25 years of Macintosh

Dave Winer reminds us that this is the Mac's 25th anniversary year:

On January 24, 1984 a couple thousand people were present at Flint Center in Cupertino at the birth of something with real lasting value, the Macintosh.

[...]
Hard as it is to believe -- that was almost 25 years ago!
http://mac25.org/

My arc with Macintosh is not quite that long... I'm coming up on 20 years myself, with a couple of longish intervals of Windows/PC use:

First Mac purchased - Mac SE, 1989
(Other Macs owned: Macintosh LC, two PowerBooks... plus a couple of Newtons in there somewhere.)

Moved to NYC in 1996 as a Mac user (brought PowerBook with me) and promptly went to work for an all-Windows shop. :-)

Windows/Linux user from 1997-2005, despite an all-too-brief interregnum working in an all-Mac shop in 2000.

2006: After a bad experience with Microsoft Vista, I buy a Macbook for home use.

I liked it. I liked it a lot... and still do.

Most recent Mac purchases: 24" iMac, 2007; MacBook Air, 2008.

(And a couple of iPhones in there somewhere.)

So... from this:


To this:


In 20 years. Not bad.

Jobs pulled the original Mac out of a carrying bag in 1984 and it was a sensation ("never trust a computer you can't lift") - in 2008, he pulled the MacBook Air out of a standard manila interoffice envelope, and that was just the logical conclusion of a lot of advances in technology and engineering since 1984.

I really hope that Apple doesn't introduce the long-rumored tablet Mac at the upcoming MacWorld Expo... Steve Jobs' absence would suggest that AAPL will never again use MacWorld for major product introductions.

I hope they wait for warmer weather to announce general availability of the tablet Mac. I hate standing in line in the cold. (And I'm already on record as stating that I'm buying two of these - one for me and one for her.)

Related: Mactracker is a great walk down memory lane if you're an older Mac owner, or an owner of older Macs if you prefer.

Paul Taylor on netbooks

Something extraordinary has happened in the market for portable PCs over the past year: a new category of devices, tagged variously as ultra mobile PCs (UMPCs), netbooks or mini-notes, has emerged. It was Taiwan-based Asus that launched the new sector when it brought out the first EeePC models and took many of the biggest makers of laptops by surprise in the process.

Unlike UMPCs such as the Samsung Q1 and the OQO Model 01, machines like Asus’s EeePCs and Acer Aspire One are designed for everyday, ordinary use that prizes convenience. Instead of tiny touch-based screens, BlackBerry-style keyboards and sky-high price tags, netbooks look and work like shrunk-down versions of full-featured, full-sized laptops, with traditional if smaller keyboards and bright 8in-10in colour LCD screens.

[...]

Most of the new netbooks are built around low-power Intel Atom microprocessors typically running at 1.6Ghz, come with 512Mb or 1Gb of Ram and either traditional hard drives or flash-memory-based SSDs (solid state drives). They usually support WiFi wireless networking (but not necessarily the fastest 802.11n standard) and come with Ethernet cable ports, and two or three USB ports for connecting peripherals including external hard drives, a mouse and 3G cellular broadband cards. Some have a standard VGA port for connecting a bigger external display or projector, slots for SD (secure digital) flash memory cards and, occasionally, an Express Card expansion slot – useful for plugging in 3G cellular data cards.

FT.com/Columnists/Paul Taylor - Pint-sized laptops grow up

The Wall Street Journal has Walt Mossberg, but the Financial Times is doing just fine for themselves with personal technology columnist Paul Taylor. This is an an excellent primer on the new cheap netbooks, including evaluations of the more popular models.

If I hadn't already shelled out bux for a MacBook Air, I'd be a serious candidate for an MSI Wind running Ubuntu, with one of those 3G wireless modems plugged in... for what I paid for the Air, I could have a 3G broadband always-on-the-net netbook, pay for 2 years of cell data plan, and still come out ahead... 5.5 hours of battery life with the 6-cell battery... sigh. :-)

Related:

• Ubuntu (free for the asking)
• Apple MacBook Air MB003LL/A 13.3 Inch Laptop (1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 2 GB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive) (at Amazon)
• MSI Wind U100-432US 10-Inch Mini Laptop (1.6 GHz Intel Atom, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, 6 Cell Battery, 802.11 b/g/n+BT, XP Home) Black (at Amazon)
  

Macs in suits

Millions of consumers are seeing the Mac in a new light. Once an object of devotion for students and artists, the Mac is becoming the first choice of many. Surging demand for the machines led Apple to predict revenues will rise 33% in the second quarter, to $7.2 billion, even in the face of an economic slowdown.

What's less obvious is that the enthusiasm is starting to spill over into the corporate market. It's a people's revolution, of sorts, with workers increasingly pressing their employers to let them use Macs in the office. In a survey of 250 diverse companies that has yet to be released, the market research firm Yankee Group found that 87% now have at least some Apple computers in their offices, up from 48% two years ago. "There's always been this archipelago of Macintosh use" among graphic artists and advertising managers, says Scott Teissler, chief information officer of Turner Broadcasting System (TWX). "My sense is that CIOs are more willing to see that expand without putting up as much resistance as in the past."

[...]

Mark Slaga, chief information officer of Dimension Data , a large computer services firm based in suburban Johannesburg, says he has received 25 e-mails recently from employees who want permission to use Macs at work. So far he has refused, because he doesn't want to hire people to provide Mac tech support, but "it'll happen someday," he concedes. "Steve Jobs doesn't need a sales force because he already has one: employees like the ones in my company."

BusinessWeek: The Mac In The Grey Flannel Suit (12 May 2008)