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83 Comments
- valis, on 01/23/2009, -4/+28Gotta love The Woz - the wizard of Apple.
- stealthspc, on 01/23/2009, -14/+33If it wasn't for Steve Jobs, I don't know who would have had the passion to change the computer industry like Apple did. It's clear that Steve is driven for more reasons than just money. It's pretty noble.
We give Apple a hard time for their choices, but they are definitely passionate. - Urkel, on 01/24/2009, -7/+21I'll get dugg down for asking this, but why is the Mac community feeling so insecure lately? I'm a Mac user so reading Mac news is interesting, but lately all we're getting is a lot of fluff about "Look at how great 'we' are" and articles taking walks down memory lane with some wordy nerd who doesn't realize that being an Apple customer doesn't make you an Apple employee.
Okay, you may digg me down now. - whiledo, on 03/25/2009, -6/+17Unfortunately, they decided to charge an arm and a leg for it, thus allowing IBM and really MS to totally own the market. Due to their greed, they actually wound up runner up and we got stuck with Windows.
- dhmlco, on 01/24/2009, -0/+9That's XEROX PARC. Not IBM.
Sheesh. - stealthspc, on 01/24/2009, -0/+7You guys are missing the point. It's not about Apple "inventing anything". It's about them seeing the possibilities in this technology and bringing it to the masses. If Apple didn't do it, and Xerox sure wasn't going to, then who would have?
There's so many people on Digg who just blindly hate Apple. - clickmyface, on 01/24/2009, -2/+8__
"Even if inventors like Douglas Engelbart, who devised the first computer mouse, and teams like Xerox PARC had made great strides in creating the new ideas for how to use a computer, the Mac deserves a place in history as the machine that popularised such technologies.
"I think the credit deservedly goes to the person or the entity that brings it to the masses," he says. "Apple is the one that brought it to the world. You really have to give them a lot of credit."
__
And thats why i'm a long time "fanboy." And I agree, I wish software would make more strides. Palm is doing something really interesting, i'm curious what Apples got cooking. - mk2ja, on 01/24/2009, -0/+6Who is feeling insecure? And about what are they/we feeling insecure? Sure, I wish I had sold my stocks while it was at $200 instead of letting it get all the way back down to $90, but even now I'm not really insecure about it. I think Win7ß is very sexy indeed, but competition is always good for the market (the beauty of capitalism), and I know Apple will respond with great strides of their own and as a whole, computer users everywhere will benefit from the Windows vs. OS X vs. Linux competition.
I'm just trying to figure out what you meant about being insecure. - dohidied, on 01/24/2009, -0/+6Today's the 25th anniversary of the Macintosh.
- Xalorous, on 01/24/2009, -9/+14Dude, go whack off to your mac-porn and try to read some legit background info before you post such drivel.
Gates entered into a contract with IBM that was written to benefit him. But it was about DOS not Windows. Shame on IBM for not reading the fine print.
________ takes existing products, improves them, and sells them for a profit. ________ takes new ideas, patents them and sells them for a profit. ________ evend develops a few new ideas, patents them, and sells them for a profit.
If you put Microsoft in the blank, it works. If you put Apple in the blank, IT WORKS. Primary difference is company focus. Microsoft focuses on making products with standardized interface that increase productivity. Apple focuses on elegant design for appearance and ease of use. - kewl4eva, on 01/24/2009, -3/+8Simply two reasons:
1.Steve Jobs taking a leave makes the future of Apple very uncertain!!
2.The super success of Windows7 on its beta launch itself! - Ubermann, on 01/24/2009, -1/+6Bla bla bla..... but Microsoft bla bla bla
- EVILTHETURTLE, on 01/24/2009, -2/+6More like: Linux this, Linux that.
All. *****. Day. - Lemguy, on 01/24/2009, -2/+6"Microsoft launched the first version of Windows in 1985, having licensed some aspects of the interface from Apple. But as Windows became more capable, Apple filed a lawsuit, claiming in 1988 claimed that Windows copied the "look and feel" of the Mac. The suit failed, and graphical interfaces became the norm for modern computers in homes and offices around the world."
