computers had them in 1984. Perhaps you can prove that Apple was the only one to use them that year.
“mac bashing is almost reflexive in pc users. at least in this case, it’s
unwarranted”
There is no need the characterize a dissenter’s argument. Let’s discuss facts. I am not “Mac bashing”, I am merely disputing the assertion that Apple revolutionized the computer industry with the GUI and the mouse. By the way, I am not a fan of Microsoft.
“–the success of the macintosh paved the way for adoption of
those technologies.”
As I originally stated, the industry was already moving in that direction. I gave a link that supports that statement, and I just listed five other GUI/mouse units above, which were released in or just before 1984.
I am confident in my facts, and I am willing to back them up with money. Can you say the same, “you=idiot”?
@Artist: “Back in 1984 Microsofts GUI was called MS-DOS 3.2. ;-)”
Really? That’s interesting, because back in 1983 (one year prior) Microsoft’s prototype GUI was called “Windows”.
“They [Microsoft] were just ‘headed that way’ and had to wait until Apple did it so they
could steal it. Even then, it took them 10 years.”
As I mentioned above, other than Microsoft, there were several GUI players that preceded Apple, and also there were a few who released GUIs the same years as Lisa and MacIntosh. In regards to Windows the rumor is that it was inspired by Visi On, not Lisa nor MacIntosh. And, for your information, Windows was first released in 1985.
@Josh: “The fact was Apple made personal Computing what it is today, and with style too.”
Is that a fact…
@Christopher X: “no, Apple didn’t “invent” the GUI but have u seen
screenshots of some of those early GUI prototypes?”
Yes. Many of them are shown in the link that I gave in an earlier message.
“Mac was a quantom leap over the Xerox stuff. The concepts of icons representing objects and the house doing actions against said objects, like opening, draging, etc – thats all Apple.”
It seems that all of those were incorporated into the Star GUI (2 years prior to Lisa) and some were in the Perq. Here’s link again:
http://toastytech.com/guis/guitimeline2.html
@Ed: “Most of you attacking Apple were not old enough to have even cared about what a computer was when Apple dropped the Mac. You weren’t there for it all, you weren’t there for any of it. Many of you, teenagers and early 20-ers, weren’t even there through the 90’s where things were the most tumultuous.”
I’m 43. I remember playing with the TRS-80 when it was released, and I used the first Mac extensively.
“So why don’t you keep your ‘this URL proves Apple wrong!’ comments to yourself and stop acting like you have any right to bash anything computer related,…”
Why don’t you follow the URL, and let’s deal in hard facts.
I congratulate Apple on the lengthy tenure of a great product line. But, please, let’s not over-blow anyone’s accomplishments.
Xerox didn’t invent the GUI. That stuff has been around since the 50s. Xerox furthered the development. Apple hired Xerox’s developers after they left Xerox (Xerox had no plans to market the GUI, which the developers wanted to do). And if you have ever used and Alto or Star (in a museum) and then used a Macintosh you would see how VERY different they are. Xerox had a GUI, but it would have never worked with the public. The Macintosh worked. It brought the idea out into the mainstream.
Nobody said XEROX was the marketeer, but Xerox invented ir in the first place.
Tup, you say you like to deal in hard facts, yet you let a zinger fly like this one: “It seems that all of those (clicking, dragging) were incorporated into the Star GUI (2 years prior to Lisa) and some were in the Perq”
Here is what Jef Raskin had to say about it (and if you don’t know who Raskin is, you shouldn’t even be in this discussion):
“Horn is correct that click-and-drag methods were invented at Apple and not at PARC (or elsewhere, as far as I know). I created this method for moving objects and making selections after finding the Xerox click-move-click method prone to error. Bill Atkinson extended the paradigm to pull-down menus. This all happened relatively early in the history of the Mac. The way my insight got extended by Bill was typical of how things developed then. Surprising as it may seem in retrospect, there was some resistance to my new way of using a graphic input device and I had to repeatedly explain how drag worked and why it was often easier to use than the modal click-move-click technique developed first (as far as I know) on the Sketchpad system and then used at Xerox PARC. Some of the arguments I used involved looking at number of user actions and the time they took, an approach that was then or would soon become the very useful GOMS model of Card, Moran, and Newell. Bill was a strong supporter of my ideas and at one session where I was explaining how drag worked Bill, by way of amplifying how useful it was, said something like, “And you can use it to open menus, just put the cursor on the top and drag down to the item you want.”
