Category: Apple History

Some Short-Lived Macs

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A common talking point between Apple fans over the last few years has been the long gaps between hardware updates for many Mac models. Apple has pretty much righted that ship now that the 2013 Mac Pro has been replaced, but it did get me thinking about what Macs had unusually short lives.

This is probably not a comprehensive list. One can only scan a list of Performa model information for so long before starting to cry.

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Twenty Years Ago, Steve Jobs Showed Off the Aqua Interface for the First Time

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At Macworld 2000, Steve Jobs unveiled the user interface for Mac OS X. It was called Aqua.

Aqua, as seen in the Mac OS X Public Beta

I love how Jobs introduced it:

When you design a new user interface, you have to start off humbly. You have to start off saying “What are the simplest elements in it? What does a button look like? And you spend months working on a button.”

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Some of Apple’s Awkward Product Names Over the Years

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There’s no way around it, the name “iPhone 11 Pro Max” is a bit of a mouthful. For a company that is so good at marketing, this is far from Apple’s first awkward product name.

Of course, over time these things settle down. I remember groaning at “MacBook Pro” in January 2006 when the PowerBook’s successor was unveiled, but now we don’t think twice about it.

There are some other examples that have come to mind for me:

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Five Years Ago, Tim Cook Unveiled the Apple Watch

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Five years ago, Apple announced several products in its annual September event:

The keynote is on Apple’s official YouTube channel, which is handy:

I remember watching this keynote at work in the conference room with several of my co-workers, and the news of two bigger iPhone was a big deal, but that section was only 36 minutes long. Everything felt rushed. Then, an hour in, we got to the Apple Watch.

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