WEBVTT - The Macintosh Story Part 2 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:13.039 Technology with tex Stuff from dot com. Hey there, and 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:17.160 welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland. I'm 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:20.720 a senior writer for how Stuff Works dot com and 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:23.880 today we're going to continue the story of the history 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:28.920 of the Macintosh computer. Now in our last episode, have 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:31.840 to do a little you know, roundup of what happened. 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:36.519 Previously on text Stuff, we covered how the mac was 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:40.400 born out of strife. It was not an easy birth, 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:43.000 as it turns out. There was a lot of argument 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:46.080 going on arguing, i should say, going on behind the scenes. 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:49.640 It started off as a low price computer. That was 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:53.479 the intent that was supposed to make personal computers more 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:57.560 accessible to the average person. And then Steve Jobs effectively 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:01.240 took over the project and changed it significantly. Rather than 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:05.399 having a cheap machine, it became an expensive alternative to 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:10.000 the IBM personal computer that had just debuted in the 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:13.280 early nineteen eighties. So the IBM personal computer came out 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:17.039 and actually posed a serious threat to Apple. Uh, the 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:19.480 Macintosh was supposed to be an answer to that. The 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:25.120 Apple two and Apple three lines were distinct, and more 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:28.120 about them in a little bit, but the Macintosh was 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:31.640 really supposed to redefine computing and to put Apple back 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:34.319 on track to being ahead of the game, as it were. 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:40.000 But what actually happened next, Well, we ended right around 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:44.039 nineteen eighty five. Last time, nineteen eighty five. The Macintosh 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:47.720 computer debuted in nineteen eighty four, and Apple was trying 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:49.600 to rebound from a couple of big blows. Now. That 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:52.200 first one came in nineteen eighty one. That's when IBM 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:54.920 got involved in the personal computer market with its own PC. 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:59.720 Before long, IBM PC sales were outpacing Apple to sales. 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:06.160 And the second blow came ine that's when Apple launched Lisa. 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:10.200 Lisa was a high end computer. It was a project 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:12.959 that was being pushed primarily by Steve Jobs, one of 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:15.880 the co founders of Apple. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:21.559 were the two Steve's who founded the company. But Lisa 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:25.080 was not a huge success. It had a graphic user 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:29.240 interface or gooey g u i uh, and it had 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:32.320 a mouse, which was very innovative for the time. The 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:35.800 only other company that really played with graphic user interfaces 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:38.959 and a computer mouse was Xerox, and they had only 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:42.200 done it internally. They didn't make this a product that 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:46.080 other other companies and consumers could go out and purchase 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:50.880 Apple decided to change that. However, Lisa had a really 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:55.079 hefty price tag. It was ten thousand dollars when it 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:58.680 went on sale, and it was meant for business applications. 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:01.440 But at that price, very few businesses we're willing to 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:06.480 take the plunge. Remember, those are three dollars. That's significant, 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.560 even more so than ten tho dollars is today. Ten 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:13.000 dollars is already a huge amount of money. If you 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:16.960 had just for inflation, you're talking around almost twenty dollars. 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:22.040 That's a lot. So the g U I also ate 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:24.920 up a lot of the computer's processing power. So not 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:28.360 only did it cost a lot, but the operating system 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:31.680 alone took up so much of the computer's processing power 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:35.160 that you couldn't run very many applications on top of it. 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:40.800 And that's not a great selling point, Like this is expensive, 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:43.280 but at least you can't run much software on it. 