The various Apple IIs were roughly $1300 machines but then Apple didn't really put out a sequel at that price for a decade with the Mac Classic. Instead releasing hugely expensive and incompatible machines like the III, Lisa and the Mac lineup.
Amazing that Apple survived, at all. Equally weird that, despite inflation, Apple's cheapest ever computer is the current $599 Mac mini.
They coasted on the success of the Apple II for a long time. It's difficult to overstate how popular they were in American schools. For over a decade, "a computer" was an Apple II.
They didn't stop making the IIe until November 1993.
> They coasted on the success of the Apple II for a long time. It's difficult to overstate how popular they were in American schools. For over a decade, "a computer" was an Apple II.
The hype! I can feel it now, despite not ever having lived during that time. Damn, that gives a good tangible vibe of how strong that success was. Haha, thanks for the comment!
Bill Gate said it himself, there where other folks that had much better technology but the luck just worked in Microsoft's favor. That and a lot of anti-competitive behavior.
A bit the same with Apple, there were many others that had the opportunity but it just never worked out due to the flows of the market.
At that time compatibility was not an important aspect. For example only almost 2 years passed between the release of C64 and the Plus/4, yet the machines represent different worlds without any compatibility, and we are not even talking about the VIC-20 and the C16. The C128 had a 99% compatible C64 mode but in turn had a more limited number of SW available (that's the other side of the story - if you provide compatibility, old software will be used and maintained instead of starting new developments, and if no new software is developed for a platform it's dead). These systems were anything but cheap, and once you have bought a computer, you'd locked yourself to the platform.
It's different category of computer, designed as an appliance, like my car stereo, which is also a computer. The value of Apple computers is that they're more general-purpose than a gated cell phone.
If you insist on including the iPhone, you might as well include the $39 Airpods case, or the $9 lightning to headphone jack dongle.
> value of Apple computers is that they're more general-purpose than a gated cell phone
Philosophically, yes. Practically, even a locked-down iPhone can do vastly more than a general-purpose computer could in the 1980s. (Particularly when you consider it has access to VMs on the web and now emulators.)
Eh, computers have always been getting cheaper due to technology advances. The Mini is a rare for Apple low end computer without a monitor, which goes against Apple’s traditional core business proposition: simplicity in product experience.
I'm glad they kept the Mini around. I don't have a current one but I won't buy another iMac. My current is getting to end of life (from 2015). Nothing wrong with it but it will stop getting security updates at some point and I hate junking the monitor.
The first 4 generations (the 4th seemed the worst affected) or so of Apple iPod seemed to have an issue where the 1.8" ATA connector coming out of the HDD would sit too loosely. A firm smack on the palm of the hand (while it was off with heads parked) seemed to be able to reliably reseat the connector and get the connection working again when they started having reading errors. Obviously opening it up and taping the connector down firmly with some kapton is a more reliable solution, but for someone wanting their music to work immediately this was an easy reliable workaround.
There was similar scheme of percussive maintenance with ČSD Class M 152.0 [0] railcar. It suffered from engine stall problems until some train driver kicked into certain spot of train undercarriage out of frustration and found by accident it fixes the problem.
In the late 90s, Borland's installation support phone line would tell people to turn their computer on its side 90 degrees so that the CD-ROM would read the installation media.
At least by the time it came to the G4 Cube, they had at least adjusted the clock speeds to stop a repeat of this.
I used to have a Dual G5 PowerMac and when you have that thing going at full speed, it was LOUD! I suspect that absolutely bugged Jobs to no end could have been a big point that lead to the Intel transition.
I get the desire to have fanless computers, they are neat but you have to aware of the limits. Look at the M series Apple chips and it makes so much sense to be fanless.
The G5 macs were terribly engineered machines - the fan blade profile made them terribly noisy, the water cooling system corroded due to mismatched metals and coolant, and the leaking was conveniently above the power supply which then shorted out. For some reason the one I got had a 1 kilowatt power supply, but the machine only had two HD bays.
Their only saving grace was they are probably the most beautiful case ever made, and they are easy to convert to an ATX format to put a modern PC inside.
> I suspect that absolutely bugged Jobs to no end could have been a big point that lead to the Intel transition.
I'm sure it was that, but also they were never able to stuff a G5 into a laptop due to thermals. They simply had to switch if they wanted to have portables.
There was a generation of iPads that would have their displays black out. People would come to me at the fruit stand, I would take their iPad into the back room, and drop it from about a foot off a table, screen facing up. 9/10 it would fix itself.
Honestly one of the funniest repairs. (If they had warranty I would swap em out, it was an era of “everyone gets a free swap”).
at middlesex polytechnic (north london) back in the mid-80s, we had several PDP11 desktops that were very unreliable. the first fix was to drive them round the north circular in the back of a van, but we worked out that dropping them from an inch or so was easier. they were pretty crappy.
I used to work in a place right next to some railroad tracks, and every few weeks you’d see a tech open up one of the pizza box SparcStations and reseat the CPU daughterboards, muttering something about “train effect”
This was common-ish with home computers, back when they were still called "home computers". It was a recognized fix for the BBC Micro, as well as some early Amiga models.
That's not what he's saying. He means if there is a conflict between the two most people chose function - that's what matters, that the thing actually work. Not Apple. They pick form, even if the function is harmed. (They will of course try to make it work anyway, but that's not the point being made here.)
Apple is a company which understands how important form is to function and has a deep appreciation of user experience. Which is why you often get people on the internet saying ‘but you could cobble something similar together yourself, just using x,y,z’ who are then seemingly baffled that customers choose a simple, pleasant to-use alternative
> if there is a conflict between the two most people chose function - that's what matters
More often, if there is a conflict between the two it's because a paradigm is wrong. Form and function go together. Apple's philosophy embraces this; its praxis is variable.
Because silver shit will sell more units than shit spoon. Imo Apple is roght to go form first, function second. The fact they invest so mich to put actual good function in while keeping the form is testament to their understanding of normal humans
Amazing that Apple survived, at all. Equally weird that, despite inflation, Apple's cheapest ever computer is the current $599 Mac mini.