The Mac is 40 years old. However, January 24, 1984 did not have the effect in the computer world of an earthquake comparable to that of the iPhone, also revealed by Steve Jobs, 23 years later, on January 9, 2007. But Apple had still dropped quite a bomb.
“We are banking on our vision and we prefer to do that rather than imitating other products on the market,” Jobs, the big boss of Apple, declared at the time. “Let the other companies do that. »
This statement did not fall on deaf ears. Not quite two years later, in November 1985, Microsoft, led by Bill Gates to whom Jobs had introduced the Mac in the year before its release, launched the first version of the Windows operating system.
Windows, as its name suggests, presented software on the PC screen in the form of windows that stacked on top of each other. It was a graphics layer added to MS-DOS, the computer system that launched Microsoft, and which operated only from text typed on a keyboard. Windows needed a mouse to work.
The computer industry owes all of this to the Mac. The Macintosh emerged as a disruptive force thanks to its own graphical interface and mouse. Apple has made the personal computer more accessible and intuitive. In theory, at least. The first Macintosh wasn’t particularly affordable. Its interface suffered from numerous limitations. Its software was few and riddled with bugs. Its monitor was tiny and monochrome.
But it fit into a single all-in-one device and could be quickly installed on a desk. Even if it was a little clumsy, the Mac already embodied at the time the maxim frequently put forward by Apple: “ It just works. » Meaning: it works, that’s all.
This rivalry and emulation between Apple and Microsoft fueled decades of innovation, shaping the PC market as we know it today. It was beneficial to both. Especially to the other, in fact, so much so that in 1997, when Apple was flirting with bankruptcy, Microsoft decided to invest 150 million in its Cupertino rival. This also put an end to a legal battle that could have ended badly for Bill Gates’ empire.
Shadow heroes
The Mac, therefore, was a leap forward that pushed the entire industry, including Microsoft, to adopt and develop graphical interfaces and embrace the mouse as an essential computing device. In all of this, History remembers the pivotal role of Steve Jobs, co-founder, then CEO of Apple.
In fact, his main contribution was to insist on the use of a mouse, and, again, a mouse with only one button. The Macintosh was the work of engineers led by Jef Raskin, who developed the Mac OS software, and Steve Wozniak, alias Woz, who designed Apple’s first personal computers. As with two sides of the same coin, it is often said that Woz was the innovator while Jobs was the marketer.
The Mac mouse, for its part, was the simplest version of a man-machine interface that had been bothering computer researchers at Stanford University in California since the 1960s. Someone other than Steve Jobs—for example, the real inventor of the mouse, 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 as stripped down as possible would attract a larger audience. History has proven him right. Even today, this stubbornness in imposing on its customers a simple and unique way of interacting with its devices is what sets Apple apart from its rivals. This is also what annoys his detractors the most.
Think different
The other key to the Mac’s success is marketing. Aired during Super Bowl XVIII, the advertising clip that introduced the Macintosh to millions of American consumers is today viewed in any good marketing 101 course.
Directed by Sir Ridley Scott, the clip, titled 1984, is inspired by the novel of the same name by George Orwell. It presents a dystopian world where a big brother (IBM, disguised as Big Brother) dominates society. The heroine, wielding a hammer, runs towards a giant screen and smashes it, symbolizing Apple’s mission to save humanity from future domination by monotonous and oppressive technology.
At a time when computer advertising was monotonous and full of technical terms, 1984 broke the mold. The Macintosh was launched. Apple was able to ride the wave of popularity of its Mac for more than a decade, but almost did not survive Jobs’ departure in 1985.
In fact, it took Steve Jobs’ return to Apple in 1997 to see the Mac reborn. A year later, Apple introduced the iMac, which revitalized the brand with a different all-in-one design and, above all, bright colors. “It just works” became “Think different” (“Think different”) Think different “), including syntax error. New success for Jobs, who then established himself as an uncompromising leader and a stickler for details to the point of obsession, a reputation reinforced three years later with the launch of the iPod, the musical ancestor of the iPhone and the emergence of mobility. The iPhone would then convince Google to buy a small mobile system open source 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 to be able to contain the equivalent of 1000 MP3 music files, enjoyed enormous success mainly thanks to a recipe similar to that of the first Mac: its tactile scroll wheel added an innovative interface to a type of device that already existed, but was a little more complicated than what the general public was looking for.
At the time, walking around with 1000 songs in your pocket was quite a revolution. A digital revolution, it should be noted, the first in a long series. A series, in fact, that we don’t know how it would have happened if the Mac hadn’t seen the light of day 40 years ago.