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:45.960 That doesn't make a really good tagline if you're trying 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:47.920 to sell a computer, just an f Y I in 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:50.840 case you ever want to make and sell computers in 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:55.000 the future. Then you also had very few developers who 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:59.200 are willing to put forth the effort to create programs 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:02.800 for a computer or that was so elite, so expensive 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:06.360 that it had a very small market. If you are 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:09.120 in the business of making software and you have a 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:12.000 limited amount of time and money on your hands, you 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:15.400 want to dedicate that time and money toward projects that 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:18.040 are likely to give you the biggest profit. And if 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:20.680 you're talking about you know, the types of organizations that 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:24.360 are willing to lay down ten grand per computer, that's 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:27.839 a very small market. So software developers were not eager 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:32.560 to jump on the bandwagon there. So Lisa was effectively 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:36.120 a flop. It was kind of doomed from the start. Now, 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:38.560 as I mentioned right at the beginning of this episode, 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:42.520 Steve Jobs effectively took over the Macintosh project. Now, this 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:46.320 was after the then CEO of Apple demanded that Steve 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:52.200 Jobs stop interfering with Lisa. Macintosh was a totally different project, 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:54.640 and Steve Jobs, once he was pulled off the Lisa 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:58.719 project and said you can't bother them anymore, looked around, 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:02.719 saw the Macintosh project, which was completely independent, and said 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:06.040 I'm gonna make that my pet project. And so he 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:09.520 began to involve himself with or in the words of 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:14.159 some of his UH contemporaries at the time interfere with 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:18.800 the Macintosh project, and as a result, Macintosh transformed from 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:22.479 a humble machine to an expensive consumer level device with 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:26.080 a gooey and a mouse. It didn't have a graphic 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:29.840 user interface before Steve Jobs got involved. It was initially 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:34.040 priced at two thousand four dollars, which is expensive just 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:37.240 for a basic computer today before you adjust for inflation. 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:40.320 If you do adjust for inflation, that's more like five thousand, 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:43.600 seven hundred bucks. That's a huge amount of money to 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:46.400 ask to pay for a PC. So if you wanted 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:50.080 a Macintosh when they first launched, you'd be plopping down 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:54.040 the equivalent of fifty seven hundred dollars in today's money. 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:56.760 And keep in mind that the original plan was that 0:05:56.839 --> 0:05:59.360 this computer was supposed to cost five hundred dollars, which 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:03.919 would be closer to twelve bucks today, which is still expensive. Obviously, 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:07.039 if you wanted to pay for a brand new computer, 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:11.039 twar is closer to the top end of your of 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:14.120 your basic machines. I mean, obviously, you can trick out 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:16.720 a machine to be much more expensive than that if 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:20.640 you want top of the line processors, UH graphics cards, 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:23.799 cooling systems, all that sort of stuff. But if you're 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:26.479 just buying off the shelf, twelve hundred dollars is already 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:29.880 pretty expensive. It's not it's not the top end, but 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:35.000 it's healthy, right Anyway, that was the initial goal was 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:39.600 a five price point in four dollars, which would be 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:43.080 about twelve today, and it blew that out of the water. 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:47.640 I should point out, however, that this higher price tag 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:50.560 is not entirely the fault of Steve Jobs. I don't 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:54.200 want to give you that impression. It's true that Jobs 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:57.560 added a lot of features that necessitated a price hike. 0:06:57.960 --> 0:06:59.720 No matter what, it was gonna cost more than five 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:04.400 dollars because of the changes Steed Jobs made. But as 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:07.920 for that price tag of two thousand four dollars, that 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:11.440 credit really needs to go to the then Apple CEO, 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:16.760 John's Scully. Scully reportedly decided that the initial price tag 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:19.280 for the mac which was originally going to be fift 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:25.720 hundred dollars, was too low. He actually said, fifteen hundred bucks. 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:27.960 That's that's not high enough for us to really see 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:30.320 a huge profit off that. So he knocked it up 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:36.000 to and that way the Macintosh would see a profit 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:40.920 margin of meaning you make over what you paid to 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:44.960 create the computer. He didn't want to have a slim 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:48.200 profit margin. However, of course, if you increase the price 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:52.600 of a machine dramatically, then you're going to decrease the 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:54.720 number of sales you make. So it's a very delicate 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:58.000 balance figuring out how much to price a product so 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:00.880 that you get the maximum amount of profit it from 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:05.280 your investment. And Scully decided to go pretty hard for 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:09.720 that investment with that profit margin. And this