The iMac Report: Apple Left the Proprietary World a Decade Ago
May 7th, 2008Lots of pundits are content with putting the words “Apple Inc.” and “proprietary” in the same sentence. A lot of that is, of course, due to the tight vertical integration of all of their products, from the iPod to Macs and Mac OS X.
However, there is an awful lot about the Mac these days that isn’t exclusive to Apple, which is why people can now, without any special training or engineering skills, assemble their own Macs. But this story really began in 1998, when the iMac was first announced.
In those days, you see, I was a member of Apple’s Customer Quality Feedback (or CQF) program, before journalists were barred. In addition to prerelease operating system software, one day they sent me an original Bondi blue iMac. The optical drive’s cover was missing, but it was otherwise fully intact and functional. I ran it through the usual spate of tests, and even let my son, then 12, have at it for a few months, with the promise not to tell his friends about his special access.
