Piece on Silicon.com

I wrote this article not as one of those zealous Apple evangelistas but as someone interested in maximising the potential of IT. Over the years I have had a much better relationship with Microsoft the company than I have with Apple. Microsoft’s innovations may not have been as profound as Apple’s but it has been able to make real innovation available to hundreds of millions of people – an equally worthy task. The title proposed was ‘Taking a bite out of the Apple’ (Genesis allusion) but the final title works fine.

References

‘Apple of my eye’ Richard Dawkins, Guardian, January 26, 2004. The appearance of the Mac 20 years ago wasn’t an evolutionary advance, it was a macro-mutational leap. Argues that the the availability of user-friendly routines in the ROM Toolbox, and Apple’s well-written guidelines for how to design user-friendly programs, were key to the quality of MacOS applications.
‘What will become of Apple in the next 20 years?’ Dan Farber, Anchordesk, Jan. 23, 2004
‘It’s a miracle that it sold anything at all. It was not a rational buy.’ Jack Schofield, Guardian Online, January 15, 2004. History of GUIs before and after Apple, noting those that were better.
‘The 20 Macs That Mattered Most’ Wired News, Jan. 09, 2004.
‘Apple’s Unlikely Guardian Angel’ Wired News, Jan. 08, 2004
‘Apple unveils smaller iPod, new software’ ZDNet, January 6, 2004. See section ‘Transformation, 20 years later’: a good commentary on history of Mac GUI and current challenges.