also began 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:13.280 Apple's long history of being a company associated with the 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.560 idea that it's hardware is overpriced. You've probably heard that 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:19.720 if you've ever taken any look into Apple products, that 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:22.880 you're paying a premium just for the Apple brand name 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:26.480 because the products are priced more than what they would 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:29.560 be priced by a competitor for an equivalent machine. That's 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:32.200 not always the case, by the way, but it happened 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:36.640 frequently enough in Apple's past that it became associated with 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:40.559 the company's identity. People thought of Apple as being an 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:44.640 elite company, that you were paying that extra price, and 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:47.280 that you could be saving money if you just went 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:51.840 with a different computer manufacturer, which in some some eras 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:57.520 was absolutely true, just not in all eras. Back in 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:00.880 those earliest days of Macintosh, It's certainly was the case 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:04.720 that is undeniable now. Initial reviews of the Macintosh actually 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:07.760 heaped a lot of praise on the computer. Consumer Reports 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:13.400 wrote an absolutely glowing review of the original Macintosh, saying 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:17.920 that the interface really transformed computing. The reviews stated that 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:21.160 the interface, including the windows that it would use the 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:24.680 mouse that you would use to navigate the gooey, were 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:27.560 more than just gimmicks, which you know, you could have 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:29.880 easily seen them as just being gimmicks. Everyone else was 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:35.440 used to using text based interfaces and keyboards, so this 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:38.280 wasn't a guaranteed success right all the gate. But Consumer 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:42.120 Reports said, no, they got it right. This actually makes sense. 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:45.960 They said that it actually transformed computing from a system 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:49.839 of Labyrinthian rules to something that the average person could 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:54.840 easily grasp. A Macintosh wasn't a cryptic machine that required 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:58.120 the user to learn dozens of command line terms, like 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:01.800 you know, various five old trees and ways to navigate 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:04.360 between different directories. You didn't have to do that because 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:06.880 it was all graphically presented for you and you just 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:09.840 click on whatever it was you needed. It was a 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:12.640 device that a novice could learn to navigate within like 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:16.520 half an hour of using it. There were some drawbacks, however. 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:18.880 That same consumer reports are You pointed out that the 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:22.320 operating system on the Macintosh took up an enormous amount 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:25.920 of the computer's processing power. The computer had enough memory 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:29.200 to store about eight and a half pages of text 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:34.240 after you factored in the operating system. That's text, not 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:38.360 images or video or audio. All of that stuff would 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:41.000 come later. Just eight and a half pages of text. 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:44.840 That's all the memory it could have after you ended 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:47.800 up booting up the operating system. This was one of 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:50.800 the reasons that I was a real snob about gooey 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.400 interfaces or gooey based computers. I hated the day that 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:59.000 my dad decided to install Windows on our IBM compatible machine, 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:04.360 which was similar in many ways to the mac operating system. Uh. 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:06.400 And the reason I was upset about it was because 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:10.600 the Windows operating system required so much of our computers 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:15.200 ability to process information that it limited the kind of 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:18.080 software we could run on it. If your software required 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:21.600 more than what the computer could supply, you ran into problems. 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:25.280 And I attributed a lot of that to the operating system. 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:27.720 I much preferred DOSS, which was so slimmed down by 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:31.880 comparison that you could run lots of different software on it. Well, 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:35.040 the same thing was true with the early mac operating system. 