The essence of Apple

In August of 2007, it will be twenty-five years since I started using Apple computers.  Since two of the years were at a dealership in Canada and nearly twenty were working for Apple, I have used a lot of Apple computers.  That many years also suggests that I have used a lot of applications that are no longer being sold shrink wrapped. Off and on over the years, I have also used garden variety PCs from a variety of manufacturers and operating systems from DOS and CP/M to Windows XP, Mac OS X and Linux.

Even after my less than friendly departure from Apple, I have continued to use Macs.  The simple answer is that I am more productive using OS X than I am using another operating system. 

Still I have come to believe that there is more to the story than that.  I am a relatively technical person and actually sometimes miss my sidekick PC Windows/Linux box. I sure that if I picked an operating system other than OS X, I could be very productive.  Whether I would ever be as productive as I am on a Mac is arguable.  Yet I don't really think the productivity is the whole story of  what holds me to the Mac.  Certainly it is a welcome benefit.

In a recent post I quoted Whit Andrews, an analyst at Gardner, who said the following in a ComputerWorld article.

What will make or break enterprise use of the upcoming premium Google Apps services, he said, are transparent, predictable service-level agreements for businesses.

"Their service has got to be kind of Apple-class -- you know what you're getting and you know it works," he said. "They need to have a good integration story about everything they've got, which is still building."

That is an interesting thought that perhaps the essence of Apple is that "you know what you're getting and you know it works."  Actually I don't think that is it either.

I think part of what has kept me at Apple is that I did not, even as employee, know what was coming.  Still I could assume that after a few patches and occasionally a repair or two, that the something, which no one thought of before might, actually work and be of use in ways that even Apple couldn't imagine.

Long ago I figured out that Apple was really good at getting technology out the door and that Apple users and developers were exceptionally talented at taking the products where no one dreamed they would go. It turned out as some developers would probably attest as something of a symbiotic relationship.

There are three moments that stand out in my mind.  The first was seeing Steve Jobs demonstrate in Toronto the original Mac by drawing a circle on the screen with a mouse and then moving it.  The second was watching the promo tape of the original Adobe Illustrator package.  The third would have to be the first time I saw iMovie demonstrated.  Those events along with many others through the years had a lot to do with defining the Apple essence to me.

Perhaps if you put a label on what Apple did, you could call it providing a platform for tools that unleashed tremendous individual creativity through the use of computers.  In doing that, Apple drew a certain type of person to the platform. I don't think it is wrong to say that there might be a higher percentage of dreamers among Mac users than among PC users.  The people who came to the platform are a big part of the essence of Apple to me.

There are lots of new people coming to the Mac.  I don't think any of us will ever see the Mac overtaking Windows as the dominant operating system.  I doubt Steve can stay interested in Apple and computers that long.  So it may well be that the essence of Apple is changing even as the people who come to the platform change.

In fact Eric Gruber had this comment to one of my recent posts, "Why I stick with OX instead of going to Linux."

The thing with Apple is, there aren't any more surprises. The OS is so good, it's almost boring. Call me nuts, but I like that Linux and especially Ubuntu is still maturing.

What Eric said got me to thinking that maybe the torch symbolizing the surprise and the dream of better computing tools might be passing to the world of Linux.

Linux has boatloads of challenges just to get where the Mac is on the desktop, but I'm not sure Steve is going to surprise me again in the same way that he did when I saw iMovie for the first time.  Just maybe Linux will.  Look at the interesting changes being tested in user interface as reported in the Businessweek story, "The Face of the $100 Laptop."

Now some will come back and say that Apple's innovation with the iPhone is even more significant.  Yet I would have to disagree since a phone isn't my computing platform of choice.

Maybe I'm from a different generation, and I'm just having a hard time letting go of my laptops and desktops, but doing web work on the best screen real estate that I can afford is enough of a problem.  I'm not that interested in a small screen becoming my computer.

I am seeing lots of innovation on the web, but it's not Apple specific. There are some great new apps for the Mac platform, but I haven't seen anything from Apple in a while that knocks my jaded socks off.

Perhaps NAB will change my mind.  I still want Apple to lead.

 

Comments

[John Muir]

The OLPC is precisely what Linux and the developing world both need and I fully support it. Getting micros to the masses really unleashed the 1980's generation of geeks. Think of how many great developers and every kind of creative minds there are out there beyond the western world who are waiting for a computer to come to their hands and change the equation for all of us? Brilliant stuff.

