3 ms·

Not surprised. Apple spent most of the 90's cranking out one turd after another. There were a few hits for well-heeled professionals, but their consumer offerin

Not surprised. Apple spent most of the 90's cranking out one turd after another. There were a few hits for well-heeled professionals, but their consumer offerings were generally a bunch of fatally compromised Road Apples. https://lowendmac.com/2014/road-apples-second-class-macs/ https://lowendmac.com/2014/road-apples-second-class-macs/ MacOS was behind the times vs. Windows. Still sticking with cooperative multitasking until 2000. Crazy! iMac was the start of something different, but Apple had a decade of second-class product to atone for, first.

taneq 7y ago
Even the first iMacs were pretty terrible. It took them a while longer to get OSX stable and ditch the Fischer-Price aesthetic. The G4s (iirc and IMO) were the first ones since the Macintosh that were what you'd call 'professional'.
chipotle_coyote 7y ago
> Still sticking with cooperative multitasking until 2000. Crazy! To be fair, sticking with it until 2000 wasn't Apple's intention; they'd expected to bring the new "Copland" Mac OS to market by the end of 1996. I don't know how well the iMac may have sold at the OP's Best Buy, but my recollection -- and a web search just now seems to back this up -- is that the iMac sold very well pretty quickly after its 1998 introduction. For instance, a NYT article from January 1999 which begins: "Apple Computer Inc.'s popular iMac desktop computer was the No. 1 selling machine through retail and mail-order channels in the 1998 holiday season, according to the research company PC Data. "In overall sales, the iMac fell from the top spot in November to No. 3 in December. It is still the top-selling computer since its mid-August introduction and led overall sales in the fourth quarter, PC Data, of Reston, Va., reported." https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/22/business/apple-s-imac-led-quarter-computer-sales.html https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/22/business/apple-s-imac-led...

taneq 7y ago

Even the first iMacs were pretty terrible. It took them a while longer to get OSX stable and ditch the Fischer-Price aesthetic. The G4s (iirc and IMO) were the first ones since the Macintosh that were what you'd call 'professional'.

chipotle_coyote 7y ago

> Still sticking with cooperative multitasking until 2000. Crazy! To be fair, sticking with it until 2000 wasn't Apple's intention; they'd expected to bring the new "Copland" Mac OS to market by the end of 1996. I don't know how well the iMac may have sold at the OP's Best Buy, but my recollection -- and a web search just now seems to back this up -- is that the iMac sold very well pretty quickly after its 1998 introduction. For instance, a NYT article from January 1999 which begins: "Apple Computer Inc.'s popular iMac desktop computer was the No. 1 selling machine through retail and mail-order channels in the 1998 holiday season, according to the research company PC Data. "In overall sales, the iMac fell from the top spot in November to No. 3 in December. It is still the top-selling computer since its mid-August introduction and led overall sales in the fourth quarter, PC Data, of Reston, Va., reported." https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/22/business/apple-s-imac-led-quarter-computer-sales.html https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/22/business/apple-s-imac-led...