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:38.400 It just hogged up a lot of the initial Macintosh 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:43.520 is uh abilities. And to be fair, the original Macintosh 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:47.560 only had a kilobytes of memory, so it wasn't exactly 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:54.360 packing an enormous amount of memory into that package. More 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:58.960 and more software developers began to create programs that could 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:01.960 only run and E environments, which kind of forced the 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:06.199 issue to switch from the DOSS and other operating systems 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:10.760 that involved command lines to shift over to graphic user 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:14.600 interfaces because a lot of software ended up only being 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:19.319 compatible with graphic user interface systems, and that helped force 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:22.320 the issue. I still am bitter about that, even though 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:24.840 today I probably wouldn't be able to If you put 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:27.360 me in from an Apple to E or an early 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:31.040 IBM PC that was just running DOSS, I wouldn't remember 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:34.080 any of the commands besides d I R, which is 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:39.079 directory for DOSS, I I would be lost. But I 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:42.640 still a kind of bitter about all this. Now, I 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:45.880 also be fair, I'm an elitist computer nerd type. I'm 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:48.760 just an elitist computer nerd type who lacks the information 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:51.959 to be able to effectively be an elitist, which is 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:55.440 the saddest kind of nerd. Apple obviously you had really 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:59.000 high hopes for that original Macintosh, but they had also 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:01.440 had really high hopes for Lisa, and that didn't pan 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:05.520 out back in nineteen eighty one, which was back when 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:08.079 the Macintosh was still in development. It didn't debut till 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:11.520 nineteen eighty four. Keep in mind, in ninety nineteen eight one, 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:14.560 Apple had a plan, and their plan was that they 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:19.840 would sell two point two million Macintosh computers by nineteen 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:23.040 eighty five, by the end of nineteen eighty five, but 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:27.079 that plan was based upon a launch date that would 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:31.080 happen sometime in nineteen eighty two, because remember, back then 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:34.440 they were still looking at creating a cheap alternative to 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:39.360 the other computers like the Apple two and other competing 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:43.000 computers on the market, So they had high hopes that 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:44.760 they would be able to sell two point two million 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:47.840 units by nineteen eighty five. The computer wasn't even available 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:50.439 for purchase until nineteen eighty four, so that's set them 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:54.040 back and even if they had launched in nineteen eighty two, 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:57.559 they would have had to sell around fifty thousand computers 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:00.559 every month to hit that two point to a million 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:05.760 mark within the end of They did have an enormous start. 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:10.720 The Macintosh marketing department was great for the launch of 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.719 the computer, and they sold quite a bit when they 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:16.240 first went on the market because people were really excited 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:20.520 about it. But after that initial excitement, they weren't able 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:24.600 to capitalize on creating a momentum, and it died off 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:28.280 pretty quickly. The marketing kind of failed after that initial launch. 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:32.200 The Apple blew too much money early on and didn't 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:37.160 have enough to support it throughout its initial launch, so 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:43.040 after a successful couple of first months, sales dropped precipitously 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:46.960 down to like five thousand units a month, way below 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:49.960 the number they would need, So by the end of 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:54.120 five they had not sold two point two million units 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:56.760 as they had originally planned. It was more like two 0:14:57.000 --> 0:15:02.560 d fifty thousand units, a huge shortfall. The Macintosh was 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:06.200 not quite a flop like Lisa, but it wasn't performing 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:10.640 as well in the market as Apple had hoped. Now 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:13.680 it was impressive, but it was suffering from a similar 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:16.840 issue as Lisa. It didn't have a lot of applications 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:19.840 available for it, and not as many as the competing 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:25.200 IBM PCs had. Apple's then CEO admitted as much later 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:29.680 on John Scully. He said, Yeah, we didn't do enough 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:32.680 to develop software to run this computer. So while the 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:35.520 computer was nice to look at, the graphic user interface 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:38.680 was interesting, there just wasn't a whole lot to do 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:42.560 with it. You didn't have things like spreadsheet programs. There 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:47.240 was a severe lack of utility with their computer. Really. 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:50.840 They only had two applications that Mac Wright, which was 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:54.560 a word processing program, and they had Mac Paint, which 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:57.560 was a simple graphics program. But that was about it. 0:15:57.640 --> 0:15:59.560 They didn't have the other stuff you would associate with 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:02.720 other uters. So while it was user friendly, it didn't 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:05.000 have a lot of usability to it. Like there just 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:09.200 wasn't enough to do so that also hurt McIntosh sales. 