And you know, Tup, I go by the old adage that if major parts of a poster’s facts are bogus, then anything else they have to say is pretty much worthless also.
“For more than a decade now, I’ve listened to the debate about where the Macintosh user interface came from. Most people assume it came directly from Xerox, after Steve Jobs went to visit Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). This “fact” is reported over and over, by people who don’t know better (and also by people who should!). Unfortunately, it just isn’t true – there are some similarities between the Apple interface and the various interfaces on Xerox systems, but the differences are substantial.”
“Smalltalk has no Finder, and no need for one, really. Drag-and- drop file manipulation came from the Mac group, along with many other unique concepts: resources and dual-fork files for storing layout and international information apart from code; definition procedures; drag-and-drop system extension and configuration; types and creators for files; direct manipulation editing of document, disk, and application names; redundant typed data for the clipboard; multiple views of the file system; desk accessories; and control panels, among others. The Lisa group invented some fundamental concepts as well: pull down menus, the imaging and windowing models based on QuickDraw, the clipboard, and cleanly internationalizable Software.
Smalltalk had a three-button mouse and pop-up menus, in contrast to the Mac’s menu bar and one-button mouse. Smalltalk didn’t even have self-repairing windows – you had to click in them to get them to repaint, and programs couldn’t draw into partially obscured windows. Bill Atkinson did not know this, so he invented regions as the basis of QuickDraw and the Window Manager so that he could quickly draw in covered windows and repaint portions of windows brought to the front.”
“As you may be gathering, the difference between the Xerox system architectures and Macintosh architecture is huge; much bigger than the difference between the Mac and Windows. It’s not surprising, since Microsoft saw quite a bit of the Macintosh design (API’s, sample code, etc.) during the Mac’s development from 1981 to 1984; the intention was to help them write applications for the Mac, and it also gave their system designers a template from which to design Windows. In contrast, the Mac and Lisa designers had to invent their own architectures. Of course, there were some ex- Xerox people in the Lisa and Mac groups, but the design point for these machines was so different that we didn’t leverage our knowledge of the Xerox systems as much as some people think”
Not affordable? I beg to differ. I did a thorough comparison a month or two ago as part of an OSNews debate I was involved in. Performance wise, Macs and PCs are very similar. The major price difference is at the high end.
eMac G4:
1GHz PowerPC G4
128MB SDRAM
40GB Ultra ATA drive
Combo drive
$1099
Gateway Sb-310-c
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 2.6GHz
256MB memory
40GB HD
CD-RW
$549; around $699 with a 17″ monitor, can get a cheaper monitor outside of Gateway.
And I didn’t even really look; Dell’s site is unsually slow today, and peculiarly same with HP’s,
Come to think about it, I do remember such comparisons in previous OSNews threads. It goes along like this. The only Macs I know that is rightly priced is their line of laptops. The only laptops I know that a cheaper than Apple’s are those that burn your crotch if you use it on your lap, while breaking apart after a few months. However, Apple doesn’t fill much laptop markets (no ultraportables, desktop replacements, tablet PCs, etc.)
As for performance, don’t kid with yourself. You can’t compare two distinct platforms for all cases, except for what you do daily. Some people find Macs slower, others find it faster. It really depends on what you’re doing. If you are working with large CMYK files on Photoshop, you are better off with a Mac; if you are editing large amounts of CD-quality audio, you’re better off on a PC.
I agree that for Mac, 3% is irrelevant, after all Porch doesn’t have 97% of market share, nor does a Leica camera.
You know what? Car comparisons suck. I can drive a Porsche on the same roads Hyundais use. No prob there. Can I run Windows applications natively on a Mac, or vice versa? No? That’s where the car comparison breaks down. Car comparisons make sense when you are comparison a cheap store-down-the-street PC with something from AlienWare or Sony. Certainly, both can run the same applications, but I’m sure any sane person would use the AlienWare over the cheap PC if given a choice.
So you’re saying that PCs are cars and that Macs are… learjets?
I agree.
Of course, what you don’t see is all the stuff that the Gateway leaves out or does half-ass, like integrated graphics, no firewire, no built-in wireless option (with the antenna already built into the emac), a crappy 17in OPTIONAL monitor as opposed to the flat trinitron in the eMac, let’s not even get into the fact that iLife ’04 trumps anything on the Gateway, other things like a 7200rpm drive instead of the 5400 on the Gateway, a built-in mic on the eMac which goes nicely with the standard speech recognition included with OS X, and so on and so on. XP Home…enough said.
