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February 2001 in Mac History
First, the "evil vampire empire" (as I know best) of Microsoft managed to become a damned burglar as Windows XP was put on show. I froze and started shrieking incessantly in anger and fury in my room alone early at 8 AM in the morning as CNN showed me pictures of the hated copycat OS. Windows XP's debut, as bad as it was for us people in the Mac community, was coupled with the ugly debut of Gates wearing a shockingly Jobs-esque outfit, as if to only prove the adage "Windows Me Too" was all the more true. Windows XP, short for eXPerienced, is a new breed of Windows that looks shockingly similar to the Mac OS. I just simply didn‚t like the whole prospect of it at all. Not to be cruel and prejudist, but I think now I know why there are so many pirates - software and stuff - in the Windows world.
In a sense, when Apple released the megacool System 7.5, the vampires of Redmond were out to attack them with the failed and super-hyped and mega-bloated Windows 95. Around the release of OS 8, Windows challenged again with Windows 98. Of course, Windows 98 was the immediate sucker - even Bill Gates didn‚t get the OS working a la son facon when he released it in front of a megacrowd and the blue screen appeared. Anyone for Apple's "Crowd Control" ad? And of course, we had, around the OS 9 debut, Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium. The expert-oriented Win 2000 was damned by - get this - my PC-using friend from the first instant! And now we have OS X coming out, and the Redmond vampires are rising again with their dracularian Windows XP. But, whatever they have, heck they‚ll never really beat the Mac. To quote David Pogue, Xerox may have invented windows and Microsoft may have gotten rich by copying them, but in the end, it's the Mac that made windows famous. In a sense, the Mac reaction to the awful XP release notification was, in our Mac community, rather sensible‚ and all the more natural.
Yet if that was sad, there were better days to look ahead to - we had a Mac expo coming up soon. This time it was in Japan - in Tokyo. On 2/22/01, however, some of us got more than disappointed with Apple's controversial new iMacs featuring the blue Dalmatian and flower power "themes" (as they were no longer solid colors). Contrary to death-wishers of the Cube at San Fran, the Cube got a speedbump. The new iMacs stole all the talk, though: my clubs burst with talk. One member, called Mike, was disappointed the new iMacs removed the DVD drive, and replaced that with a CD burner on some top-of-the-line models.
And here's where it gets all the more interesting: two Mac advocacy clubs split out in two ways. The first post in my club went "It's neat-o... iMac" while the bigger Mac Club raised the siren alarm by wailing "New iMacs - UGLY!". In a sense, the new iMacs gave birth to two new words: controversial and themes. The new iMacs in new "themes" really looked controversial. Why was it controversial? Because it resulted in all the talk and the true sentiments Mac users echoed out. A member called Greg gave plain basic HELL to the new iMacs. Many people in my gang rather liked them. Many people on Mac Central's poll voted "ugly", and my "groovy" vote was everything except for the majority. In a sense, Steve Jobs must have thought about something when he released them. The new accompanying ads were also describable using a Śc‚ - though this time, it would be Śconfusing‚ instead of purely controversial‚. First, the iMac ad I saw on QuickTime omitted Apple's "Think different" tag line, and the text "Ever wonder what a CD looks like when it burns? / iTunes, iMac, Apple" along with piano-music and burning flames and rotating iMacs proved my reasoning of "confusing" as being fitting for the new iMacs.
Yet I think I know better: as controversial as they were received by the online Mac clubs, I soon got email from my affiliate merchants that made a "big deal" of the new iMacs. Looks like they want to boost sales of these new theme iMacs... Eventually my site even ran ads for the new controversial iMac themes...!
So in a sense we got both the good and the bad in February. Of course, this is the critical month (March 2001): Apple will release Mac OS X. Whether it succeeds or will blow it is anyone's guess. (Public Beta testers may have better experience than me, though.) We can only wish Apple good luck!
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