Apple Macs have come a long way: watch this 2001 keynote to see how far
Sixteen years ago, Mac OS X was unveiled for the first time, and it was easily one of the most beautiful and advanced operating systems of that era.
Many of Mac OS X’s features have been part of the everyday experience, and have been taken for granted, because of their subtlety. Still, without many of those features introduced in 2001 by Steve Jobs himself, modern computing would probably not be as user friendly as it is today.
In that era, the PowerMac G4 was the pinnacle of consumer-level desktop computing, and very much focused on professional graphics applications. That focus reflected upon Mac OS X, as its graphic layer was very much GPU-driven.
For the first time, we saw things on a desktop computer that were very difficult to envision, prior to Mac OS X. Animated effects for windows and other elements offered smoother transitions and the ability to drag desktop elements in real time, not just their dotted outline.
Quicktime video playback occurred while dragging the window, and even while docking it, or minimizing it, with video warping with the Quicktime player interface, while still playing. Now, it’s hard to think of a PC that doesn’t do all of those things, because of how powerful modern hardware has gotten, and how much more optimized and refined are modern operating systems and software applications.
Video overlay is hardly anything to be excited about, nowadays, much less the ability to unlock a Mac with your fingerprint, but that was then, and now, in 2017, we have devices that simply would not exist, if it hadn’t for those primitive beasts from our childhood.
The staggering contract between those days of colorful, fun, round and over-embossed plastic, gel-like transparent accents in the first iMacs/iBooks, and today’s almost “tactical” and super-thin look of modern MacBooks and iMacs, represents historic moments worth remembering, as devices evolve towards a seamless, and frictionless integration with users.
Ready to shop?
If you are looking for the perfect MacBook, PortableOne has you covered with a great selection of Apple MacBooks, as well as the newly unveiled 13 inch and 15 inch MacBook Pro with TouchBar.