8 MACWORLD SEPTEMBER 2020
MACUSER MOST INFLUENTIAL ERAS IN APPLE’S HISTORYSteve Jobs leaving Apple and ends with
the arrival of the App Store.
I’ve tried to categorize the history of
Apple into six distinct eras where the
company’s approach and position were
remarkably different, with special attention
paid to the two most undersold eras in
company history.
THE HOBBYIST ERA (1976-1982)
You know the story. Two guys named
Steve built a company in a garage in the
earliest days of personal computing.
There’s been plenty of myth-making about
this era in Apple’s history, and for good
reason. In 1982, high on Apple II sales,
Apple hired John Sculley of Pepsi as its
CEO, and this era came to an end.
THE CORPORATE ERA
(1982-1992)
This era encompasses the continued
success of the Apple II, the release of the
Macintosh, and the Mac’s growth under
Sculley. It’s funny to think about how Jobs’s
legendary shepherding of the original Mac
project came as his power base in the
company was crumbling, and a year after
the Mac arrived, Jobs was gone.
What remained was a company that
was ready to iterate on that original Mac
and take it to some great places. The Mac
became dominant in media circles thanks
to the advent of desktop publishing. My
first Mac was an SE, purchased in this
period.
Apple grew a lot during this period,
transforming from the legendary garage
startup into a more traditional corporation.
Microsoft and IBM PCs loomed as threats,
but the Mac was still clearly the best
choice for the job—and the money flowed.THE DOOM ERA (1992-1998)
I tell people that I started writing about
Apple when it was doomed. And indeed,
deciding to specialize in Apple computers
in 1993 seemed about as smart as
covering radio dramas during the roll-outMacworld started out as a print magazine,
and the first issue was published during the
Corporate Era.