Plus, I was just on Gateway’s site and I’m showing this price, with no monitor and no speakers:
Gateway® Sb-310-C:
$649.99
Even if it is a lower price, given what both units ship with it is hardly a blow-out by the Gateway.
Enough with the worthless price-comparisons already , rajan, it is as tiring as your never-ending negativity against Apple, and you attempt a simple comparison which just isn’t simple (XP Home vs OS X Panther?)
Doesn’t change my overall point, though.
Safari: “Tup, you say you like to deal in hard facts, yet you let a zinger fly like this one:
“It seems that all of those (clicking, dragging) were incorporated into the Star GUI (2 years prior to Lisa) and some were in the Perq”
Yes. Except for the “(clicking, dragging)” part, I posted that sentence. It was in response to Christopher X’s statement: “Mac was a quantom leap over the Xerox stuff. The concepts of icons representing objects and the house doing actions against said objects, like opening, draging, etc – thats all Apple.”
You must have inserted the “(clicking, dragging)” part.
Chrisopher X listed several other features, most of which can be observed in the Star and Perq screenshots I mentioned. Notice that the second word in my statement is “seems”… I cannot make a factual statement about all the features Christopher X mentions. I probably should have changed the word “all” to “most”, to further qualify my statement.
However, in regards to your apparent assertion that Apple invented click-and-drag, your pastings of recollections by Bruce Horn and Jef Raskin are inconclusive on this point. Indeed, part of what you posted casts doubt on much of what Apple “invented”.
Mike Tuck wrote “The Real History of the GUI” (lengthy and thorough, with an extensive bibliography): http://www.sitepoint.com/print/511
Here is a verbatim excerpt from the article, pertaining to the click-and-drag feature:
“… much of Lisa’s design was Apple’s own, including click-and-drag capability, and the pull-down menu — this according to Jef Raskin, who headed the Macintosh design team and should know, but other sources give the credit for click-and-drag and pull-down menus to PARC. Whether this is another example of PARC’s ideas being implemented at Apple, or it’s’ an example of side-by-side independent development is uncertain.”
As you can see, it looks like there is a dispute about who created this particular feature (and also pull-down menus).
Here is an excerpt from the first paragraph of your second posting, a recollection from Bruce Horn:
“For more than a decade now, I’ve listened to the debate about where the Macintosh user interface came from. Most people assume it came directly from Xerox, after Steve Jobs went to visit Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). This ‘fact’ is reported over and over, by people who don’t know better (and also by people who should!).”
What does Bruce Horn mean by the last sentence (that includes, “people who should!”)? I would guess that he means that he disagrees about GUI feature origins with some of the people who worked on those GUI features. Now I cannot say for certain that that is what he is saying, but it seems likely to me. If it is so, then who do we believe?
Furthermore, Jef Rasking’s and Bruce Horn’s recollections might favor the company/period in which they were key designers. So, all of the recollections that you pasted from Jef Raskin and Bruce Horn are inconclusive and suspect, and cannot be considered “facts.”
From which “horse’s mouth” does the truth come?
Safari: “And you know, Tup, I go by the old adage that if major parts of a poster’s facts are bogus, then anything else they have to say is pretty much worthless also.”
Yes. Well, Safari, I’ve resisted characterizing dissenters so far, but, in light of your largely inconclusive and suspect pastings, how does your statement apply to you? You seem very good at cutting and pasting, but short on contributing thorough, original thoughts. I’m beginning to think that maybe your posts come not from the horse’s mouth, but from the other end.
DaimlerChrysler is the worlds third largest vehicle maker and controls Mercedes, Chrysler and Mitsubishi. DaimlerChrysler is also the worlds largest maker of commercial vehicles. Mercedes branded cars are a small part of a giant industrial conglomerate. This is like saying that Sony is primarily a PC maker.
There is no significant independent luxury/sport car maker in the world.
To use a car analogy Apple should be a niche brand of Dell, HP or IBM.
“Remembering the last sentence of the famous 1984 ad: “So 1984 won´t be like ‘1984’” with all the Orwelian meaning,
I do ask myself and everyone if the Mac has succeded in this area: Do we beat the Big Brother? Do we keep out of his fierce control?”
iTunes and DRM?
