Things Apple changed, were mocked for, then were copied industry wide

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A few days ago, I got into a Twitter discussion about things Apple changed and were mocked for changing, yet those changes were copied and, eventually became the new normal. The original discussion was prompted by a wave of phones embracing the notch.

I was surprised by how many different things emerged from this exercise. Key to making this list was Apple making a change that is first mocked. So innovation isn’t sufficient. Here’s the original tweet. Feel free to retweet or reply to it, send me anything I’ve missed.

– The notch. Heavily mocked, and emerging as a design element on the latest series of smartphones. First on the list because it started the discussion. The rest of these are in no particular order.
– Getting rid of floppy drive, then optical drive.
– Removing the headphone jack.
– The iPhone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in. And Steve Ballmer’s reaction. And the funeral.
– Sealed in iPhone/Mac battery
– Ditching the keyboard for a capacitive touchscreen
– Bright, colorful computer cases. Apple has constantly changed industry design aesthetics, but that Bondi blue iMac G3 was startling. It was mocked, then embraced.
– AirPods
– USB. I was really surprised when Steven Woolgar brought this one up. But I did some research and, yes, Apple was mocked for including it in the iMac, and that iMac is credited with legitimizing and popularizing USB. This from the USB Wikipedia page: “Apple Inc.’s iMac was the first mainstream product with USB and the iMac’s success popularized USB itself.”
– A computer without a command line interface.
– A closed computer, with no easy access to add cards/memory. Not my favorite change.
– Removing Flash. Hugely mocked.
– The iPod. No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
– The Apple Watch. I wrestled with this one. No question it changed the category, changed what people expect from a smart watch. But I’ve always felt the mocking came in the form of doom-and-gloom and not “this is stupid”. But a bit of reading and discussion and yeah, I’m convinced, Apple Watch belongs on this list.
– The iPad rollout. Steve Jobs was ‘annoyed and depressed’ over initial reaction to iPad launch.

I’m certain there are many more. Feel free to add your own in the comments or reply to the original tweet.



83 thoughts on “Things Apple changed, were mocked for, then were copied industry wide”

  1. “A closed computer, with no easy access to add cards/memory. Not my favorite change.”

    Are you referring to the original Mac with this comment? Because this has been how Apple rolls literally since the first Mac.

  2. Going to 64 bit processors with the A7 was widely mocked in some circles, especially since Apple did so with a device that had only 1gb of RAM.

  3. Why are AirPods here? True wireless headphones existed before the Air Pods. If you mean the “two toothbrush heads stuck in your ear” look, that hasn’t been copied.

  4. ? Apple had made many expandable Macs, Mac II series with NuBus, others with PDS slots, etc… Even the original iMac had a mezzanine slot that hardware developers took advantage of.

  5. I would add the “ultrabook” notebook form factor. Before this, laptops were thick, slow and had every port imaginable (and a DVD drive).

  6. That’s absolutely not true. Almost all of Apple’s headless desktops have been fairly easy to open and upgrade.

    Older models of Apple’s AIO’s were not for one simple reason… CRT tubes are extremely dangerous to work around. Touch the wrong area and you could electrocute yourself.

    This is the same reason Apple doesn’t want users poking around inside of their mobile devices. Lithium batteries can also be extremely dangerous if they’re mishandled.

  8. This. I was in college when the Mac was new. I still remember a computer science grad student reacting to a guy bringing his Mac. “Real computers have a CLI.”

  11. “Easy” access does not describe the original Mac, 512k, Plus, or SE or SE/30, though.

  12. It’s ironic because as a computer scientist I use Macs in part because they do have a real terminal that plays nicely with Linux and Unix.

  13. Not quite.

    As above, the original Mac until the II has no easy access – if you were foolish about opening it (and could get a T15 back before they were common) you could electrocute yourself.

    They later changed that starting with the Mac II, yes, but …

  14. I don’t think safety is the real reason Apple’s mobile devices are closed off.

    The more likely reason is “you can make them smaller, stronger, lighter, and more easily water and dust-proof by not having an opening”.

    (Plus, well, it’s not like they have RAM sockets or anything anyway, even in principle; the only obvious reason even competitors have hatches is to allow battery swaps.

    And that’s just not a compelling market feature in 2018.)

