42 years ago, Apple’s 1984 ad ran on the Super Bowl. Once. It’s generally considered the most effective ad of its kind, creating a legend and also a trap.
Godin doesn’t attribute the Mac’s success to that ad, or even Regis McKenna’s work in getting Steve Jobs on the cover of 20 magazines when the Mac launched. Instead, he lauds the work of Guy Kawasaki in evangelizing the platform to developers and the “unreasonable standards” of Susan Kare and Bill Atkinson. Invoking Kare, who designed the original Mac’s icons, is particularly apropos as criticism of Liquid Glass in macOS 26 Tahoe continues to build—from window corners that hinder resizing to scrollbars that obscure Finder controls.
I’ve been a Mac developer from the beginning, I started working on my app in February 1984, shipped the 1.0 version in August. I met Guy Kawasaki in May, I think. I can’t speak for any other developers, but for me the evangelism team wasn’t a factor at all in deciding to develop for the Mac, nor did they assist in any technical way with development (though they did help quite a bit with promotion in the early days). I certainly agree with Seth that the Superbowl ad was not really a factor in the ultimate success of the Mac.
In my opinion, the bulk of the credit goes to the team who’s signatures were on the inside of the original 128k Macintosh, starting with Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld, Jeff Raskin, Bruce Horn, Rod Holt, and Mike Boich (who hired Guy Kawasaki). And of course Steve Jobs. I wanted to post a complete list, but I haven’t been able to find one in about 20 minutes of searching. I don’t think her signature is in the box, but I’d definitely include a shout out to Caroline Rose, the lead writer and editor of the amazing Inside Mac developer documentation. It was a great privilege for me to briefly meet her and several others on the original Macintosh team at a Macintosh 30th anniversary event in 2014.
I actually went to that page, that’s where I got some of the names I listed. But I didn’t figure out that you could click on the picture to enlarge it and make most of the names readable.
One can easily say the same thing about developers who "think outside of the box”. My favorite one is Dave Nanian of Shirt Pocket Software. He continues to defy the odds by successfully updating SuperDuper! so that bootable clones can STILL be made with SuperDuper!. He definitely puts in the time, effort, and innovation for continually getting around Apple’s short comings with their ASR technology. I’m sue there are others, but Dave is my hero!
So done with Liquid Glass, the nearly comic absurdity in the link on window resizing alone.
I’d agree with Seth on the principle of “better is better” but it is the full package that gave it success, far too often the “better” loses out. The full array of talent and smarts is what set Apple to succeed.
The monkeying around which the current offering lays bare… it’s time to return to some solid detailed care.
If your early development was with Panorama (https://www.provue.com/), then you have my heartfelt thanks. I loved that product, although my employer eventually required me to move to something else. I’m glad to see that it’s still around and viable.
And if that’s not the one, then “please disregard previous message.”
one needn’t click through to the original article as it says nothing beyond the summary presented by @ace. would be interested in an exposition of kare’s and atkinson’s work and why it matters. that’s not on offer. waste of a click, methinks.
I suggest following the links that Adam provided to their respective Wikipedia pages. It is no understatement to say that the Macintosh would have been quite different from the beginning and quite possibly would not be around today were it not for their contributions to the interface.
no argument with the impact of their contributions.
my point was the original article never bothered to advance any exposition. therefore it was adequately covered by the summary presented on this site. there was no need to clickthru because there was nothing further there.
out of boredom, read a few other postings by godin and found the same pattern of just making declarations without any backing argument. pass.
I have worked in advertising sales for many more decades than I care to admit that I am old. In 1984 I was the consumer electronics ad manager for one of the largest print magazines in the United States Of America. And at that time everyone from my family and friends, as well as my consumer and business to business clients, as well as me, were totally blown up in a shocking, but very, very, very, very, good way.
Here’s an article that I think describes the reasons why:
Sorry that your employer required you to switch to something else. I’m also glad that Panorama is still around and viable 