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Directed by Ridley Scott of Alien and Blade Runner fame, "1984" introduces the Macintosh with the image of a lone female runner who hurls a sledgehammer through the image of a Big Brother-like figure. The broadcasting of this commercial during the Super Bowl sets the tone for the coming two decades. Using a Macintosh isn't merely computing--it is celebrating individualism. |
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Click here to vote on your favorite--and least favorite--Apple advertisements. |
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Lotus, the only U.S. software company larger than Microsoft, releases Jazz. A suite of word-processing, database and spreadsheet applications, Jazz is supposed to crack the business market. It bombs. A Lotus executive later joked, "The first month we shipped 62,000 copies, and the following month we got 64,000 copies back. It was such a failure they sent us the bootlegged copies back." The Macintosh will never be the success in business markets that it is in education and graphic design. |
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Aldus releases PageMaker 1.0 for the Macintosh (the first PageMaker for Windows won't ship until January 1987). Coupled with the $7,000 Apple LaserWriter, the Macintosh has finally found its killer app: Desktop publishing. Mailboxes and campuses are inundated with Mac-generated flyers, newsletters and brochures. |
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Bruised by its first loss as a public company--$17.2 million in the fiscal third quarter ending June 28--Apple restructures under the hand of CEO John Sculley. Thirty-year-old Chairman Steve Jobs is left without any day-to-day responsibilities and quits the firm he co-founded. Within a year of leaving, Jobs founds NeXT Computers, pares down his Apple holdings to a single share, and buys a controlling stake in Pixar, a computer-graphics company, from Lucasfilm for $10 million. Pixar, which goes on to create such mega-hits as Toy Story and Finding Nemo, now sports a market value of $3.7 billion, and Jobs' stake is worth more than $2 billion. |
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The Macintosh Plus breaks the 512-kilobyte-RAM barrier and ships with a whopping one megabyte of RAM. Not only is it upgradeable to four megabytes of RAM, but it includes faster SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) ports which speed communication with external hard drives and printers. The machine is a mega-hit for Apple, selling in the hundreds of thousands before it is retired in 1990. It remains Apple's longest-lived Macintosh. |
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To fight the growing power of Intel and Microsoft (the so-called Wintel platform) in the personal computer market, Apple and IBM agree to a technology sharing alliance that also includes Motorola. The Macintosh faithful fret that Big Blue will swallow Apple whole, but the partnership yields the powerful PowerPC chip, which powers an entire generation of Macs. |
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The Mac's 10th anniversary year sees the launch of the first three models that include the new PowerPC chip, the 6100, 7100 and 8100. For once, Apple delivers the machines at prices comparable with their Wintel counterparts. The unveiling is made all the more sweet for Apple's faithfuls, when later in the year Intel recalls its Pentium chips due to a flaw and Microsoft delays its new operating system, Windows 95. |
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Apple announces that both startup Power Computing and longtime peripheral maker Radius have licensed the Macintosh operating system and will make Mac clones. It's a bid to finally expand the market share of the Macintosh platform, which stands at about 8%. Only problem? The cloners prove to be more efficient than Apple, introducing machines that are more powerful and better priced. The company loses sales to the cloners and licensing fees don't make up the difference--Apple's revenue falls to $5.9 billion in fiscal 1998 from $9.8 billion in fiscal 1996. Even worse, by the middle of 1998, market share has dwindled to 4.1%. |
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Apple's new laptop, the PowerBook 5300, becomes the laughing stock of the industry when a defect causes its battery to burst into flames while being recharged. Although Apple corrects the problem and cuts prices to dealers, the "hibachi" PowerBook cooks up enough bad press to sour potential converts. Meanwhile Windows 95, which Apple fanatics deride as a poor imitation of the Macintosh operating system, sells 1 million copies in its first four days. |
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For $400 million, Apple acquires NeXT's products and technology, but by far the most valuable asset is visionary Steve Jobs. Ostensibly back as a consultant for upcoming Mac OS releases, Jobs returns with a sword. Chief Executive Gil Amelio is given the boot (along with four out of six directors) and Jobs assumes the title of "interim CEO." Jobs moves quickly to kill the clone deals. |
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Incredulous gasps and loud boos greet Bill Gates' looming satellite-beamed image at Macworld. Jobs announces that Microsoft is buying $150 million in non-voting Apple stock and that the long-running rivalry between the two companies is over. "We have to let go of the notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose," Jobs tells the crowd. |
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The Macintosh returns to an all-in-one design eventually available in a number of differently colored cases. The machine is a hit, and essentially salvages the consumer market for Apple. More than 6 million of the original-edition iMacs are sold by early 2003, when the model is retired. Apple's market cap explodes from less than $2 billion when Jobs returns to a peak of more than $21 billion in March 2000. Today Apple is worth $7.4 billion. |
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Finally, a Mac gadget sticks. Over the years Apple's PDAs (Newton and eMate), game system (Pippin) and gimmick computers (Macintosh TV and Cube) glittered with innovation but failed to sell. The iPod is different--the timing and design are perfect and the device embodies the Macintosh spirit of being simple yet elegant, and personal. |
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A $100 million investment in Samsung back in 1999 to develop flat-panel displays ensures further development along those lines. The success of the iPod nearly guarantees additional gadgetry--an iCamera? Bold prediction: a tablet Mac that's compatible with Macs and PCs. After all, Apple has shown that it isn't afraid to partner with perceived enemies when it makes sense to. |
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