In 1998, the typical Mac was a large beige desktop, or a black PowerBook. Simple, conservative, powerful. In those days the PowerPC roasted Intel Pentiums for lunch. It took years for the PowerPC’s reign as the fastest PC processor to end.
In May of that year, Steve Jobs announced a revolution in personal computing — with an emphasis on simple Internet access — the iMac. It didn’t ship until August of that year, but I already had one in my home. As a member of Apple’s Customer Quality Feedback program, I was beta testing the original Bondi Blue iMac. It would go on sale for $1,299, but my Apple contact told me I could keep it if it survived a final firmware update.
I wasn’t surprised to see it didn’t, and thus I sent it back for, they told me, proper disposal. But armed with that experience, and with Apple’s approval, I wrote an article about iMac for a Phoenix newspaper, which included an interview with none other than Jonathan Ive.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
- Newsletter Issue #1044 — Apple, 1998, and a Beta Test Being a loyal Mac user in 1998 wasn’t such a great place to be for many of us. Although co-founder Steve Jobs was doing a lot…
- Newsletter Issue #1025: So Apple Isn't Warm and Fuzzy For many, Apple is the counter-culture company, or one of the remaining firms to fit into that category. No doubt that feeling revolves around the two…
- Newsletter Issue #1024: Sorry, Folks, But the… Let me put this in perspective: While I have had Mac portables since the 1990s, when they first appeared, I always regarded them as just too…
- Newsletter Issue #1037 — A Vintage Mac Tale Vol. 2 —… It happened during what seemed like many years ago. I was knee deep in the original Mac OS platform, and not only upgraded the OS as…
- Newsletter Issue #1040 — A Tale Somewhat About the… In the old days, I had to own the fastest Mac, at least after I got my first writing gig about Macs and Mac software. It…
This article was posted
on Monday, May 7th, 2018 at 12:00 AM
and is filed under News and tagged with: Bondi blue iMac, customer quality feedback, iMac, Jonathan Ive, Mac, Powerbook, Powerpc.
| 
Print This Post