  15. Since OSX is Unix(tm) branded per TOG, that’s … an interesting way of putting it, if still true.

  16. I was a school teacher back in 98 when I got the iMac G3. I have a green one sitting in my garage but don’t think that was the one I bought in 98. My friend who worked at the electronics store (can’t remember the name of the chain because they closed their stores) tried his best to embarrass me out of buying it. He said that it was just a toy and he could custom build a PC for me on his own time and just charge me for the parts. The only thing I didn’t like about it out of the box was the hockey puck mouse, and it served me well for many years till I upgraded to the lampshade iMac G4. Anyone remember holding the G3 by its handle in the top rear?

  17. Has the USB C-only move actually been copied? Every “pro” USB C-equipped Windows laptop I’ve read about also has a USB A port, because it’s the practical choice to make at this point in time.

    Going all USB C will probably make sense at some point in the 2020’s, but Apple deserves to be mocked for doing it in 2016.

  18. Firewire, not beige, Unix-based OS, standard keyboard commands across apps, free OS upgrades (before 7 and after a few iterations of X), 3.5″ floppies, variable letter spacing and ligatures. I’m forgetting some. Going back to 1987 is a lot of stuff to remember.

  21. The iMac was not the “first mainstream product with USB” , we were buying computers from Gateway at the time (they were a big company then) and we’d been getting systems with USB ports on them for a while, probably around 6 or more months.

    What the iMac did do was make USB the only I/O option, which is what finally pushed peripheral manufacturers into supporting it.

  22. Apple Stores are a big one. Everyone, and sad to say I was one of them, derided Apple for that one. I thought they were crazy – hadn’t they just seen what happened to Gateway. Turns out Steve knew best…

  23. I don’t believe you had to do that on the SE’s, only the Mac Pluses…and I still remember the day I did that on mine.

    I still have that foot-long Torx screwdriver in my tool rack and my case cracker is still around somewhere, too.

  24. oooh yeah. Gawd that brings to mind the original unveilling of the MacBook Air…

  25. Heck I remember holding my Mac Plus that way 🙂 And that was the thing that pissed me off about the eMac…no frigging handle on 25-ton slick all in one. You took your life (and back) in your hands trying to move one of them around…

  26. I wasn’t referring to which came first. I was referring to most of what came afterwards.

    Hence “until they didn’t.”

  27. SCSI works both ways—first the addition, then the removal.

    I remember the original Bernoulli Boxes…

  28. I always have to remember that those outside larger cities don’t get the Apple Store experience. The ability to just take my device into an Apple Store and get it fixed with the minimum bother is a huge win for me. In recent years I haven’t really had to avail myself of it very often, but I still love the security of AppleCare + Apple Stores.

  29. As I recall, USB was on PC motherboards for at least a year before the iMac was released, but Windows had pretty spotty USB support until at least Windows 98.

  31. Your comment could be run through find and replace for things like floppies and optical drives. Same logic. Same error. People do not move forward in certain things unless forced.

  32. Not the same logic and not the same error.
    The timing of the move makes all the difference, and this time they got it wrong. USB C won’t be truly mainstream until the next major MBP redesign.

  33. Until they didn’t. You’ve deliberately ignored most of the Mac product line, throughout Apple’s history.

  34. Laser writers. I know Xerox and IBM had earlier models but they took off during the desktop publishing era.

  35. It’s a long list. I’d venture that it also might include technologies like QuickTime, which Microsoft tried to defeat by pandering to record companies with a ridiculous level of DRM (“Plays For Sure”) that no consumer would tolerate. Their public trash-talk was generally quickly taken up by Windows-enthusiast writers in the tech press.

  36. I did it on an SE. I don’t have the Torx wrench anymore. My daughter found several 512s and SEs, while at her husband’s grandmother’s print shop. She sent me one.

  37. Removing little used ports like parallel and serial ports when they fell out of favor vs keeping them just because. VGA too.

    USB-C replacing A

  38. Let’s start an opposite list – things Apple mocked and then copied – Smartwatches; Cloud computing; Streaming; Phablets with attachable foldable keyboards; styli; ‘smart’ personal assistants; Emojis; command-line ability; the CISC chip specifically Intel chips – remember when Jobs swore by the RISC chips? Big phone screens. Things still mocked: Computer market share; external memory options via SD cards; lack of I/O on Pro Macs; “the notch” – sorry but let me know when that ugly thing is copied; edge to edge screens sans bezels and most of all – value. But as always it’s nice to reminisce about old days with the myopic glasses on.?

  39. You seriously think that’s why Apple doesn’t want you “poking around” inside their devices? Enjoy the Kool Aid bud.

  41. I would argue that the Commodore Vic-20/64 were earlier than a Mac in having ‘a closed computer’. This is the time when Apple II was still around and could easily be opened.

