Blast from the past: 1997

[Swad]

Ah, late night IRC conversations - you can never be sure what'll come up. We ran across this great ol' Wired Magazine article (via digg) from back in 1997 entitled "101 Ways to Save Apple." We thought we'd take a look at it to see how far Apple has come.

10. Get a great image campaign. Let's get some branding (or rebranding) going on. Reproduce the "1984" spot with a 1997 accent.

Check. Well, ok - the new Mac/PC ads are just decent. The WWDC remix was much better.

13. Exploit every Wintel user's secret fear that some day they're going to be thrown into a black screen with a blinking C-prompt. Advertise the fact that Mac users never have to rewrite autoexec.bat or sys.ini files.

Probably not a good idea these days.

14. Do something creative with the design of the box and separate yourselves from the pack.

Done and done. iOragami, anyone?

34. Port the OS to the Intel platform, with its huge amount of investment in hardware, software, training, and experience. Don't ignore it; co-opt it.

Did Steve help write this article?

37. Take advantage of NeXT's easy and powerful OpenStep programming tools to entice a new generation of Mac software developers.

"Mr. Jobs, I'm going to have to ask you to step away from that keyboard..."

48. Get Ben & Jerry's to name a flavor after you. Suggestion: Apple Silicon Chip Supreme.

I'd buy it over a MacBook anyday.

62. Build a computer that doesn't crash.

Speaking of the MacBook...

75. Speed sells. Push your advantage on the speed of the processor. This summer, you'll release Macs using 450- and 533-MHz processors. Your lead over Intel will be remarkable. Brag about this.

Was it really that bad in '97? Oh wait, I was 12... (Wow, that makes me feel really young - and I'm betting it makes a lot of you feel really old)

83. Develop proprietary programs that run only on Macs. Crow about them.

I think they're still working on this one.

86. Organize a very large bake sale - look what cookie sales have done for the Girl Scouts.

Yeah, but the last time I bought brownies from a guy in the San Fran area... well, come to think of it, those were pretty darn good brownies.

88. Acknowledge that there are people with repetitive stress injuries. Why do loyal customers have to go to a weird third-party vendor to get a split keyboard?

Because those suck.

93. Develop a way to program that requires no scripting or coding.

I am so there! WWNon-DC 2007, here I come.

97. Have Pixar make 3001, A Space Odyssey, with HAL replaced by a Mac.

Steve? Can you hear me Steve?

101. Don't worry. You'll survive. It's Netscape we should really worry about.

[BRP]

14. Do something creative with the design of the box and separate yourselves from the pack.

Done and done. iOragami, anyone?

I miss all the G3's with handles (like iBooks and Power Macs but not beige towers or PowerBooks), to be honest.... the original-style Macs also had handles. Handles are nice.

62. Build a computer that doesn't crash.

Speaking of the MacBook...

...I love mine!

75. Speed sells. Push your advantage on the speed of the processor. This summer, you'll release Macs using 450- and 533-MHz processors. Your lead over Intel will be remarkable. Brag about this.

Was it really that bad in '97? Oh wait, I was 12... (Wow, that makes me feel really young - and I'm betting it makes a lot of you feel really old)

It was! I have a Power Mac (wait, two!) from 1997. It SUCKS! Not that PC's were doing any better at the time, mind you; I speak the truth when I say I've never seen a PII worth keeping. But 1997 was kind of rock bottom as far as Apple gets. (as for my power macs, I've heard that overclocking, adding a good fan/sink, adding a bit of RAM and some hard drives would make them good Linux boxes for serving files and stuff)

88. Acknowledge that there are people with repetitive stress injuries. Why do loyal customers have to go to a weird third-party vendor to get a split keyboard?

Because those suck.

The round one-button mice have kind of been good for my RSI.... and split keyboards? Sorry, but I type Y's with my left hand... I just can't do it.

93. Develop a way to program that requires no scripting or coding.

I am so there! WWNon-DC 2007, here I come.

I've had a semi pet-projectish kind of thing... but in the end you have to "code" something... plus it's for making low-impact games, not for general apps! Lordy! I'd label this as being a dotcommish pipe dream for now (with every intention of profiting off the derrrrty lie later).

101. Don't worry. You'll survive. It's Netscape we should really worry about.

Netscrape? Who?

[dtm3dd]

Nice find Mash I enjoyed that one!