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> The problem with Apple's extensive advertising was that they ended up having to price the Mac higher than an individual could afford so they could cover the m

> The problem with Apple's extensive advertising was that they ended up having to price the Mac higher than an individual could afford so they could cover the marketing budget. Andy Hertzfeld is indisputably a genius that was at the right place at the right time. He's a decent writer, and his easy personality shows through his writing style. That said, he was a software developer, not a marketing specialist. Advertising is only important to sales and image, and little else. I don't claim to understand how, because I can barely believe it myself, but advertising has a direct correlation to increased sales and revenue such that the more that is spent on advertising, the more sales and revenue there will be, and this is unrelated to product price. Maybe the sales slumped, or maybe whatever market there was for the 128K Macintosh in 1984 was quickly saturated. Maybe even the price, as high as it was, wasn't high enough. It is also possible that with less advertising and an amazing affordable price that Mac would have failed and Apple would have gone under. It's hard to say, but what did happen is that Mac succeeded and Apple survived, no worse for the wear for spending a lot on advertising and selling Mac at much higher prices, at least during the mid-1980s.

KerrAvon 4y ago
It should have been cheaper. The thing you’re overlooking is that the 1984 Mac was not actually a market success. Success required more memory and the LaserWriter. The Apple II carried Apple until sometime in the late 80’s when people finally started buying Macs for desktop publishing.
- Maursault 4y ago
  > The thing you’re overlooking is that the 1984 Mac was not actually a market success. You are mistaken. "The Macintosh was the first successful mass-market all-in-one desktop personal computer with a graphical user interface, built-in screen, and mouse."[1] 70K were shipped within the first 100 days of the announcement,[2] which is a sale every two minutes every hour of the day for more than three months, generating $174.6M in revenue and representing fully 1% of the existing home computer market in just over 3 months. That is actually market success by any measure. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K#1984:_Debut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K#1984:_Debut [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20090821105822/http://www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/applehis/appl1984.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20090821105822/http://www.island...

KerrAvon 4y ago

It should have been cheaper. The thing you’re overlooking is that the 1984 Mac was not actually a market success. Success required more memory and the LaserWriter. The Apple II carried Apple until sometime in the late 80’s when people finally started buying Macs for desktop publishing.

Maursault 4y ago
> The thing you’re overlooking is that the 1984 Mac was not actually a market success. You are mistaken. "The Macintosh was the first successful mass-market all-in-one desktop personal computer with a graphical user interface, built-in screen, and mouse."[1] 70K were shipped within the first 100 days of the announcement,[2] which is a sale every two minutes every hour of the day for more than three months, generating $174.6M in revenue and representing fully 1% of the existing home computer market in just over 3 months. That is actually market success by any measure. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K#1984:_Debut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K#1984:_Debut [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20090821105822/http://www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/applehis/appl1984.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20090821105822/http://www.island...