Apple Consistently Makes a Difference

As I write this, it just a few hours after the election victory of Barack Obama, one of the most significant events in modern American history. Consequently anything I write feels somewhat trivial and insignificant. And I can't imagine reading Apple Matters will be on anyone's list of things to do this day. So for the the two or three who do turn up, here's some thoughts on where Apple has made its own mark in history.

Looking for significant events in technology history of the last thirty years, it is interesting how often Apple has been there, and how often Apple has changed the course of technology.

Here's a few to think about.

Personal computer
It is surprising when you look back at Apple ]['s marketshare, because it wasn't anywhere near as high as it seemed or we like to remember.

But as PC World wrote a couple of years ago when it rated it the greatest computer of all time: "The Apple ][ wasn't the first personal computer, or the most advanced one, or even the best-selling model of its age. But in many ways it was The Machine That Changed Everything. On all four of our criteria--Innovation, Impact, Industrial Design, and Intangibles--it was such a huge winner that it ended up as our Greatest PC of All Time."

Also significant was its huge success in education, where many of us first experienced these new wonder devices: "micro computers" (later to be called personal computers).

As Apple likes to say, "the Apple ][ ignited the personal computer revolution". With its high presence in education and design, that's not far from the truth. It certainly helped define the early years of computing.

Graphical User Interface
Early personal computers, even the Apple ][, were burdened with a text and command-line based interface. Most people found them a long way short of "personal".

Apple changed all that with the introduction of the Mac in 1984. It wasn't the first computer with a mouse and GUI, but it was a computer that was intensely personal. The famous Mac smiley face, the pleasant start sound, it's compactness and portability and so on gave it that personal feel. It almost had the sense of being a friend - as well as redefining the way we'd interface with computers.

Laptop computer
Laptops until the PowerBook were looking for a design direction. The PowerBook came to define design expectations of laptops, a design which is still the norm today. According to the same PC World article, the first of the PowerBooks,  PowerBook 100, was the tenth most significant computer of all time, noting how it's positioning of the keyboard and introduction of the trackpad finally realized the ideal design for laptop computers.

Handheld computer
Apple's Newton did much to take the handheld computers from the super calculators of HP, Sharp, Texas Instruments and so on, into the age of the personal digital assistant (PDA). Despite early issues, such as poor handwriting recognition, it introduced the world to the PDA and was the first pen based PDA - a form of input that wouldn't be seriously challenged until Apple's own iPhone.

Portable media player
iPod. Enough said. Okay, I'll say a bit more in case someone hasn't heard of the iPod...

The portable music player (PMP) market (and later the portable media player market) had been chugging along quite nicely, in fact it had so done going right back through Walkman's to the transistor radios of the early '60s.

The latest version, based on tiny hard drives, were doing nicely and everyone seemed happy enough.

But then Apple bought its touch to PMPs and suddenly Apple's way seemed the only way most of us wanted to interface with our PMPs, so much so the iPod grabbed a Microsoft-esque share of the PMP market.

Ever since, every PMP has been measured against the iPod.

Computer phone
Look, I'll say it now, I hate the term "smartphone" as a label for the iPhone (and other genuine challengers to it). It's like calling the SS Enterprise "transport". It so ineptly describes it capabilities. After all,  in "smart" terms, it is an insanely smart phone. It is a computer.

Smartphones have been around for a while now, and before iPhone were found very little outside of corporate environs. RIM's Blackberry changed that somewhat, with its excellent email capabilites meaning it found some fans in the wider community. Others did try to make handheld-meets-phone but, relative to the potential market, with insignificant success.

Apple steps up to the plate, hits a home run, and suddenly - just as "iPod" has become synonymous for portable media players - "iPhone" is already headed the same way, having become the ubiquitus smartphone, and the one that all others are measured against and attempt to emulate.

The iPhone has totally redefined what we expect of handheld computing and set it on a new course.

On many occasions in the last 30 years, with or without Steve Jobs, Apple has looked at the state of technology and, on wondering if it could make a difference, found time after time that it could.

(BTW - Well done America)