Apple computer has a long and distinguished list of “firsts” in
personal computing, not to mention the least of which, they invented
personal computing as we know it today. The others include a long line
of stuff, including, but not limited to, in personal computer “firsts,”
first with a GUI, first with a mouse, first with a color monitor, first
with a floppy drive, first with a hard drive, first to have a CD-ROM,
first to make home movie editing possible, first with USB and Firewire,
first with 64-bit processor — the list goes on.
And no, Apple didn't actually invent any of these things (well,
except for maybe FireWire). They were just the first to give it to the
masses in a “personal computer.” What Apple did invent was the basic
concepts behind the GUI as we know it today. Many people think Xerox
Parc did this. They didn't. Apple did not take Xerox's prototypes and
repackage them, they purchased those concepts from Xerox in exchange
for Xerox getting Apple stock (5%), then took the concepts that lay
beneath the Xerox UI and rethought them. Unlike Microsoft,
which chased the Apple UI like a finishing line, Apple ran from the
Star as a starting point. Today, every OS features descendants of the
Apple innovations of direct icon manipulation on the desktop, pull-down
menus and the menubar, radio buttons, command-key combos, the trash
can, etc.
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“It seems that it was never the Macintosh's destiny to dominate the world, only change it.” |
Today, to one degree or another, every personal computer is a
Macintosh. It is just that most of these descendants of Mac
run Windows, and not the Mac OS. I am sure a lot of Apple fans gnash
their teeth at that idea, but in truth this fact is the greatest
compliment the industry could ever have paid to the original Mac.
Apple was never going to be able to build enough computers to supply
boxes to everyone. It seems that it was never the Macintosh's destiny
to dominate the world, only change it.
Even those who deride the Mac today use machines that owe everything to
Apple's little creation. The Mac's own prosperity has waxed and waned
repeatedly over the past two decades, but the revolution it started has
never slowed its march. Even computers running the Linux operating
system, about as far technologically and ideologically as one can get
from the original Mac project, include GUI's that attempt to bring a bit
of Mac-like magic to the roughest edges of the computer world.
The GUI that the Mac brought to the world of computing has made
accessible technology that forever would have languished were it
strapped only to a command line. And it is that democratization
of technology, that merging the power of machinery and the human
imagination, that makes the Mac the most important computer in history.
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“It is that democratization of technology that makes the Mac the most important computer in history.” |
Of course there's always been this rivalry, and the Wintel camp and
Microsoft monopoly has grown rather delusional over the years.
Delusional to the point of their leader
stating
“…we have to [innovate]. We invented personal computing. It is the best tool
of empowerment there has ever been. If there is anything that clouds
that picture, we need to fix it.”
Bill Gates & Co. invented personal computing?
Invented personal computing?
INVENTED PERSONAL COMPUTING?
Sigh. There are people on this planet that occasionally need to be
backhanded and put back into their place. They will not understand any
other method. Gates has already forgotten that Windows was built on
the work done by Apple and the Mac team. He has already forgot that when
Apple sued Microsoft for usurping the Mac look-and-feel, Microsoft won
because of a contract, not because the company had not used Apple
technology. Perhaps Bill also thinks NBC or CBS invented radio and
television. And Boeing invented flying in airplanes. Old Bill has
been drinking his own Kool-aid for too long.