Steve Jobs' most revolutionary Apple products
by ZDNet Author | October 6, 2011 9:00am PDT | Image 1 of 11
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After a few somewhat esoteric systems (such as the Apple I, which lacked a keyboard, monitor, or case), Apple really hit its stride with the Apple IIe. The "e" stood for enhanced, as this was an improved version of the original Apple II, adding such useful features as the capability to display lower-case letters.
Anyone going through grade school in the United States in the early 1980s likely had a room full of Apple IIe computers tucked away somewhere in the school building, and for an entire generation of tech fans, it was their first introduction to a computer.
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He may rest in peace! But it is not like everything apple has made so far is his inventions apple is a big company with a lot of engineers these kind of articles ...hmm how do you say seems kind of stealing other people's efforts to me of course not by Jobs but by writers and his fans!
I still think that you should have shown the original iMac G3. Even though it looks a little dated now, it was literally the computer that saved Apple from financial ruin, that it was dangerously close to in 1997/1998.
The original Macintosh changed the world forever. The single most important innovation that brought us all modern operating systems..... Thanks Steve... else we would still be doing command line interface using some version of DOS, we would still have separate printer and other drivers for every program, not to mention fonts, we would still have programs like Word Perfect, Wordstar, and Lotus (and others) that required a college course to operate, and came with a shelf full of books. Menus would all look different, and esoteric text commands required to access their capabilities. Windows came along as a COPY CAT operating system even down to using all the same shortcut keys. Remember main, expanded, and extended memory? Apple came with a memory addressing system that WORKED, multitasking, and networking that was easy. Everything else stemmed from this original OS and the innovations that went with it. Apple settled on the 3.5" floppy disk long before PCs adopted it, and dropped it for the CD long before anybody else dropped it. They provided vastly superior display technology long before anybody else did (MacII)
MP3 music players are great.... but hardly a hugely innovative product, and the Ipod while the best of the bunch did not really stand out until the Ipod touch which ultimately changed the world again with it's elegant touch interface that gravitated to the Iphone and Ipad, again changing the way we interface with computers. Those of us who own these products find ourselves reaching out with fingers trying to manipulate our desktops, and looking around in embarrassment hoping nobody was watching...... Things will never be the same.... who would buy a computer now that didn't respond to the touch of your finger on the screen?
The future is in human / computer interface. It is in new ways to interact smoothly with them, to enter data without keyboards (or voice), and to view the images they create without having any kind of "screen" at all. The real estate that my 5 27" monitors take up is unconscionable ......... what lies ahead? I can vaguely see the form...but not the detail. Without Steve out there, it may be far longer in coming. Thanks Steve. If St Peter needs a character reference, use my name. I will attest that you were and are a character. I'm happy to have lived my life in the same time frame as yours. It's been a great ride!!
Howard Wilkinson
MP3 music players are great.... but hardly a hugely innovative product, and the Ipod while the best of the bunch did not really stand out until the Ipod touch which ultimately changed the world again with it's elegant touch interface that gravitated to the Iphone and Ipad, again changing the way we interface with computers. Those of us who own these products find ourselves reaching out with fingers trying to manipulate our desktops, and looking around in embarrassment hoping nobody was watching...... Things will never be the same.... who would buy a computer now that didn't respond to the touch of your finger on the screen?
The future is in human / computer interface. It is in new ways to interact smoothly with them, to enter data without keyboards (or voice), and to view the images they create without having any kind of "screen" at all. The real estate that my 5 27" monitors take up is unconscionable ......... what lies ahead? I can vaguely see the form...but not the detail. Without Steve out there, it may be far longer in coming. Thanks Steve. If St Peter needs a character reference, use my name. I will attest that you were and are a character. I'm happy to have lived my life in the same time frame as yours. It's been a great ride!!
Howard Wilkinson
"Appleworks" on my IIe with a hard drive let me crunch numbers all day. The AppleII was one well designed package. Jobs' belief that semiconductors could lead the Mac was a calculated, clever, strategy that paid off in design knowledge. DOS was stuck in it's compatibility trap. Steve jobs really did provide us "insanely great" products. Our economy doesn't usually deliver that. It is too risk averse.