Meanwhile, I disagree with the idea that Linux on the desktop right now has some edge of dynamism that the Mac does not. I'd really like it to be polished and bullet-proof, and have tried it on and off over the last 8 years personally, but it's never quite there and I'm speaking from the perspective of a reasonably able tech-head. The magic of my first Mac, which was a Jaguar machine, is completely unmatched in my couple of decades of computer experience. This platform is right in so many ways. It has its foibles and idiosyncrasies of course, it's foolish to overlook that, but goodness if I ever found the same comprehensive breadth of feel in a Linux distro someday I'd be fanboying all over that and weighing up which one should be for my desktop and which for the portable.

It's never a good time to try to predict the future in this field. But I think it's safe to say we live in very interesting times. Linux has the long term advantage of being limitlessly open to improvement, and seems to be waiting for its day in the mainstream. Windows needs so massive an overhaul even 21st century Microsoft failed to achieve it, yet it's still the present default platform. And the Mac is in a stunning renaissance as its concept and underlying software is broadened into the phone and I dare say further afield.

Apple aren't going to give up on making computers, don't you worry. If anything, I think what we're about to see is the computer take over the world in the literal sense it never did with IBM, MS and all in the 80's. Keep an eye out for how it all falls together.

[Antonio]

Fabulous post. I especially like this part:

Perhaps if you put a label on what Apple did, you could call it providing a platform for tools that unleashed tremendous individual creativity through the use of computers.

The one thing that I would add is that for a lot of us that grew up on the Apple ][, Apple was also a huge influence in terms of shaping our careers so that we would go out and spend our working lives building the same kinds of platforms and tools. Now that is influence...

[R. Boylin]

What makes Apple special is they have discoved how to enable our intuition in a technical world where our intuition just makes sense. The graphical interface was well researched inside Apple. Their early talent laid the foundation of this "hook" into our subconsious and our "assumptive world".

We "expect" the floor to be flat in our assumptive world. Apple's interface and software expands our assumptive world to the computer experience. Our intuition is validated by the consistent manefestations of features and behaviours. Part of this is the emphasis of the visual vs. the verbal. Our right brain, our creative brain, utilizes the right hemisphere, the visual side vs. the verbal left side.

The graphical user interface is primarily visual. The Mac team "got" that. The Microsoft team has never gotten beyond their "verbal" world of programming and typical it's manefestation in business processes. They promoted the myth of the Mac as a "toy" belittling beyond "business" use just "play". Graphics was unprofitable, unproductive, play activity. Just like "art".

Apple made an art of empowering our intuition and creative talent. It "branded" the "ah-ha!" moment. You can see this in the finger flip scrolling of the iPhone. Apple creates a world that is intuitive as it mimics our assumptive world view, our experience. I expect that Apple's culture can sustain this after Jobs. Poor leadership can turn that around and purge Apple of the talent that sustains that tradition.

[iMovie maven]

iPhone doesn't impress you at all? I admit I'd be more impressed if Apple opened it to third-party developers. Even with Steve Jobs's vision, Apple alone won't always develop or support the unique killer apps that draw people to a given platform. VisiCalc initially proved this; various Aldus and Adobe products later reinforced it. The potential for iPhone won't be fully realized until there's an open SDK. And Microsoft has made clear that they intend to compete in this space, so the come-get-our-permission-first approach really isn't viable long-term either.

That said, if you don't understand the potential of that touch screen interface, maybe you really are too jaded. Imagine a 40-inch iMac with that UI on your desk. No more mouse, and keyboard optional.

[Jay]

John hit it pretty close to the cup. I'll see if I can putt it in. The advantage of Linux is it's Achilles Heel. The kernel goes where Linus wants it to but that's pretty much where the integration stops. Yes, there are plenty of choices of desktops with KDE, Gnome and even a few Nextstep variants but none of them are as seamless as OS X is.

I came to OS X from Linux and as much as I like the concept of an open system, I also know that for day-to-day desktop use Linux just isn't there.

OS X has one thing going for it and that's it's tight integration of Aqua, Darwin and the Mach kernel. You can only do that if you own all of the OS components end-to-end.

Windows does the end-to-end thing as well but suffers from it's need to be both backwards compatible and being able to run on Aunt Fanny's Taiwanese beige box. I'm certain if Microsoft said "stuff backwards compatibility" and controlled hardware much more tightly much like Apple has they'd be able to innovate too.

Linux's big opportunity is in the third world where the value proposition is more favorable to a "free" OS. If it takes off there in a big way Microsoft has lots to worry about. Apple, not so much since they are and always will be a niche player in markets with money to burn.