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:12.640 Now you might also remember from our last episode, like 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:14.880 I said, the CEO of Apple at this time was 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:19.000 John Scully, whom Steve Jobs had lured away from PEPSI. 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:22.960 The story is that Scully was kind of in line 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:25.640 to become the chairman of the board over at Pepsi, 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:28.920 but it was on a much longer timeline than Scully wanted, 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:32.280 and that Steve Jobs was able to convince Scully to 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:34.720 come over by saying to him, do you want to 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:37.120 spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:40.640 do you want a chance to change the world. Once 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:45.160 against Steve Jobs, master salesman, he could really have a 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:48.480 turn of phrase and get you to believe in him 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:53.160 even when the odds were stacked against him. Scully himself 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:55.520 would say that that phrase really convinced him to come 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:57.920 over to Apple, and he said so in a documentary, 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:00.000 so you can actually check this out. It's a document 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:04.400 are he titled Bloomberg Game Changers Steve Jobs. So it's 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:07.600 part of a series. It was a really effective sales pitch, 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.800 as it turns out, so Scullion Jobs initially worked really 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:15.440 well together leading up to the Macintosh launch. Scully's predecessor 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:18.240 was Mike Marcula, which in the last episode you might 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:22.000 remember was the guy who stepped in to remove Steve 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:25.760 Jobs from the Lisa project. Marcula was an early investor 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:30.120 in Apple and had transitioned from CEO to board members, 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:35.040 so he retired as CEO, he resigned um transitioning over 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:37.520 to the board. He had told his wife that he 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:39.560 wasn't going to stay on with Apple for very long, 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:43.480 although he stayed on much longer than he initially meant to. 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:46.480 He just stayed on in the capacity of member of 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:51.400 the board as opposed to the CEO, and then John 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:54.800 Scully took over the job as CEO. Now, John Scully 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:59.960 would serve as the CEO from about to about nineteen nine. 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:05.399 The three ish is really when we're looking at that 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:10.920 transition effectively ninety three. Scully initially got along well with jobs, 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:13.760 but when the Macintosh sales began to drop off, new 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:18.320 tensions developed between the CEO and Apple's co founder, and 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:22.399 that's not great when you have kind of clashing personalities 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:27.200 at the top level of your company. Now, John Scully 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:31.280 also has the dubious distinction of being on the America 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:36.120 The Worst American CEOs list curated by Conde Nast. He's 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:40.280 actually number fourteen on that list back when they published 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:43.280 it a few years ago. Now more on why John 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:49.480 Scully made that list as this episode progresses. Apple at 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:52.200 the time had not completely switched over to the Macintosh 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:56.199 line as its primary product. So you might think, oh, 0:18:56.359 --> 0:19:01.040 it went Apple to to Apple three to Macintosh and 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:04.560 they discontinued the other computers, but that's not true. They 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:09.600 were actually producing different lines of computers simultaneously, and Apple's 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:13.480 structure was designed around this, where each product had its 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:16.480 own division, so it wasn't like you had one big 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:21.159 division of all these different products grouped together. You had 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:23.760 an Apple two division and Apple three division, and a 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:27.080 Macintosh division. You also had a Lisa division until they 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:32.200 discontinued that product, so the Apple two and Apple three 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:35.959 computers continued to be manufactured and sold by Apple, side 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:40.439 by side with Macintosh computers. The Apple three ended up 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:43.800 being a failure. It was a flop, very much like Lisa. 