I think as time goes on, Steve Jobs' products and he will get more appreciated because Apple will become risk averse, behave conservatively like every mature corporation, and innovation will disappear in favor of the most profitable, lowest risk, product strategy. Just watch who leaves Apple from now on.
I think as time goes on, Steve Jobs' products and he will get more appreciated because Apple will become risk averse, behave conservatively like every mature corporation, and innovation will disappear in favor of the most profitable, lowest risk, product strategy. Just watch who leaves Apple from now on.
Napster et al didn't wet anyone's appetite, it illustrated to the clueless music industry that there was still a market for single songs. People don't want to buy an already overpriced cd only to find that they only like one song.
It was never about stealing or downloading.
It was never about stealing or downloading.
"What set the Macintosh apart was i's groundbreaking graphical user interface (some of us are old enough to remember having to use a command-line interface) and mouse--both of which were untested ideas at the time."
It is not exactly exact. The 1979 Star system from Xerox had it (and ethernet local network with server and multiple workstations etc.) but each system was so costly and so innovative nobody bought it (and Xerox commercial people did not understand what Palo Alto Xerox engineers had done). Macintosh is the first usable personal computer without the black screen and "syntax error" displayed on it.
It is not exactly exact. The 1979 Star system from Xerox had it (and ethernet local network with server and multiple workstations etc.) but each system was so costly and so innovative nobody bought it (and Xerox commercial people did not understand what Palo Alto Xerox engineers had done). Macintosh is the first usable personal computer without the black screen and "syntax error" displayed on it.
Another product was the Newton. it was 15 years ahead of its time, and was the fore runner to the PDA.
I agree. The newton should have been included in the above list. Pity the hadnwritng recgointion never worked.
@chris@... That wasn't one of Steve's products. Apple did this while Steve was at NeXT Inc.
Got an Apple II+ in 1980 ... woke me up to a whole new world.
- Keep thinking : what would Einstein, or Pascal , or DaVinci have accomplished if they had this incredible new tool ?
Grateful for Jobs & Woz for the power they gave all of us.
- Keep thinking : what would Einstein, or Pascal , or DaVinci have accomplished if they had this incredible new tool ?
Grateful for Jobs & Woz for the power they gave all of us.
Didnt Steve Jobs buy the O/s from Xerox? He didnt invent it... Apple is a cool company, but give me a break.... They will fold in 3 years ...
@drayphly No, the Lisa's OS and the Mac OS were created at Apple, inspired by ideas Steve had seen at Xerox PARC - a lot of Apple's engineers joined after Steve's visit.
Steve never "invented" anything, people working under Steve did the "inventing". Steve was more akin to a Football Manager than a star player. Steve could recognise great talent, he could attract great talent. Steve had taste, and could motivate like nobody else. Products that were created by people working for Steve were just better than other offerings.
Mac OS X owes much to NeXTSTEP, itself created at Steve's NeXT Inc. which Apple acquired (bringing Steve back to Apple).
RIP Steve.
Steve never "invented" anything, people working under Steve did the "inventing". Steve was more akin to a Football Manager than a star player. Steve could recognise great talent, he could attract great talent. Steve had taste, and could motivate like nobody else. Products that were created by people working for Steve were just better than other offerings.
Mac OS X owes much to NeXTSTEP, itself created at Steve's NeXT Inc. which Apple acquired (bringing Steve back to Apple).
RIP Steve.
Steve's genius was in removing the complexity of technology so the non-geeks who walk among us could partake of a digital world many did not know. Many of us who admit to being geeks were infuriated at the loss of our command line (I know I was in 1984 when I saw my first Mac). But many of us were seduced by the elegance of Steve's work in the man-machine interface.
Thank you, Steve, for providing "computing appliances" that "just worked" and raising our expectations for technology delivery. The world indeed will never be the same because of you. You opened the door to a digital universe that anyone and everyone could join.
Thank you, Steve, for providing "computing appliances" that "just worked" and raising our expectations for technology delivery. The world indeed will never be the same because of you. You opened the door to a digital universe that anyone and everyone could join.
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