Of course, most people don’t want limitations on fair use etc. but almost all the companies are lining up to use DRM, along with other tech to watch/monitor/data mine. It’s pretty easy to use copywrite/patents as a reason to grab unlimited control. Especially when it is done by a governing body.
So the question might be:
Will 2004 be like 1984?
Happy birthday Mac!
Rajan…the question was AFORDABILITY, not cheapness.
1000 bucks is very affordable. it comes down to the priorities people have.
most people put a higher priority on their TV and would not flinch about droping $1000 on a TV.
Afordability means that the price is not outside the range of people. Macs certainly are not outside that range for 90% of computer buyers….at least in the US, India might be diffrent given their economic situation amoung the population.
actualy, Ford is the number 3, Toyota had been number 3 but recently passed Ford by 60,000 cars.
oh, BTW, Analogies can not be perfect and are only ment to represent the scope of what was said int eh origional analogy, not the real world.
why is this? because analogies are ways to get an idea across in familiar terms.
one might say:
“the exema skin condition is like an Orange being pealed.”
now…that scope of an orange used gets the idea across that exema is like removing the top layer of an orange revealing the lower more vulnrable layer. it gets the idea across successfuly.
if you claim that exema is not like that because skin deos not have seeds or grow on trees or can be made into a breakfast beverage, people would look at you like you were a moron.
that is the falacy with the “car analogy is crap” argument.
Personally, I enjoy a glass of freshly squeezed skin juice every morning.
“DaimlerChrysler is the worlds third largest vehicle maker and controls Mercedes, Chrysler and Mitsubishi.”
ehh Daimler Chrysler does not control Mitsubishi, this is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read.
“There is no significant independent luxury/sport car maker in the world.”
TVR
“To use a car analogy Apple should be a niche brand of Dell, HP or IBM.”
Why should it? Their more like Harley Davidson, Maglite, Leatherman, or Zero Halliburton. There are lots of independent “premium brand” players out there and for the people that buy these products, quality and/or convenience mean more than price.
Happy Birthday Apple, lets see another 25 years of people holding their breaths waiting for you to go out. In the same amount of time how many hundreds of PC manufacturers have gone out of business?
Of course, what you don’t see is all the stuff that the Gateway leaves out or does half-ass, like integrated graphics, no firewire, no built-in wireless option (with the antenna already built into the emac), a crappy 17in OPTIONAL monitor as opposed to the flat trinitron in the eMac, let’s not even get into the fact that iLife ’04 trumps anything on the Gateway, other things like a 7200rpm drive instead of the 5400 on the Gateway, a built-in mic on the eMac which goes nicely with the standard speech recognition included with OS X, and so on and so on. XP Home…enough said.
Look, firstly, I made a mistake in my post; I quoted the wrong price. Actually, I wanted to quote Sb-310-B, which as you may have found out, is $549. I personally wouldn’t want to get into a debate into this, because Gateway offers features Apple don’t, and vice versa. However if you want to match the hardware as much as possible without going to a random clone shop, try eMachines
eMachines T3265
AMD Athlon XP 3200+
NVidia NForce2 (yeah, integrated, but not slow, certainly faster than Radeon 7500)
512MB DDR RAM (PC2700)
DVD+/-RW Drive; 8-in-1 media card reader
160GB hard disk
Price? $799. Granted, it doesn’t come with a monitor, but it is one hell of an offer (DVD+/-RW, plus a memory card reader, including 4 times the hard disk space makes up for it, no?).
For $649.99, you’ll get a combo drive and Athlon XP 3000+, enough money to buy a good monitor.
As for WiFi/Airport, sure eMac has a built-in attenna – so? Getting WiFi on it requires a $99 Airport Extreme Card; you can get a PCI card for roughly the same amount (Linksys WMP54G 802.11G PCI Card cost $80, probably lower if you look).
Now, the thorny issue: Software. I personally don’t mind using Panther, my feelings towards iTunes is largely neutral. iMovie and iDVD is a overkill for me; Windows Movie Maker already suites all of my camcorder needs (which is minimal, with or without iLife). I don’t see why I need iPhoto – managing photos with Windows Explorer seems adequate for me; and my photo collection is already close to 500 pictures. I don’t really forsee much use of Garageband, but I’ll reserve judgement till I have actually used it (not seen a demo or something of that sort).
