Never mind the OS X
By Bill Thompson, BBC News
The hardware punks at Apple have changed the world more than the Sex Pistols, argues technology commentator and Mac user Bill Thompson.
Back in 1976, the Sex Pistols were playing their first gigs, and Joe Strummer went off to form The Clash after playing support to them.
At the same time, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne set up a company to sell the Apple I computers they were building by hand in a garage.
Ronald Wayne, the forgotten “third founder”, did not think the company was going anywhere and sold out after a few months.
He was wrong, as Apple started strong and grew quickly, largely thanks to the innovative hardware design of Steve Wozniak’s Apple II computer and the marketing and promotion skills of Steve Jobs.
Punk seemed about to change the world, or at least it did to me at 15 years old.
The music is still with me, but the Apple computers I have used on and off since I first touched a Mac in 1985 have changed my life much more.
Although I sometimes forget how much influence they have, every now and then there is a reminder.
Performance art
Earlier this week I was lucky enough to see Jane Chapman play the harpsichord at a London club. She performed a variety of pieces, including one written by jazz guitarist Mark Wingfield that almost moved me to tears.
As she played, video art was projected onto the opened lid of her harpsichord in a sort of Velvet Underground/Bach crossover.
It was cool, and nobody really noticed when a Mac desktop appeared between videos as the engineers switched inputs.
I couldn’t help thinking that if a Windows desktop had been revealed then there would have been a collective gasp and some of the more sensitive members of the audience would have fainted.
Apple, uniquely among computer companies, is cool with those who know nothing about operating systems, care little for user interface guidelines and neither know nor understand why moving from PowerPC to Intel chips could matter.