[MacSpirit] Apple, please go and read Santayana

by Rodney O. Lain

3/28/01

Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.

George Santayana, American philosopher

Here in Minnesota, we place our collective faith each year on the shoulders of a bunch of losers known as the Minnesota Vikings, with the hope that they will take us to the Promised Land. No, not Cupertino; I mean the Super Bowl.

Each year, they let us down. This team plays a stellar season all year long, only to choke during the playoffs. Don’t even get me started talking about their last playoff game, where they didn’t even score one point. Let me just say that we’ve gotten to the point where we call them the “Vi-Queens.”

Of course, you can see where we’re going with this argument.

Time will prove that Apple scored a touchdown on March 24, 2001, with the release of Mac OS X, transitional issues notwithstanding (applications, drivers, code optimization, features). We could call OS X Apple's "hail Mary" pass. Run long and deep, guys.

What has me worried is that this is a whole new ballgame for Apple, especially in terms of potential market share and the potential size of the Mac developer community. Those two things are what will make or break Apple’s fortunes.

Now, if only Apple can keep from messing it up.

For me to make such a comment is the height of arm-chair quarterbacking, I'm sure. But this is a valid topic to discuss. To extend the sports analogy, Apple has a history of having major opportunities and nearly every time dropping the ball. Apple’s bad decisions are well documented: not licensing the Mac OS, killing clones (which proved to be a wise move), killing Newton…

If you read the tea leaves, you will see that Apple is poised to benefit greatly from the audiences from which Mac OS X will surely attract considerable attention: the communities composed of Unix users, Linux users, and NeXTSTEP/OpenStep users and developers, not to mentions those who can now be classified as “Classic” Mac developers. If only Apple doesn’t mess this up.

But, thankfully, Apple’s executive team most definitely has a grand master plan. It should be comforting to those depending on the Mac for their livelihood to recall when Steve Jobs asked the developer community to “hang in there” when all we saw from Apple was an iMac and Mac OS 9. Oh, we of little faith!

It should be even more comforting that they were, even then, envisioning OS X. While we griped about whether or not firmware updates allowed us to put CPU upgrades in our Blue-and-White G3s, Apple was testing G4s (probably). While we are now griping about the ability to modify the Dock, what else is Apple working on?

We hope Apple is working on something.

Remember when the G3 first released? We were all bragging about how the PowerPC would hit 1 GHz, leaving the Pentium behind at 300 MHz. Of course, that didn’t happen, but we can’t blame Apple solely for that one; yet, we must blame someone (are you listening, Motorola?).

Apple introduced AirPort with the first iBook, yet it is Dell that runs the first commercials about classrooms and wireless-networked computers, as though Dell got there first. The closest Apple got was a commercial with the flying-saucer shaped Base Station floating across the TV screen (what the hell!?!). Let down, once again. Surely, this can't continue.

Once again, we find ourselves crossing our fingers on Apple's behalf. Apple appears to be on the brink of opening a line of stores. All I keep saying is, “Apple, don’t eff it up.”

Apple hasn’t done much with its Newton technology. Rumors abound about an “Apple-branded handheld.” Apple, don’t eff it up.

OS X has just been released, while Microsoft has its Windows XP in the media spotlight, stealing Apple’s thunder, as well as the OS X aesthetic. OS X has a window of opportunity to make a splash with its potential users, while XP is a ways off. Apple, don’t eff this one up.

I don’t expect Apple to take market share away from Windows, but anything can happen: that’s a whole world of people out there who aren’t using computers, for fear of the PC’s complexity. There are multitudes of Linux and Unix users out there who may have no problem uniting under Apple’s standardized, GUI-enabled BSD Unix. And, I’m sure, that there are people who use Windows who would be more than willing to try a Microsoft alternative.

The next few years will be crucial, but it won’t be as hard as we think. It’s common for the Unix community to “port” Unix applications to various computing platforms. I believe that this part of the Unix community will prove to be the unsung heros of Apple’s future OS revolution.

Over the next few years, I hope that Apple smartly leverages all of these advantages, as well as many others. I hope that Apple woos the developer community. I hope Apple advertises the hell out of OS X, come summer. I hope Motorola takes the Mac platform seriously and make some major strides in closing the Megahertz gap.

And, by God, I hope that Apple doesn’t mess this one up.

This column is © 2001 Rodney O. Lain. All rights reserved.

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About Rodney O. Lain

A former journalist and college prof, Rodney lives in Minnesota, where he freelance writes on by night and works by day as a junior manager for a Fortune 50 company (daily he bemoans the fact that he was assigned a Gateway laptop by the IT guys). He has a soft spot for H. L. Mencken, Steve Jobs, Prince, Richard Wright and other well-known status-quo breakers. Rodney also writes "iBrotha" for Mac Observer and "Things Macintosh" for Low End Mac. Also, he writes about religion, race and culture at his website iBrotha.com.

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