The Mac is 40 years old. However, January 24, 1984 did not have the effect of an earthquake in the computer world comparable to that of the iPhone, as Steve Jobs revealed 23 years later, on January 9, 2007. But Apple still dropped quite a bombshell.
“We are committed to our vision and would rather do this than imitate other products on the market,” Apple’s big boss, Jobs, said at the time. “Let the other companies do it. »
This statement did not fall on deaf ears. Less than two years later, in November 1985, Microsoft launched the first version of the Windows operating system under the leadership of Bill Gates, to whom Jobs had introduced the Mac the year before its release.
Windows, as the name suggests, presented software on the PC screen in the form of windows stacked on top of each other. It was a graphics layer added to MS-DOS, the computer system that launched Microsoft, that only worked with text entered from a keyboard. Windows needed a mouse to work.
The computer industry owes all of this to the Mac. The Macintosh became a disruptive force thanks to its own graphical interface and mouse. Apple has made the personal computer more accessible and intuitive. At least in theory. The first Macintosh wasn't particularly affordable. Its interface suffered from numerous limitations. The software was sparse and full of bugs. His monitor was tiny and monochrome.
But it fit into a single all-in-one device and could be quickly installed on the desk. Even if it was a bit cumbersome, the Mac already embodied the maxim often espoused by Apple: “It just works.” » Meaning: It works, that's all.
This rivalry and imitation between Apple and Microsoft fueled decades of innovation and shaped the PC market as we know it today. It was beneficial for both of them. Especially on the other hand, so much so that in 1997, when Apple was flirting with bankruptcy, Microsoft decided to invest 150 million in its rival from Cupertino. This also ended a legal dispute that could have ended badly for Bill Gates' empire.
Shadow heroes
The Mac was therefore an advance that led the entire industry, including Microsoft, to introduce and develop graphical user interfaces and to accept the mouse as an essential computing device. In all this, History remembers the crucial role of Steve Jobs, the co-founder and then CEO of Apple.
In fact, his main contribution was to insist on the use of a mouse, and again a single-button mouse. The Macintosh was the work of engineers led by Jef Raskin, who developed the Mac OS software, and Steve Wozniak, aka Woz, who designed Apple's first personal computers. Like two sides of the same coin, it is often said that Woz was the innovator and Jobs was the marketer.
The Mac mouse, in turn, was the simplest version of a human-machine interface that had occupied computer researchers at Stanford University in California since the 1960s. Someone other than Steve Jobs – for example, the mouse's actual inventor, engineer Douglas Engelbart – might have opted for a mouse with five buttons, one per finger, with extensions for the feet, a la like an organ.
But not jobs. He undoubtedly believed that a ring road that was as reduced as possible would attract a larger audience. History proved him right. This persistence in forcing its customers to have a simple and unique way of interacting with its devices still sets Apple apart from its competitors today. This is also what angers his critics the most.
Think differently
The other key to the Mac's success is marketing. The commercial that aired during Super Bowl XVIII and introduced the Macintosh to millions of American consumers is now seen in every good marketing course.
The Sir Ridley Scott-directed clip, titled 1984, is inspired by George Orwell's novel of the same name. It presents a dystopian world in which a big brother (IBM, disguised as Big Brother) dominates society. The heroine runs towards a huge screen with a hammer and smashes it. This symbolizes Apple's mission to save humanity from the future reign of monotonous and oppressive technology.
In a time when computer advertising was monotonous and full of technical terms, 1984 broke new ground. The Macintosh was introduced. Apple rode the Mac's popularity for more than a decade, but almost did not survive Jobs' departure in 1985.
In fact, it wasn't until Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 that the Mac was reborn. A year later, Apple introduced the iMac, which revived the brand with a different all-in-one design and, above all, bright colors. “It works, that’s all” became “Think different”, syntax errors included. New success for Jobs, who then established himself as an uncompromising leader and champion of details to the point of obsession, a reputation that was strengthened three years later with the introduction of the iPod, the musical ancestor of the iPhone, and the advent of mobility. The iPhone would then convince Google to buy a small open source mobile system called Android to create its own mobile platform.
The iPod, a digital music player with a 2-inch diagonal monochrome screen whose main quality was its ability to store the equivalent of 1000 MP3 music files, enjoyed enormous popularity largely thanks to a recipe similar to that of the first Mac Success: its feel The scroll wheel added an innovative interface to an already existing type of device, but one that was a little more complicated than what the general public was looking for.
Back then it was a real revolution to walk around with 1000 songs in your pocket. It is a digital revolution, the first in a long series. In fact, a series that we don't know how it would have happened if the Mac had not seen the light of day 40 years ago.