{"id":34118,"date":"2023-05-14T00:00:28","date_gmt":"2023-05-14T07:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.technightowl.live\/blog\/?p=34118"},"modified":"2023-05-14T17:00:46","modified_gmt":"2023-05-15T00:00:46","slug":"newsletter-issue-1044-apple-1998-and-a-beta-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technightowl.live\/blog\/2023\/05\/newsletter-issue-1044-apple-1998-and-a-beta-test\/","title":{"rendered":"Newsletter Issue #1044 \u2014 Apple, 1998, and a Beta Test"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Being a loyal Mac user in 1998 wasn\u2019t such a great place to be for many of us. Although co-founder Steve Jobs was doing a lot to keep the company afloat with a slimmer product lineup, profits were slim or none. In the days before the iPod, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, many still didn\u2019t take the company seriously. Worse, many Mac users had made the switch to Windows.<\/p>\n<p>But in the spring of that year, I got a long look and a fair amount of experience with the product that some suggest saved Apple. In those years, I was a member of their Customer Quality Feedback (CQF) program, which meant that I\u2019d get pre-release software and occasionally a pre-release Mac to put through its paces.<\/p>\n<p>Hardware, of course, had to be returned at the end of the beta cycle, although there was one instance where I came close to keeping a certain preproduction Mac.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Wait! There's more than meets the eye!\" href=\"https:\/\/www.technightowl.live\/newsletter\/2023\/05\/newsletter-issue-1044\/#test\"><strong>Continue Reading\u2026<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Being a loyal Mac user in 1998 wasn\u2019t such a great place to be for many of us. Although co-founder Steve Jobs was doing a lot to keep the company afloat with a slimmer product lineup, profits were slim or none. In the days before the iPod, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, many still didn\u2019t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[202,14806,8294,8292,8199,10711,26,205,2122,248],"class_list":["post-34118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-apple","tag-apple-watch","tag-cqf","tag-customer-quality-feedback","tag-imac","tag-ipad","tag-iphone","tag-ipod","tag-mac","tag-steve-jobs"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Newsletter Issue #1044 \u2014 Apple, 1998, and a Beta Test - Gene Steinberg&#039;s Tech Night Owl<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.technightowl.live\/blog\/2023\/05\/newsletter-issue-1044-apple-1998-and-a-beta-test\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Newsletter Issue #1044 \u2014 Apple, 1998, and a Beta Test - Gene Steinberg&#039;s Tech Night Owl\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Being a loyal Mac user in 1998 wasn\u2019t such a great place to be for many of us. 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