[typoon]

I'm serious here. If you look at all the trends Apple has Made popular it makes you wonder where the industry would be without Apple.

Their might not be a popularized GUI, no popularized mouse, no popularized USB or Firewire no iPod.

Apple really has been a trend setter for the rest of the industry to follow. For all it's faults as a company it seems like the majority of the time where Apple goes so does the industry.

Apple has made popular so many things these past many years that I wonder at times where the industry would have been without them.

As we head into the 20th anniversary of the intro of the Mac. It has made me wonder where would we and the indsutry be without Apple and the trusty Mac.

[gorickey]

Without competition (Microsoft), where would Apple be is another good question...

[rozwado1]

Originally posted by gorickey:
Without competition (Microsoft), where would Apple be is another good question...

Nowhere. Without competition, Apple would have no incentive to push their limits. We'd all be happy to have the new beige-boxed G3s...

[typoon]

Originally posted by gorickey:
Without competition (Microsoft), where would Apple be is another good question...

While that is true in some sense didn't gates get his start writing for the Mac first before he even did anything with IBM and starting Mircosoft?

[kindbud]

well, we wouldn't be at MacNN.

[starman]

C>

[quandarry]

Windows shorthorn alpha666

[Misanthrope]

Originally posted by starman:
C>

There's the answer. Close the thread.

[Truepop]

CDOS
CDOS\RUN
RUN\DOS\RUN

[sniffer]

cd dos
qbasic gorilla.bas
*weeh*

[D. Hendrickson]

well since Apple didn't invent the GUI, i think we'd still have one, from 1983. life would be dreary.

ol' Bill would have no incentive/motivation to update it...

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

One of my favorite Apple innovations that changed everything is hardly ever mentioned, yet IMHO it's one of their crowning achievements.

The Powerbook 100x series which introduced the modern laptop form factor. Virtually everything since has been building off Apple�s initial innovation in keyboard placement and form factor.

The first Powerbooks still look pretty good considering their age. I still had a trusty PB 140 in use up to a few years ago.

But look at most anything else that claimed to be a laptop leading up to the PB 100's. Hideous and about as ergonomic as the average cinderblock.

[disectamac]

we eventually would have a GUI or some sort of interface to interact with DOS with. Competetion would still exist just not in the form of Mac OS.

We would all be using trackballs right now, and what about a mouse? well, a novelty because everyone loves the big red ball.

There would be no internet. The people who invented it would have never seen hypercard or anything innovative in the form of GUI and would have never thought past trying to make a connection between a shorcut on a desktop to a real file in control panels folder. No wait, Apple invented the shortcut too so no shortcuts and no control panel folder, um just DOS I guess. But a really nice version of DOS mind you.

[disectamac]

Bill Gates would not be the richest man in the world.
Steve Jobs would be a furniture mover or a pool guy or a gas station clerk.
I would not be as interested in computing if it was a DOS world.

[insha]

CTRL + ALT + DEL

[TheDisaster]

Originally posted by sniffer:
cd dos
qbasic gorilla.bas
*weeh*

I loved that game. So much.

[mitchell_pgh]

Although I don't think that we would be at the DOS level, I feel that Apple has always kept the bar rather high (even if we are a limited market share). We also need to think of some of the innovations that are only really showing themselves now because of Apple. USB probably would still be a novelty, fire wire would most likely be non existent. Beige and black would probably be the primary colors of all computers.

Honestly, I think we would be at the Windows 98/Me and NT4 level.

I'm still amazed that consumers still don't mind all the crap that shows up when they boot up their computers. You can argue "It's for diagnostic" all you want, but you should be able to hide it and only activate it when you want to.

On another viewpoint, design in general wouldn't be where it is today. The Mac tends to make average designers better and very good designers amazing.

In my mind, the Amazing thing is Windows XP still doesn't have some of the innovations that OS 7 had.

Originally posted by D. Hendrickson:
well since Apple didn't invent the GUI, i think we'd still have one, from 1983. life would be dreary.

Apple invented the desktop GUI. The GUI may have been invented in a Xerox lab, but I'll bet it wouldn't have made it past a few copy machines or stand-alone "word processors" without Apple.

[Powaqqatsi]

I think this is something that is impossible to predict.

[xi_hyperon]

[brapper]

black screens, orange or green or white writing.

[quandarry]

Originally posted by xi_hyperon:

i still can't find the ANY key!

[Electric Zombie]

Amiga would take over the world.

[D. Hendrickson]

i think another point would be to differentiate between without Apple or without the Mac.

even without the Mac to drive things along, i'd bet i'd still be using the current flavor of Apple // (//gs+++, whatever). and there was the GEOS OS for the // around '88 or so...

Apple // GEOS.