Apple MacintoshA B C D E F G H IJKL M N O P R S T U VXYZWJobs to the company the Mac revolution picked
up apace. Innovations such as the HyperCard,
the MultiFinder, the Powerbook, the iMac –
advanced and stylish – and the iBook (Apple’s
first laptop computer) did good business and
established the company as a world leader.
In 2005 came the MacMini, a relatively inex-
pensive version of the Mac, proving immensely
popular and profi table. Jobs has been quoted as
saying, ‘I get asked a lot why Apple’s customers
are so loyal. It’s not because they belong to the
church of Mac! It’s because of the best service
and the quality of Apple’s products.’
Apple is associated with ‘the next big thing’
in computing, creating landmarks such as the
iPhone, the iPod and sensationally in 2010,
the iPad tablet which in three days in June
registered sales of a quarter of a million and
within six months was approaching sales of ten
million. Th e iPod, a portable media player, was
introduced in 2001, taking 90 per cent of the
US market and selling a hundred million by- PC World Magazine judged that the iPod
had ‘altered the landscape for portable audio
players’. It has proved as useful for business as
for entertainment. Th e music software iTunes
Store, opened for business in 2003, soon off ered
movies and computer games. In 2007 iTunes
Wi-Fi Music Store followed, and the celebrated
iPhone in the same year.
In 2011 Apple introduced its iCloud service,
allowing people to listen to music purchased
online for any Apple device with Internet
connection, this in competition with similar
offerings available from rivals amazon and
google.
Like other global operators such as Google
and microsoft, Apple Inc. has been involved
in controversy and litigation. In June 2006 the
UK Mail on Sunday reported on the suicides of
several workers at a factory run by Taiwan-based
electronics firm, Foxconn, manufacturer of
components for Apple (and Dell, HP and Nokia).
Evidence of guards at the Shenzhen factory beat-
ing workers was captured on video – a situation
the Apple management rushed to remedy.
Similar problems arose in China in August
2009 when it was revealed that another Apple
supplier at the Wintek factory in Suzhou,
Jiangsee Province, incurred a strike following
illness breaking out among workers as a result of
the illegal use of n-hexane instead of (the more
expensive) alcohol to clean screens of mobile
phones.
Apple has taken legal action to protect its
apple trademark. In April 2000 the Beijing
Anti-languages are created by a process of
relexicalization – that is, the substitution of new
vocabulary for old, usually those words which
refer to the activities which mark the group off
from the wider community. The grammar of
the parent language is often preserved. Making
up new words happens frequently in anti-
languages, thus making them even more diffi cult
to penetrate. Overlexicalization is often also a
feature of anti-languages. Here a variety of new
words may refer to an activity and may be used
interchangeably in order to mislead or confuse
‘outsiders’.
Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act
(UK), 2001 See terrorism: anti-terrorism,
crime and security act.
Apache silence The complex meanings of
silence, as observed by the North American
Apache tribes, have been tabulated by K.H.
Basso in ‘To give up words: silence in Western
Apache culture’ in P. Giglioli, ed., Language and
Social Context (Penguin, 1972). Basso describes
Apache silence as ‘a response to uncertainty
and unpredictability in social relations’. Often
baffl ing to the outsider, Apache silence was an
important element in the courtship process;
when meeting strangers; even when greeting
children back from a long journey; and in the
presence of other people’s grief. See communi-
cation, non-verbal.
▶Adam Jaworski, Th e Power of Silence: Social and
Pragmatic Perspectives (Sage, 1993).
Apocryphal stories Th ose of doubtful origin,
false or spurious. See demonization; folk
devils; loony leftism; myth; rumour.
Apple Macintosh Name derives from an apple
cultivar, the McIntosh (called ‘the Mac’), popular
in New England and fi xed on by the founders
of Apple Computers, Steve Wozniak and Steve
Jobs, 1 April 1976, though the names of other
pioneers of the personal computer (PC) – Jef
Raskin, Burrell Smith and Bill Atkinson – should
be equally celebrated. From its inception Apple
has been synonymous with innovative excellence
and good design.
A David in the PC world compared with the
Goliath of microsoft, Apple (commanding 4
per cent of the computer market globally) never-
theless is a chart-stopper in terms of admiration
for its computer hardware and software and for
its enterprise in the fi eld of digital telephony.
Both in terms of innovation and business
success Apple languished in the 1990s, this in
part because the dynamic Jobs fell out with the
company’s Chief Executive Offi cer and took his
energies elsewhere. However, with the return of