Holy sht.. I wonder what the world would have been like if they won that case... O_O - dragon76, on 01/24/2009, -2/+6They bought NeXT and got Jobs in the deal.
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/1996/12/11 ...
A lot of Mac OS X to this day is still programmed with the Carbon APIs
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/10/17/appl ...
…which came from Mac OS Classic and was not part of the NeXTStep or OpenStep APIs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_%28computing%2 ...
BTW, NeXT was not *quite* his own company. It was mainly invested by Ross Perot.
http://www.businessweek.com/1989-94/pre88/b30761.h ... - Cowicide, on 01/24/2009, -0/+4Amiga rawks
Linux rawks
Apple rawks
Microsoft sucks
end of story - avatarpalin, on 01/24/2009, -3/+6I think around that time it was the Commodore 64 and Amiga that was changing the face of computers
[extract from wikipedia]
During the Commodore 64's lifetime, sales totaled 30 million units, making it the best-selling single personal computer model of all time.[2] For a substantial period of time (1983-1986), the Commodore 64 dominated the market with between 30% and 40% share and 2 million units sold per year,[3] outselling the IBM PC clones, Apple computers, and Atari computers. Sam Tramiel, a former Commodore president said in a 1989 interview "When I was at Commodore we were building 400,000 C64s a month for a couple of years."[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64 - josepablos, on 01/24/2009, -4/+7mac this ... mac that .. all the ***** day.!
- EVILTHETURTLE, on 01/24/2009, -2/+5Yes you have been.
- crazysamz, on 01/24/2009, -1/+4It's because they're most likely going to lose their 'godlike' leader Steve Jobs. I am not an Apple hater or MS hater, but I just hate Jobs. He is that type of smug ***** type of person. Regardless, I still feel sorry for him and hopes he gets better from whatever he has right now.
If he gets better, the fanboys will become a little less insecure, trust me. - 25mL, on 01/24/2009, -7/+10The arguments against Apple is that Apple's originality isn't all that original, as all they do is take other ideas and make it popular. But that's the thing: Apple puts forth a lot of R&D, thought, and packaging to put these devices into the mainstream. If it wasn't for Apple, progression would be hampered. Just because you created something, doesn't necessarily mean it will revolutionize the world. It takes a company with great pull to achieve what Apple has achieved.
Lets face it, before the iMac, with it's 5 color schematics, the world of computing was pretty bland. After the success of the iMac, i noted a plethora of gadgets being donned in colors. Not only that, but accessories weren't just your plain Jane. This not only applied to computers but transcended across other stuff.
Apple right now leads in innovation not because they create this stuff, but they are guided by the vision that is Steve Jobs. He doesn't think in the moment, he thinks years ahead. That's why the iPod is as big as it is, that's why iTunes is as big as it is, and that's why the iPhone is as big as it is. These are all thought out, calculated, decisive steps. Steve Jobs had the all seeing insight and just knew what to put together to make it lucrative for us to buy. No other company around can create the buzz or desire to want something so badly than Apple.
And that is why everyone else plays catch up. What Apple does, they follow, because they hold the key to what consumers want. Why else do you see every major phone making company conforming and trying to build a device that has some form of "touch"? Or, an OS that is just as powerful as the iPhone's? Do you honestly think these companies would have gotten this far if Apple had not even introduced the iPhone? I seriously doubt it. Competition pushes each other, and Apple really pushes the envelope. So if anything, be thankful for that. - mrBitch, on 01/25/2009, -0/+3@tupperbacharach RE: " Sorry, but I disagree.
It is only fair that the credit should go to the original inventor of the technology .. "
I agree that credit should go to the original inventor, however, credit SHOULD ALSO GO to those who IMPROVED the technology.
Yes Xerox PARC came up with the GUI concepts, but there were a lot of NEW concepts that Apple had to create in order to write a complete OS based on a GUI concept.
A lot of people forget that Apple didn't get the entire OS GUI and "desktop" concept GIVEN TO APPLE, Apple had to create NEW CONCEPTS based on the GUI ideas from Xerox.
The idea that Apple "stole" the GUI concepts from Xerox are a myth.
