Apple Ignores The Anniversary
Sometimes (ok, more often than not!) I just don�t understand Apple. It�s the 20th anniversary of the birth of the most important product line to come out of Apple, the Macintosh, and all we hear from Apple is deafening silence.
No mention of the anniversary on the home page, nothing in the hot news section�nothing. For a moment there was a link to the 1984 ad with the iPod added that Steve Jobs showed at MacWorld 2004 in San Francisco.
We are talking about the anniversary of a product that changed the way we work with computers. It�s not just about the Mac, it�s about Windows too, and it is about the way we all work. Apple has missed an opportunity to tout its incredible achievement of keeping a technology product alive and relevant for 20 years.
The weirdest thing is that if you look at Macworld last month the best history of Apple came from Microsoft! They had an amazing display of the history of the Mac (with of course, Microsoft products installed). It is a shame when Apple�s history is left to be told by Microsoft.
I�m not expecting an anniversary Mac, although that would be nice. I just want some recognition, and celebration out of Cupertino.
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I think that Apple’s got too much pride and marketing smarts to just let this event go by completely unnoticed. I’m hoping that they are silent only because they are waiting for this weekend’s SuperBowl to make a splash as big as they did 20 years ago with the original Mac announcement. I’m really hoping they have something more jaw-dropping than the highly publicized iTunes/Pepsi promo. I’m really hoping it’ll be an advertisement/announcement that will freeze me in my tracks as their announcement did 20 years ago. I’m really hoping I won’t be disappointed!
I think you were not looking. Steve Jobs spent a considerabel amount of precious keynote time on the anniversary, Apple rebuilt the 1984 commercial, showed it there, and has it posted to their site. Steve specifically announced that a variety of products would emerge during the anniversary year. And, Jobs (and others upstairs in Apple) have been hugely more accessible to the press over this month than at any other time in recent history… all in the name of the anniversary.
Where have you been?
Tell you what… If December 31st comes and goes without having seen a number of terrific new products released, surrounded in a swirling PR buzz of “anniversary,” then I will grumble right along wiht everyone else. Frankly, I would rather see unrushed, well-crafted products released when they are ready… and spread out over the year, than to be hit between the eyes with some dramtic, fancy something on the 1st week of January.
I’m willing to give Jobs & Crew the time to deliver on that “anniversary year” promise.
I understand the time spent preaching to the choir about the 20th anniversary of Macintosh. But, the only people that know about the keynote—or saw the retouched ad—are all people that are already part of Macintosh faithful. However, I think this is a time to honor and recognize and celebrate the longevity of Macintosh. I’m not saying this has to be a special Mac machine with a flashy paint job, chrome trim and leather wrapped mouse—but I do think that this is the ideal opportunity for Apple to brag about the success of Macintosh. (They have the rest of the year to be proud of their other successes and build towards the future of all of its products.)
yeah, what up with no anniversary anything? Steve Jobs himself pioneered the Macintosh all-in-one and its OS, quite separate from Apple’s other products at the time. He formed an entirely separate Macintosh team to specifically design and develop it - in a sense making a company within the company.
It was such a watershed event - and zero recognition by the man who started it. Maybe Jobs has chilled out and no longer wants to beep his own horn?
An iPod in the 1984 commercial says nothing about a mouse and a window-based gui. It says more about evolution of music players than it does about paradigm shifting technology.
And what is on Apple.com right now? Pepsi bottles. An absolute design rip-off of the Matrix Revolutions’ Agent Smith posters.
I am, and many others I know, are simply appalled by Apple at the non-existent honoring of history. A simple Apple Hot News article would have been enough.
I think Apple is not the kind of company to look backwards. The only way for them to survive is to innovate always faster than the competition…so no looking back!
If you have a wife who you want to stay happily married to you, Vincent, I hope you don’t ignore your wedding anniversary!
Celebrating the past 20 years of innovations and accomplishments does not negate the innovations and accomplishments of the future. It inspires a desire for another 20 years thereof.
Educating the general public about how the innovations of the Mac made the computer a usable “appliance” coupled with a “this is what we’ve done for you in the past, so imagine what we’ll do for you in the future!” is vitally important.
Right now, more people think of how the Mac changed the face of Super-bowl advertising than how it literally changed the face of computing.
How many PC users do you know that are truly aware they would never have been able to surf, shop, and game on the Internet and instantly communicate face-to-face with their loved ones thousands of miles away if it weren’t for the Mac—the Mac that debuted in 1984 as well as the Macs since then?
I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of seeing Micro$oft commercials touting *their* so-called innovations—“we create software so you can reach your potential”—crud.
The 20th anniversary is a golden opportunity for Apple to publicize the why-you-need-Apple-NOW factor.
Just one inexpensive but cleverly focused ad about how many viruses and worms have proliferated on PCs vs. Macs in the last 20 years, played over and over and over and over…ad infinitum… would work wonders in the mind’s eye of the public, and for Apple’s bottom line.
No, celebrating the past and living in the past are 2 very different things. I expect Apple to celebrate the past and continue innovating in the present and long into the future. Publicizing the 20th anniversary is one very important way to make sure that happens.
Hello Smiley,
I agree with your MS vs Mac views (although I am sure that if Apple starts claiming there are no viruses on OSX then you will start seeing them arriving quickly…so we better not say anything!).
Then there is the point of celebration. Ok, Apple could celebrate, that will not do any arm but the question is…will it be efficient? Will it help?
Oh, I don’t feel OS X is invincible, but considering that the FBI has problems just extracting information off of a hard drive with OS X (they send them up to the Mounties in Canada), it’s evidently not very easy to do so. If anyone wrote a virus for OS X, they’d just have to poll the RCMP to find out who did it! :O)
As to the question of efficiency or will it help? I ask: Would it hurt to celebrate? I say, all things in moderation.
When NPR’s Talk of the Nation did it’s 1/2 hour coverage of the 20th anniversary, it would have been nice to have at least had an Apple VIP interviewed. Instead, we had to listen to Lance Ulanoff and Jef Raskin. Thank goodness at least Stephen Levy was there. Definitely an advocate, but not an official representative of Apple Computer, inc.