But regardless, iLife ’04 doesn’t seem to worth the extra $100-200 for me. It may worth that extra amount for you, and many Mac users, but for a lot of pee cee users, it isn’t worth the price difference. Then now you start comparing operating systems – yeah; Panther is cool. But not cool enough for me to blow extra cash for it. It is still relatively unresponsive (a dual 2Ghz G5 compared with my puny 1Ghz Duron; that is unimpressive).
Enough with the worthless price-comparisons already , rajan, it is as tiring as your never-ending negativity against Apple, and you attempt a simple comparison which just isn’t simple (XP Home vs OS X Panther?)
I didn’t start the “worthless” price comparison, I was merely pointing out that eMac isn’t the same price as a similarly configured PC. Of course, finding a similarly configured PC from big names like Dell, Gateway, HP, etc. is hard (for example, Dell and Gateway; their customization sheet doesn’t give an option to get a non-integrated 3D card for their lower-end models).
Besides, I don’t have much negativity against Apple. Watch me defend Apple if anyone says that its laptop lineup is overpriced. If I were to buy a laptop right now, it would most likely be an iBook, or a PowerBook. OS X and iLife ’04 has nothing to do with it. I’m willing to buy an iPod over its competitors (i.e. iRiver, Nomad Zen); although the likelyhood of me buying an MP3 player anytime soon is slim. I’m a big fan of Keynote; although by itself isn’t reason enough for me to switch. I like Safari alot, and feel that both Mozilla and IE should learn a lot from it, although I doubt I would be using any of those browsers full-time anytime soon (Opera junkie here).
And personally, I think Panther is ahead of Windows XP in terms of features and functionality, however it isn’t reason big enough for me to buy a Mac. Why not you see my post here; http://nmcx.com/comment.php?news_id=3615#78029 Do I seem like your average Apple basher?
I have no reason to bash Apple, other than purely objective reasons. I am not biased against Apple.
P.S. I wouldn’t personally buy a eMachine, I can build a machine on my choice that cost less.
—
Anonymous: most people put a higher priority on their TV and would not flinch about droping $1000 on a TV.
Now, would people have priority high enough to buy a computer with features they probably won’t use? Besides, my point is that unless you consider Apple’s software really worth the price markup, Apple’s desktop lineup isn’t that price competitive. Even Apple knows that, see how they market eMacs and iMacs (on software features).
But regardless, iLife ’04 doesn’t seem to worth the extra $100-200 for me. It may worth that extra amount for you, and many Mac users, but for a lot of pee cee users, it isn’t worth the price difference. Then now you start comparing operating systems – yeah; Panther is cool. But not cool enough for me to blow extra cash for it. It is still relatively unresponsive (a dual 2Ghz G5 compared with my puny 1Ghz Duron; that is unimpressive).
iLife ’04 is $50 and comes free with any new mac. Also I am tired of the MacOS X is unresponsive argument that most pc users like to throw out. I own 2 PCs one celeron 700 toshiba laptop running XP and a athlon XP 1700+ desktop running win2k, my powerbook 15″ 1.25ghz running panter seems no less responsive to me if not more responsive. Care to post and objective test for the reponsiveness?
I definately think that Apple’s software stack is worth the money. My colleague on his emachines PC tried to do a DV home video project and after about a weekends worth of work got choppy video on his burnt dvd. He brought his camcorder to work and I had a wonderful flawless dvd ready for him in 3 hours (1 hour to read in the 60 minute tape + iMovie + iDVD encoding and burning). He was impressed and seriously considered buying a mac. However he decided that he would rather just upgrade his machine for $500 more with a new mother board cpu and case) spent another weekend on this project and was able to burn a useful dvd. He is still hunting for some software that can reliably burn dvds (he doesn’t want to pay for nero he wants it free).
His project took him all of christmas break and martin luther king weekend to accomplish. On my powerbook the first movie I ever made(my colleague’s DVD) took me all of 10 minutes to learn how to use the software and 3 hours of processing time. You can’t blame the Mac’s price point if he is too cheap to pay even $50 for DVD Burning software.
Now that’s 15 days worth of time which for me is worth more than $1000 dollars.
Nice bluff
eMac G4:
1GHz PowerPC G4
128MB SDRAM
40GB Ultra ATA drive
Combo drive
$799
This configuration is $799 on the apple website.
$1,099.00
1GHz PowerPC G4
256MB SDRAM
80GB Ultra ATA drive
SuperDrive <—–DVD-RW drive.
