As the Mac turns 40, it’s never been more successful — or more irrelevant to Apple’s bottom line. It’s undergone massive changes in the past few years that ensure its survival but also lash it to a hardware design process dominated by the iPhone. Being middle-aged can be complicated.
"The Mac is the foundation of Apple…and today 40 years later it remains a critical part of our business that we continue to invest in. Through all of its changes and evolutions over the years, we couldn’t be more proud to say that the Mac is more popular and relevant than ever. The pace of innovation with Mac has also been nothing short of incredible. Since the introduction of Apple silicon for Mac in 2020, we’ve introduced 11 new M-series chips and 15 new Mac devices to our lineup. Apple silicon changed everything — from performance and battery life to the look and feel of every Mac. And the feedback we’re getting from both long-term users and new to Mac customers has been unanimously positive. It’s exciting to see more people switching to Mac than ever before. The Mac will always be part of Apple. It’s a product that runs deep within the company, and defines who we are."
Before I started writing my piece on the Mac’s 40th anniversary for The Verge, I was thinking of different ways to plot out the arc of the Mac’s history. I ended up going with the fact that the Mac has been the underdog for most of its existence, but I also considered plotting the Mac’s history as defined by the Mac’s four distinct processor eras.
But if all the first Mac inspires is nostalgia, we’ve lost sight of how daring it was. Unlike Apple’s first blockbuster PC, the Apple II, it had a built-in display but no integrated keyboard. It also sacrificed most of the Apple II’s defining features, such as its dazzling color graphics and expansion slots.
In retrospect, it’s among the gutsiest gambits Apple ever made. Imagine the company introducing a new smartphone that has virtually nothing in common with the iPhone. You can’t—or at least it strains my imagination.
What better way to mark the 40th anniversary of the Macintosh introduction than by sharing your Mac memories with the Steve Jobs Archive? The Archive is asking Mac users to answer one question: What did the Mac make possible for you?
Mysk highlighted how certain iOS apps exploit a feature introduced in iOS 10 that is designed to allow apps to customize push notifications. This feature, initially intended to enable apps to enrich notifications with additional content or decrypt encrypted messages, has seemingly been repurposed by some developers for more secretive activities. According to Mysk's findings, various popular applications, including TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Bing, are using the short background execution time granted for notification customization to send analytics information.
“Swoop” showcases the durability of the device’s Ceramic Shield through a uniquely-Australian tale of an office worker attempting to escape an oncoming magpie.
The first thing that drew me to Amie was that it’s set up to be a combination of a task list and a calendar. You have lists of tasks in the left sidebar, and you then drag tasks into the calendar to give them a time slot. Each calendar event is like its own task, too, and you can check them off as you go through your day. A lot of smart productivity people will tell you that time blocking is the best strategy for being productive and that the best way to make sure you get something done is to put it on your calendar. Amie incentivizes good behavior on that front, and I like having a view of my time and my tasks right next to each other.
To better understand how an Apple face computer may (or may not) fit into our lives in the future, it’s worth taking this moment to look back at the many face computers I’ve worn that set the scene for the Vision Pro.
Nevertheless, Apple’s boss would be unwise to dismiss the new year’s niggles. For they point to larger challenges for the company. These fall into three broad categories: antitrust and legal issues; slowing iPhone sales; and growing geopolitical tensions. None of these is existential right now. But each carries with it a risk of causing a big upset.
I'm lucky that I've owned (at least) a Mac in each of the four eras. The first Mac I've bought come with a television tuner and I can watch over-the-air television, and the latest Mac I've bought come with Apple TV and I can watch all sorts of television.
(If you really want to know, they are Quarda 630 and MacBook Air M2 respectively.)
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Thanks for reading.