Michal Ždanský It was 1999, and it was one of the most important keynotes for Apple. Steve Jobs has only recently returned to save the slowly failing company he and Steve Wozniak once founded in his garage. That evening, Steve was to present four main products.
The quartet of computers was part of a new strategy, simplifying the portfolio into four main products that will determine the future of the Apple company. 2×2 square matrix, user × professional, desktop × portable. The biggest attraction of the entire presentation was the iMac, which became the symbol of Macintosh computers for several years to come. A colorful, playful and fresh design, great internals, a CD-ROM drive replacing the outdated floppy disk drive, these were all the draws to get the company back in the game.
That evening, however, Steve had one more product up his sleeve, a laptop intended for ordinary users – the iBook. This predecessor of MacBooks was largely inspired by the iMac, especially in terms of design. Not for nothing did Steve call it the iMac for travel. Semi-transparent colored plastic covered with colored rubber, it was something completely new at the time, which was not seen in traditional notebooks. Its shape earned the iBook the nickname "clamshell".
The iBook stood out not only for its design, which included a built-in strap, but also for its specifications, which included a 300 Mhz PowerPC processor, powerful ATI graphics, a 3 GB hard drive and 256 MB of operating memory. Apple offered this computer for $1, which was a very favorable price at the time. That would be enough for a successful product, but it wouldn't be Steve Jobs if he didn't have something extra hidden away, his famous One more thing ...
In 1999, Wi-Fi was a fledgling technology, and for the average user, it was something they could at best read about in tech magazines. Back then, most people connected to the Internet using an Ethernet cable. Although the origins of the technology itself date back to 1985, the Wi-Fi Alliance, which was instrumental in promoting this technology and securing the necessary patents, was formed only 14 years later. The IEEE 802.11 standard, otherwise known as Wireless Fidelity, started appearing in a few devices around 1999, but none of them were intended for the masses.
[youtube id=3iTNWZF2m3o width=”600″ height=”350″]
Towards the end of the keynote, Jobs demonstrated some of the things that can be done with the new laptop. To demonstrate the quality of the display, he opened a web browser and headed to Apple's website. He jokingly mentioned the ongoing webcast (live broadcast), which those present can go and watch. He suddenly grabbed the iBook and took it to the center of the stage, while still browsing the CNN site. Admiration took hold of those present, which was followed by massive applause and loud cheers. Meanwhile, Steve Jobs continued his presentation as if nothing had happened and continued to load pages far from the reach of any Ethernet cable.
To add to the magic of wireless connectivity, he took a prepared hoop in his other hand and pulled the iBook through to make it clear to the last person in the audience that there were no wires anywhere and that what they were seeing was the beginning of another small revolution, a revolution in wireless networking. connection. “No wires. What's going on here?” Steve asked a rhetorical question. He then announced that the iBook also includes AirPort, a wireless network. The iBook thus became the first computer designed for the consumer market to feature this young technology.
At the same time, the first router providing Wi-Fi hotsport - AirPort Base Station - was introduced, which made it possible to use wireless technology in homes and companies. The first version reached 11 Mbps. Apple was thus responsible for popularizing a technology that was still unknown to many people in a way that only Steve Jobs could do. Today, Wi-Fi is an absolute standard for us, in 1999 it was a technology fad that freed users from the need to use a cable to connect to the Internet. Such was MacWorld 1999, one of the most important keynotes for Apple in the company's history.
[do action="tip"/] MacWorld 1999 had a few other interesting moments. For example, the entire presentation was not given by Steve Jobs, but by the actor Noah Wyle, who walked onto the stage in Jobs' signature black turtleneck and blue jeans. Noah Wyle portrayed Steve Jobs in the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, which hit theaters that same year.
1999, beautiful years.. And Steve was still healthy then.... I like this older stuff… And I really feel sorry for Steve… He was a visionary….
great, that comment about Bill Gates' house made me cry :D
The ibook is design nonsense and J.Ive's biggest fail