You might want to compare that with a Gateway profile 5S. Yeah it has an LCD screen. But I’d much rather prefer a 17″ trinitron to a 15″ LCD. Single profile PCs are always more expensive that desktop variations because the amount of R&D in engineering and manufacturing to fit all those boards into a small chasis inflates the price.
The gateway profile 5s is $1099 2.6GHz celeron, 256 MB and 40 GB HD and a measily combo driver.
How is this for a price comparison for an emac.
• 512MB SDRAM – 1 DIMM
• 80GB Ultra ATA drive
• Keyboard/Mac OS – U.S. English
• 1GHz PowerPC G4
• Combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
Subtotal $999.00
Please compare the same type of machines. Get a single profile PC from all the manufacturers like dell, gateway
and emachines and compare them to an emac/imac. The Engineering and manufacturing costs for these are different than desktop form factor machines with seperate displays.
Rajan R had to be lying when he posted this
-“Mac G4:
1GHz PowerPC G4
128MB SDRAM
40GB Ultra ATA drive
Combo drive
$1099 ”
It sure looks like a paste from the site, ie. using the same formatting and terms.
but unfortuneatly for Mr. lil R, he cherry picked between the 2 models.
Deceptive?
I call it a cheap lil trick.
Tup quotes:
“”… much of Lisa’s design was Apple’s own, including click-and-drag capability, and the pull-down menu — this according to Jef Raskin, who headed the Macintosh design team and should know, but other sources give the credit for click-and-drag and pull-down menus to PARC.”
Sure, “other sources give the credit”, but the key phrase here is “Jef Raskin, who headed the Macintosh design team and should know”.
Exactly, when you are looking for a reasonable conclusion, the burden of disproving Mr. Raskin falls on the “other sources” (who of course are not named). Who would better know than Jef Raskin? And unless you are going to try and cast him as being dishonest about the sequence of events (which true-to-form, is exactly what you did “Furthermore, Jef Rasking’s and Bruce Horn’s recollections might favor the company/period in which they were key designers. So, all of the recollections that you pasted from Jef Raskin and Bruce Horn are inconclusive and suspect, and cannot be considered “facts.)
Nice debating technique, cast doubt on the integrity/honesty of the person being quoted, according to people like you we should believe third-party views of the facts because Raskin is too much of an Apple fanboy to be trusted. Nice cynical view, but I’ll go with Jef’s version of history, thank you.
Tup:
“You seem very good at cutting and pasting, but short on contributing thorough, original thoughts”
Yes, silly me, I actually thought that posting the recollections of the man most responsible for the original Mac GUI might actually add some factual material to this discussion.
Better, I suppose, to instead use innuendo, unnamed third party “sources”, and the tried-and-true character assassination to make my points.
After all, we just can’t trust what Horn and Raskin say, can we, they have ulterior motives and anything they say is suspect.
Weak, Tup, weak.
Rajan R had to be lying when he posted this
From Rajan
-“Mac G4:
1GHz PowerPC G4
128MB SDRAM
40GB Ultra ATA drive
Combo drive
$1099 ”
From the Apple store.
$799.00
1GHz PowerPC G4
128MB SDRAM
40GB Ultra ATA drive
Combo drive
$1,099.00
1GHz PowerPC G4
256MB SDRAM
80GB Ultra ATA drive
SuperDrive
Go here to continue on (and on, and on, and on) about the facts of GUI:
http://humane.sourceforge.net/published/holes.html
Holy crap you are a liar Rajan. And a damned big one at that.
<blockquote>
eMac G4:
1GHz PowerPC G4
128MB SDRAM
40GB Ultra ATA drive
Combo drive
$1099
Gateway Sb-310-c
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 2.6GHz
256MB memory
40GB HD
CD-RW
$549; around $699 with a 17″ monitor, can get a cheaper monitor outside of Gateway.
And I didn’t even really look; Dell’s site is unsually slow today, and peculiarly same with HP’s,
</blockquote>
The eMac you listed is actually $799, AND the Combo drive plays DVDs also. Suddenly the difference is not so great.
And let us not forget how much better the graphics are on the eMac. Radeon 7500 DDR vs… Intel Extreme?
liar liar liar….
I think that Rajan will be forever branded a liar.
all his words will be taken with a grain of salt and will be ignored.
Liar Liar Liar….
