Loss of Legacy

I recently read Steven Levy's 1994 book, "Insanely Great", which chronicles the history and circumstances behind the creation of the original Macintosh. In almost reverant tones, Levy speaks of the revolutionary aspects of the Mac's GUI, the Mac's design, and the overall Macinthosh ethic.

Computer history sems to agree with Levy, though it does not do so with such religious devotion. Certainly Macintosh made the GUI mainstream, and it certainly changed the way that people think about computers...

However, I think something has been missed, or at least smoothed over by many historians. In order for Apple to reinvent their vision of personal computing as Macintosh, they had to abandon the Apple II. They had to abandon machine that was the first serious home computer, the machine that had a loyal fanbase, the machine that had made Apple. They had to start from scratch with Macintosh, which allowed IBM/Microsoft to sweep away the industry from under Apple's feet.

Had Apple created a machine that was a bloodline successor to Apple II, rather then a whole new royal house (so to speak), they could have gradually reinvented the personal computer without handing the market to IBM. In other words, Jobs's zeal to create a new machine damned Apple to the place it has today in the computer industry; a distant second. Sure, Macintosh was the computer of the future, but it will always be the computer of the future. It will never be the dominator of the present.

There's a lesson here...Microsoft's slower path to the GUI (which led it to an imperfect, yet presentable solution by 1990) let them bring in innovative technology without abandoning the past. At times, there is an almost hedonistic desire in the computer industry to create products that eliminate past legacies, as is seen in the design of the original Macintosh. However, as luscious as this may seem, it is not always the best path to success. The public does not necessarily want innovation and perfect design in the products it buys. Sometimes, it wants products with a sense of the past and the future.