When I started this project, my goal was to untangle the messiest of all Mac product lines. In my initial blog post I wrote:
At its heart, the Performa line is the fruit of badge engineering. This is often found in the car market, perhaps most famously in the Chrysler K-car platform that debuted in 1981. Over 14 years, Chrysler, Dodge, and Plymouth shipped a dizzying array of front-wheel drive cars, all based on the same platform. Features, options, and prices ranged between them, but under the covers, these were all the same car, more or less.
Apple did something similar with the Performa, taking Macs from other lines, tweaking their features, and selling them under the Performa lineup.
In the car world, companies do this sort of work to reach different market segments without needing to create a new product for each type of consumer. In the case of the Performa, Apple wanted to sell computers to reach new users.
Before I decided to embark on this noble work, I outlined what I thought the series should entail and was quickly overwhelmed by just how many computers I would need to write about. While not every single SKU got its time in the sun this month, I think the series met my goal of trying to explain just what the heck happened from 1992 when the first Performas rolled out to 1997, when the final machines were taken off the market.
One fundamental way that the 90s Mac line differs from today’s is in naming. Today, we all know that an iMac is an all-in-one desktop, while a MacBook Air is a thin-and-light notebook. Sure, they evolve over time, but each Mac’s product name has to do with its form factor. That was not the case with the Performa and its sibling lines. The LC, Centris, Quadra, and Power Mac lines all came in a range of enclosures over the years, and those designs were often reused as Performas.
After all, the Performa was basically a collection of remixed machines from those other lines. Apple would take a Mac off the shelf, sometimes tweak its specs, toss a pile of software in the box, and ship it off to a retailer to hopefully sell it to a parent, teacher, or other user.
In that light, it’s easy to see why Apple nerds remember the Performa line with such disdain.
I did not expect the absolute mountain of feedback that I’ve gotten this month. People have come out of the woodwork to tell me about their experiences with a Performa. From using one in a classroom, to having their parents purchase one as their first family computer, most people who actually used a Performa seem to have fond memories of their beige machines. From 30,000 feet, this line of computers may have been a mess, but down on the ground, a lot of folks’ first Mac had a Performa badge on the front.
I think Apple nerds — then and now — view the Performa as confusing and overly-complicated. Untangling the product line over the last month has felt at times like trying to unknot shoelaces that probably should just be cut and thrown away. But that said, Apple did do some things right here. Not all of that bundled software was great, but those titles made the entire package more attractive to parents and teachers. I’m sure a bunch of the software was mediocre at best, but at least a bunch of it was educational and mediocre.
That leaves me conflicted about the Performa.
On one hand, it was somewhat successful in terms of getting Macs into the homes of first-time Mac buyers. On the other hand, I think the Performa cost Apple a lot in terms of reputation and brand clarity, even at the time. There’s a reason that You Know Who killed them all off.
The next year, Apple unveiled the iMac, a single computer to go after the home and education markets. The iMac was a palate-cleanser, washing away the mountain of beige Macs Apple had been selling.
A Conversation with Jason Snell
Jason and I recently sat down to talk about all of this, and his experiences covering Apple during this timeframe. As a result, we’ve released a new episode of 20 Macs over on Relay. Jason was starting his career covering Apple in this era, and I enjoyed our conversation immensely.
Thank You
When I started out on this project, I had no idea how people would take it, but it has been a lot of fun to dive into this weird chapter of Apple history.
Thanks for joining me on this journey.
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