Monthly Archives: January 2014

On January 24th, 2014, Apple celebrated the birth of the Macintosh exactly 30 years ago. On January 24th, 1984, Apple introduced the Macintosh computer, the first mass-produced computer on the market with a Graphical User Interface or what we call today as the desktop. However, the introduction of the Macintosh was more than that. This computer opened up worlds of possibility for people around the world. This computer opened up the possibilities of the next 30 years. The Macintosh, even today, is constantly changing. The Macintosh, of course, doesn’t survive in it’s original form today. With the rise of the internet and introduction of much faster and much better internal parts, the Mac gets better and better.

What does it mean for a computer to be a Macintosh? It means to be creative, it means to have the ability to do what only professionals were able to do, right in your own home. On a video posted on Apple’s website celebrating the Mac, one lady explained in perfectly. The Mac is the “democratization of creativity”. She is absolutely right. The Mac, whether in it’s creation in 1984, or in it’s space-proofing with the Mac Pro in 2013, it has been a tool of creativity and a tool of connection between us and the world. The Mac today is used in so many more different ways than the original Macintosh. It has evolved into a do-everything machine, from video calls, to watching or creating video, to listening to or creating music to many more things that people use a Mac for. It is the computer for the rest of us, the computer to bring creativity to the rest of us. To make it simple to do extraordinary tasks. Apple didn’t want us living in “1984”. IBM was turning people into mindless zombies with their IBM-PCs, sure to dominate the world with boring, do-nothing computers. Today, the modern version of that fight continues, now with the Mac lineup vs Windows PCs. The ease of creation vs the difficulty to turn on. To me, the Macintosh represents an idea. It represents incredible creative abilities from any person, it again democratizes creativity. It allows the average Joe to submerge in content and create it too. 

The Mac has come a long way in 30 years. From the original Mac, to the Portable Macintosh, to the PowerBook lineup, to the iMac. Throughout it’s many varieties, it has come to change the computing industry forever. With Windows copying many of Macs features, Windows users can get a taste of Mac in their computers. Of course, it would be a whole lot better for them to get the whole enchilada. Nothing beats a Mac! Redmond, you started your photocopiers but you never did get it quite right. May the Mac live long another 30 years! Who knows what we will see then?! I know I can’t wait to find out!

Check out below for some Macintosh related videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyB7dYexozc

http://www.apple.com/30-years/

Thanks for reading,

Joe

On Friday the 17th, a deal that China Mobile recently made with Apple went into full effect.  Apple products such as the iPhone 5S and 5C are newly available to their 760 million subscribers on January 17th from stores in China belonging to both companies, but pre-ordering has already started, since December 25th of last year.  Fortunately, Apple was able to get a commitment from the company to build out its 4G network- otherwise, it would have been necessary to make a version of the iPhone compatible with the Chinese homemade 3G service.

China Mobile benefitted from the agreement because, along with the iPhone, China now has 4G service in 16 major cities, including Beijing and Shanghai; this, in addition to the new devices, will attract more customers.  However, Apple got the most out of the deal, finally able to get more customers from the largest telecommunications company in China- and in the world.  Before, it only had contracts with China Unicom and China Telecom, smaller companies that together only made up 35% of the wireless subscriber base in China.  Also, cheaper smartphones rivals such as Samsung have caused a drop in demand for Apple products, so the new availability that comes with the deal (along with the 4G) is likely to begin reversing that.  It looks like China, too, is catching the Apple bug.

-Erin