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:46.840 It just didn't do so well. It was meant to be, again, 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:50.800 a business level machine, not a personal computer, and it 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:54.520 was priced as such, and there just wasn't enough there 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:58.679 for businesses jump on board with it. There were cheaper 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:02.200 IBM com uters coming out, so that was more attractive 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:06.000 from an expense side of things, And like Lisa, there 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:08.960 weren't a lot of developers creating software for the Apple three, 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:10.760 so it didn't make a whole lot of sense to 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:14.320 invest in the Apple three platform if the IBM computer 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:18.800 platform cost less and had more development, so companies weren't 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:21.480 adopting the Apple three. But the Apple two continued to 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:25.240 hold its own, so it was still a big product 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:31.320 even as the Macintosh came online. Uh. The Apple two 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:35.840 SEE computer debuted in nineteen eighty four. That was the 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:39.400 same year that the Macintosh came out, so Apple too 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:44.399 c uh stood for well, a more advanced Apple two computer. Actually, 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:47.480 the letter system for Apple two computers is really confusing 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:51.600 because the Apple to E came out in nineteen eighty 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:54.560 three and then the Apple two C came out in 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:59.200 nineteen eighty four, so they weren't going in alphabetical order 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:02.080 and is a bit more than a bit confusing. But 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:05.959 the Apple to C was Apple's first compact model, so 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:09.800 the C kind of stood for compact. The computer's hardware 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:12.920 consisted of a case that had an incorporated keyboard and 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:15.320 a five and a quarter inch disk drive, and the 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:18.760 computer itself, which was separate from a monitor. It was 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:21.760 just the computer. You could slide that into a base 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:24.760 a stand essentially, and on top of the stand you 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:27.600 could put your monitor, So the computer were kind of 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:30.480 slot in underneath where the monitor was. The monitor would 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:34.160 not sit directly on top of the computer case itself. 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:37.800 Apple would continue to make computers in the two C 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:44.720 line until n so the Apple two continued to go 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:48.800 on sale to to hit store shelves while the Macintosh 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:52.959 continued to evolve, so these separate products remained side by 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:57.160 side for quite some time. Apple launched an enhanced version 0:21:57.240 --> 0:22:00.639 of the Apple to E in Night five, so the 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:03.440 two E continued as well. It just got a bit 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:06.639 of a beefier version than the one that had launched 0:22:06.680 --> 0:22:09.719 a couple of years earlier. It did not have a 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:13.760 graphic user interface like the Macintosh, and Apple would continue 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:18.040 to make these Apple to computers available for quite some time. 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:23.440 In fact, that advanced to E would continue to be 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:28.119 on sale until n so, extending pretty far. Like you 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:30.639 would think that by nine three you would have just 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:33.520 graphic user interface based computers, but you still had the 0:22:33.520 --> 0:22:37.000 Apple to E Enhanced And maybe one day I'll do 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:40.720 an episode dedicated just to those Apple line computers to 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:46.560 talk about the process of their evolution compared to Macintosh. 0:22:47.080 --> 0:22:49.000 But that's not really what this episode is about. I 0:22:49.040 --> 0:22:51.840 just went into touch base and explained that was going 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:54.480 on at the same time as the development for the 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:58.920 mac Now, in January, Apple tried to make the best 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:02.399 of a bad situation and by launching the Macintosh XL. 0:23:03.520 --> 0:23:07.600 Only here's the thing, this was not the next Macintosh computer. 0:23:07.760 --> 0:23:12.080 It was actually a rebranding of a different computer, namely 0:23:12.280 --> 0:23:15.679 the Lisa two. So remember the Lisa was a flop. 0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:19.119 Then Apple decided to make a stripped down version of 0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:22.320 the Lisa computer and sell it for a lower price 0:23:22.760 --> 0:23:28.440 than that ten thousand dollar beast of a computer called Lisa. 0:23:29.040 --> 0:23:31.399 Lisa too did not do well in sales either, so 0:23:31.440 --> 0:23:34.720 then they rebranded it. They called it Macintosh XL because 0:23:34.720 --> 0:23:40.160 the Macintosh was doing alright initially, but they weren't able 0:23:40.200 --> 0:23:42.560 to move the Lisa two computers, so they rebranded it. 0:23:42.600 --> 0:23:46.560 They called it the XCEL. But it still didn't do 0:23:46.680 --> 0:23:51.000 so well, and by April they discontinued it. They stopped 0:23:51.119 --> 0:23:56.239 making the Macintosh XL. They still had a ton in inventory, 0:23:56.240 --> 0:23:59.240 but they weren't making more of them. They were able 0:23:59.280 --> 0:24:03.280 to offload some of the Macintosh XL devices with some 0:24:03.359 --> 0:24:07.919 big sales deals. So, for example, they sold five thousand 0:24:08.160 --> 0:24:11.600 of the XL Macintosh is to a company called sun 0:24:11.640 --> 0:24:16.280 remarketing back in nineteen eight seven. But ultimately a lot 0:24:16.320 --> 0:24:20.680 of those units never left Apple warehouses. They just sat there. 0:24:21.119 --> 0:24:23.800 And so in nineteen eighty nine they decided to take 0:24:23.840 --> 0:24:27.240 a note from the video game crash of nineteen eighty three. 0:24:27.280 --> 0:24:30.120 You might remember, Atari decided to get rid of a 0:24:30.119 --> 0:24:33.600 lot of excess inventory by dumping them in landfills out 0:24:33.600 --> 0:24:36.240 in the desert. Apple ended up doing the same thing, 0:24:36.280 --> 0:24:39.240 only they dumped there's in the landfill in Utah instead 0:24:39.240 --> 0:24:42.320 of in a different states. So they all of those 0:24:43.080 --> 0:24:47.000 Macintosh XL computers ended up in a landfill in Utah. 0:24:47.240 --> 0:24:51.320