There are several good sources for information on this, including the court case Microsoft v. Apple, but basically Apple paid Xerox by giving Xerox rights to purchase Apple stock at a below-market price. This included license rights to several patented GUI elements.
So yes, Apple paid Xerox. They also made HUGE improvements on usability (look at the early Macintosh work by Jef Raskin).
However it's ALSO a myth that Microsoft "stole" the GUI concepts from Apple.
Apple actually GAVE Microsoft the right to use their PAID FOR AND PATENTED GUI concepts...
Microsoft demonstrated Windows 1.0 in 1983, but couldn't sell it until 1985, because it was based on Apple's Mac intellectual property.
Bill Gates got Apple's CEO John Sculley to sign off rights to Mac inventions to Microsoft in order to keep Excel exclusive to the Mac for another two years. - dhmlco, on 01/24/2009, -2/+5"At a time when computers were more like glorified typewriters, Apple introduced the Lisa – and changed how people interacted with them."
There, fixed that for you. The Lisa was the true innovation, of which the original Macintosh was just a pale shadow. In fact, Apple spent YEARS trying to get the Mac OS back to the capabilities of that initial starting point (multitasking, etc.). - Urkel, on 01/24/2009, -6/+8$9000 computers, appletalk and every 2 years we get to witness a different "innovative" port that renders the previous "innovative" port.
Apple makes great products, but if they weren't the underdogs then the entire game would be different. We are actually lucky that Apple was forced to fight in order to survive. - JohnnySoftware, on 10/24/2009, -0/+2That's one thing they did - invent pull down menus, where before there were only popup menus. Apple created the menubar, if I am not mistaken.
The Mac's windowing system was far more powerful than the Xerox Star's. The Mac, heck, even the Lisa, was far less expensive than the $50,000 Xerox star.
Apple brought laser printing to the masses. Before the Mac was introduced and came out with the Laserwriter, laser printers were almost unknown except in huge businesses. That helped get Adobe rolling... in dough.
Apple chose to create an object-oriented version of a popular compiled language instead of imitating the Xerox Star's use of an interpreted language (SmallTalk). Windows, Linux, Unix, and Mac OS X today all use compiled languages as their primary OS development languages and compiled object-oriented languages as their principle ones for doing GUI programming.
Microsoft Excel came out on the Mac before Windows. Apple's engineers helped Microsoft engineers make MS Word a GUI app instead of a character based app years before MS-Windows 1.0 ever came out. Microsoft programmers picked up the ability to write GUI programs from Apple at Apple.
Apple had a very nice BASIC programming environment product in the 1980's that rivaled Visual Basic almost a decade before the latter was invented. In an effort to appease Microsoft, Apple did not release it however. When Visual Basic came out, it included the ability to write "extensions" (VBX) which were inspired by Apple Mac's Hypercard extensions (XCMD & XFCN).
When Windows 1.0 came out years later, Microsoft's entire development team was unable to muster the skill to create overlapping windows. It was limited to tiling windows. It took even more years to get that crucial feature implemented. Apple's graphics programmer had invented/optimized the Mac's graphics subsystem in just 6 months, long before Microsoft saw the Macintosh and decided to do their own version of it called "Windows".
A lot of what Apple did at the start of the 1980's could not even be imitated until almost a decade later. If they had not dreamed it up and made it work, it would not have been around to imitate. Microsoft's original plans for what became Windows was to add popup text windows, some multi-tasking, and to support lots of device drivers for lots of different peripherals. Apple changed the picture of what needed to be done in Microsoft's minds. - valleyvideo, on 01/24/2009, -9/+11Much love to Woz and Steve for bringing this innovation to the consumer, but a well deserved tip of the hat to the boys at IBM's PARC.
- JohnnySoftware, on 10/24/2009, -0/+2Xerox did not invent the mouse. Xerox did not invent the raster video displays. Xerox did not invent bitmapped pixel displays. Xerox did not invent object-oriented displays.
Xerox invented SmallTalk and some other things. Apple did not use those. For example, Apple used Classcal, an object-oriented version of Pascal to program the original Mac - not SmallTalk.