Safari: On the price of iLife, I meant it in such a way that the price difference between a PC and a Mac is too great to make iLife matter. If I could get a similar speced eMachine, I’m sure it would be about $150 cheaper than an eMac (the two models I’ve selected comes with a 160GB hard disk and 512MB of RAM)
And by UI responsiveness, I mean how fast I can move around the windows, I fast I can scroll, how fast it resizes windows, how fast Finder comes up to the screen once I clicked it, etc. I’m sorry to say, it seems less responsive than Windows (Notice I didn’t say slower, responsiveness on an OS is often an UI illusion).
Raptor: A response to my claims that I lied is below. But I didn’t compare between form-factors because form factor is a personal choice. Personally, I much rather have a desktop. Not so much the upgrade options within the CPU; rather the choice I have in choosing a monitor. I’m not a big fan of eMac’s monitor (or its size). And apparently not too many people like the practicality of eMac’s form factor.
When I first suggested the iMac G3 (which arguably has roughly the same concept as the eMac) to my uncle some 2-3 years ago because he was really interested in doing video – he objected solely on the the chassis – he didn’t like the idea of having the monitor and the CPU tied permanently together. He got a Dell, hated it, and I enjoyed telling him “I’ll told you so” ever since. He didn’t mind the price (couldn’t tell the difference between a Dell and a iMac of the same price, other than its shape).
Besides, as for engineering, just because it is a tower chassis, doesn’t mean there isn’t any engineering in it. Some chassis like Liam-Li probably took more engineering than the eMac; most likely this doesn’t apply to Gateway nor eMachines. Besides, why should I pay for engineering if I consider it the worst feature on it? Sure, it is an engineering marvel, but I find it more convinient having two separate chassis for monitors and desktops.
This is one quote from some guys that claim that I lied intentionally.
Artist: Rajan R had to be lying when he posted this
-“Mac G4:
1GHz PowerPC G4
128MB SDRAM
40GB Ultra ATA drive
Combo drive
$1099 ”
It sure looks like a paste from the site, ie. using the same formatting and terms.
but unfortuneatly for Mr. lil R, he cherry picked between the 2 models.
No, I had not been lying. I have little reason to. If you noticed, apparently, I also “lied” about Gateway prices. That message was written about 2:30am, where I was having a mild case of insomia. I copied and pasted wrongly.
BTW, I first wrote a comparison to the $1099 model, but after realizing that heck, I’m comparing with clone computers right out my head, I head straight to Gateway, picked randomly at a cheap model, and copy and pasted. And then I went to Apple and copied the specifications; forgeting to copy the price. I was obviously in daze, by giving the wrong Gateway model too.
Now, if you want to see how it looks like copied and pasted without any editing:
$799.00
1GHz PowerPC G4
128MB SDRAM
40GB Ultra ATA drive
Combo drive
(There’s a “Select” image in between; I normally copy and paste in separate blocks – seems faster for me. Select the specs, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-Tab, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-Tab, select the price, Ctrl-v)
It is an honest mistake on my part; I have no reason to lie about the Mac. I have nothing invested against or for it, and in fact there is a huge possiblity me buying a iBook (as soon as I really need a laptop, I’ll probably get it).
Ed: Holy crap you are a liar Rajan. And a damned big one at that.
Whoa, Ed. Ever heard of USENET rules? If you disagree with the regulars, or found a mistake in their argument, you don’t go around straight at their face and shout “LIAR” or “HYPOCRITE” or something of that sort. And one-liner insults – that’s really low.
Ed: And let us not forget how much better the graphics are on the eMac. Radeon 7500 DDR vs… Intel Extreme?
Intel Extreme Graphics 2 actually. Its rather good (not nearly as good as a Radeon 7500, but good enough for whatever you can do on a eMac anyway). Remember, OS X requires a good graphics card more than Windows simply because the rendering of its UI depends on OpenGL (otherwise it is slow, slow, slow). If you are planning to do anything more than a casual game every now and then, I wouldn’t suggest either eMac or that Gateway. Heck, I wouldn’t suggest both models even if they had great graphics cards, to do intensive GPU work.
Debman: Of all people…. Heh 😀
Hehe… Who says the truth? Rasking? Horn?
You guys should watch the Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon 🙂
RAjan R, Dude you be one seriously fscked up randoid.
That was about the most incoherent post I have ever read.
Even more than ayn Rands novels.