Apple did not implement graphics in the same way as Xerox either. They used "regions" to support overlapping windows. Xerox had a different approach to implement windows and it was not as powerful as Apple's scheme.
Apple gets too little credit and Xerox too much when it comes to innovating. What Xerox did is bundle a lot of good, existing technologies together with original thinking and solid engineering. Apple saw them and took them farther, made them cheaper, and added a great deal to them.
One of Apple's cofounders started the company that made the computer that the World Wide Web was prototyped/invented upon: NeXT. Today, the operating system of the NeXT computers and the descendants of the programming tools/languages the WWW inventor used are yours when you buy a Mac. - Ubermann, on 01/24/2009, -7/+9Yep - only a matter of time before the Wintards attack.
- reggaestar, on 01/24/2009, -1/+3jimmy the text a bit and put Sun Microsystems in there, works even better.
But really, MS have done a lot for the industry, but Apple is the real star of the show, it's the movie you pay to see, the director is right, the cast are great , amazing editing, post production etc. MS are like yesterdays torrent, you'll watch the movie but you don't his pause to take a piss. - xxslants, on 01/24/2009, -2/+4wasn't an attempt.
- bengringo, on 01/25/2009, -0/+2You know you can turn off the Apple section of digg if you don't want to see it.
- MrARPA, on 01/24/2009, -0/+2I'd agree that Commodore had more of an impact on bringing computing to the masses. And, although I like Woz, he's not in the same league as engineers like Chuck Peddle.
If you haven't done so already buy yourself a copy of "On the Edge: the Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore" - it's an excellent read.
P.S. Sadly posting from a Mac instead of an Amiga. - matriculated, on 01/24/2009, -2/+4Maczealots are always insecure.
- crispa1970, on 01/24/2009, -0/+2yeah, there's no such thing as the human drive to create
/s - mrBitch, on 01/25/2009, -0/+2@kreatre RE: "But Woz wasn't part of the Mac team."
FTA :
"Andy Hertzfeld, who joined the Mac team in early 1981...
... Wozniak also joined the team around the same time, drawn by the enthusiasm and ingenuity of the people working on the Mac. " - polumrak, on 01/24/2009, -1/+3That's not the Mac community, we're okay. That's media. They must have ran out of real news.
- dragossh, on 01/24/2009, -0/+2It may have something with Macintosh's 25th birthday.
- EVILTHETURTLE, on 01/24/2009, -1/+3If mac was the luck of the draw then what do you call the Lisa?
- St0neman, on 01/24/2009, -0/+2I agree. Back then all apple had was a tiny monochrome screen. The Amiga had full stereo sound, 4,096 colors, and a true multimedia hardware design.
- Myztry, on 01/24/2009, -2/+4No one ever sued Commodore over the Amiga. Indeed IBM (while partnered with Microsoft working on OS/2) cross licensed the Amiga GUI (in exchange for the Rexx scripting language).
Jay Miner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Miner) and his company (Hi-Toro/Amiga 1982 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_Corporation) had the same goals as Steve Jobs/Apple of providing a cheap modern computer.
To Jay Miner this meant pre-emptive multitasking, thousands of colours, two button mouse, GUI desktop, hardware accelerated GPU (Blitter), fully custom chipsets, (modern) 3.5 inch floppies, powerful Command Line Interface, shared modular libraries, affordable 32bit processor, etc AND a price the average consumer could afford.
Hi-Toro wasn't a rich existing company like Apple or Microsoft. Money was tight for the startup. They had the brains and the vision, but not the dollars. Which is actually where Commodore came into the picture. They provided the means to finish the ambitious project.
Designing and building a complete system right down to custom revolutionary chipsets took from 1982 till 1985. An amazing feat for a startup. We're not talking mere Windows DOS extenders or even assembling 'off the shelf' parts.
Nothing from that era, even at 10 times the price comes anywhere close to the Amiga from 1985. Even mainstay 'modern computing' aspects like pre-emptive multitasking GUI Operating Systems would take Microsoft another decade, and Apple another two decades.
Apple hit the market first. Kudos to them for that. But they didn't dig a very deep hole. Microsoft on the other hand has always stood on the shoulders of the pioneers, and yelled "I'm taller than you". - JohnnySoftware, on 10/24/2009, -0/+1Apple had something like Microsoft Bob years earlier but after kicking it around and perhaps some usability testing they decided it would not really be a big help to users.
- mrBitch, on 01/25/2009, -0/+1the more you know...
- JohnnySoftware, on 10/24/2009, -0/+1No, Woz created the Apple II computer - not the Mac. Woz was like a Leonardo da Vinci of early personal computer hardware and software but Apple used a different team of very gifted individuals to create the Mac.
Instead of just one guy doing the lion's share of the hardware and software efforts, they each had a special vital area or two of the whole engineering mosaic to cover. That is how the Mac was created.
Without the Apple II though, Apple would never have had the organization, skills, contacts, finances, facilities, and other resources to create the Lisa & Mac computers.
Jobs put together the team that built the Mac and Jobs lead that team, creating a separate part of the company for it. The details of its product development were kept secret from the rest of the company and the public was not informed about it at all. Wozniak remained in the Apple II division, which he pointed out at the time was providing the revenue needed for the Mac division to be able to do its work.
Guys other than Jobs & Woz were writing the software and designing the circuits. Jobs probably had a lot of say-so on what 3rd party hardware was designed in since he has always been concerned about the parts the consumer sees and the user handles.
Apple II and Macintosh were two radically different computer systems. Xerox PARC did not inspire the Apple II computer. They inspired the Lisa & Macintosh computers. Xerox Star called Apple's attention to what could be done. Apple's visit to Xerox changed the course of computing from the 1970's version of personal computers to what they became in the 1980's and beyond.
Jobs departure and return to Apple a decade and a half later made the Mac OS less flimsy by 21st century standards. His introduction of Unix (pre-emptive multitasking, secure authentication/authorization, standardized APIs, a true kernel, and so forth) are what made Apple competitive with Microsoft again.
So Jobs not only spearheaded the creation of Apple's Mac computer - he came back and saved it too. - crispa1970, on 01/24/2009, -0/+1I remember using the commodore 64 in my 7th grade computer class back then. wow i''m old.
- mrBitch, on 01/25/2009, -0/+1You may be right about the OS, but the GUI concepts were still really very important.
Also, it was very much Jef Raskin who really pushed the GUI idea at Apple :
FTA:
" .. It was the brainchild of Jef Raskin, a computer scientist from New York who had joined Apple in 1978 and believed that computers needed to be easier to use.
After seeing the futuristic computer systems used at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center – which used graphics instead of text input, and used a mouse as well as a keyboard – Raskin decided that it was the only way to successfully sell computers to millions of people." - JohnnySoftware, on 10/24/2009, -0/+1With the introduction of Microsoft retail stores and the online store, Microsoft has just become an over-glorified VAR in computer industry parlance.
- RogueGenius, on 01/24/2009, -3/+4The Mac was, is, and will be for the foreseeable future, a vastly superior machine to nearly of comparable size.
- JohnnySoftware, on 10/24/2009, -0/+1Yep, MS-Windows would have wound up looking like Amiga.
- JohnnySoftware, on 10/24/2009, -0/+1IBM did not own the market for long. There was not enough innovation in the original IBM PC hardware to make it protectable intellectual property. IBM tried to rectify this with the heavily patented PS/2 and the PC clone makers rebelled. Since Microsoft had already corralled these independent companies as "partners" who were fully dependent on Microsoft's OS, Microsoft+cloners went their own way.
IBM's PC team also suffered the tragedy of having its top leadership on all on the same small plane - and it crashed, decapitating the group.
IBM apparently was not too worried because they thought they still had Microsoft in their corner, as a collaborator on the OS/2 operating system product. However, Microsoft suddenly pulled out of that and touted its own Windows operating system as the way to go. IBM was caught flat footed.
Today, IBM does not have a mainstream desktop personal computer or PC operating system. The original PC product line and its follow up efforts totally crashed for IBM. They dropped OS/2 and sold off their PC making interests to a Chinese computer company many years ago. Personal desktop computers really only worked out for IBM for most of the 1980's and then it was over for them. -
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