  42. Wasn’t the point ‘copied industry wide’, not ‘took over the segment’?

  43. Which is exactly what people were saying about the addition of the USB A port. And the removal of the floppy disk et al.

  44. the ipad was an amusing case. it was mocked when it was still a rumor and yet just before it actually launched, HP and a couple of others announced or even released their own tablet. HP in particular I remember because of all the press they released about how their pre-orders sold out and then it got out that they had only made like 2000 units and couldn’t make more for at least 6 months

  47. Not quite. 1995 Microsoft ActiveMovie could stream media -in ’99 embedded into Windows Media Player 6.4 and THEN Apple added streaming to QT 4. BEFORE that, DRM was moot. Later it was iTunes DRM that wasn’t playing nice – only Apple devices and QT player could play iTunes music until 2009. Originally Apple ported QT to Windows immediately (and continued to) as strategy for the MP4 being a “standard”. It was a Windows world remember – (still is, in the enterprise anyway)

  48. HA HA HA!!! ” iPhone X clones that have swept through Mobile World Congress this week,
    often from little-known Chinese manufacturers competing to get products
    out as fast as possible. Oukitel. Doogee. Blackview. UleFone. OtOt.
    Ila.”
    Like I said – Let me know when any competitors YOU’VE EVER HEARD OF or SEEN put an ugly notch on their phones. ?

  49. “sorry but let me know when that ugly thing is copied”

    You asked. I answered. Of course now you add a caveat after the fact. That’s cheating but I guess that’s what passes for wit in Trumplandia.

    C’est domage.

  50. Yes OS X is a certified POSIX Unix, always has been, since it’s a variant of BSD. (if you watch a verbose boot, there’s a copyright that flashes by ‘California Board of Regents’ )

    But yeah, OS X made me all giddy “You got Unix in my MacOS!!!!”

  52. The floppy disk analogy is weak. The floppy was clearly legacy by 1998, and Apple had already gone through a generation of machines with both floppy and CD when it released the iMac.

    Virtually every USB device you would want to plug into a MBP in 2016 was USB A, and that is still true in 2018. USB C won’t overtake USB A until well into the 2020s.

  54. Agreed. Would rather have a modernized one of those (retina, 16GB RAM, contemporary CPU/GPU) than my current touchbar MBP.

  56. Virtually any connection or media format you could point to on a consumer PC was legacy by 1998. And stayed that way for awhile.

  59. Here, the 1989 Macintosh portable being assemble on stage by the CEO Jean-Louis Gassée, and almost everything could be changed. 🙂

  61. Before macOS / OS X, the Mac OS was not based on Unix and had no command line. That means, the Mac had no command line from about 1984 to 2001. Howls of derisive laughter (bonus points for the origin of that phrase, kids!) came the Mac’s way.

    When OS X shipped (I was a beta tester!!!) those Unix underpinnings changed everything.

    — Dave

  65. Yes, I know the first few Mac models were not meant to be expandable, but the original post said “Because this has been how Apple rolls literally since the first Mac.” implying all Macs since the first one are not expandable, which is not true.

  66. I was working at Adaptec at about that time on their response to USB, so I was observing the market pretty closely.

    At the time of the iMac, practically every Windows desktop had USB on it as a result of Intel forcing them to include it. At the same time, Microsoft was pushing on it hard too: even giving away thousands of USB mice. This was going on for several years, but USB was gaining no traction.

    Then Apple introduced the iMac. My estimate is that, immediately, there were more USB peripherals made for the iMac than there had been in existence until then: and that within a month Apple had sold more USB devices than had been sold by every other platform combined.

    But you are right, the gutsy thing was not adding USB, it was killing off ALL legacy interfaces.

  67. LOL. Have a tangerine and lime one in the attic. Have a lampshade sitting on my daughter’s desk for legacy games etc. Albeit, it is not used much.

  68. In fairness to Liam, this really was Steve’s thing. Macs under him (first run and second coming), were closed machines or became closed during his run. The era of expandable Macs really happened in his absence, when Apple damn near went under. Makes you wonder how important expandability really is to the product line.

  70. Dacom will knock-off anything. This isn’t like the notch, where tier 1/2 competitors copy the look. Bose, B&O and others have distinctive looks that are nothing like Apple’s. Bose’s look ridiculous on their own, but they look nothing like AirPods.

  71. I’d say the Mac II, Quadra, LC and early PowerMacs were pretty important.

  72. After Steve’s return, he also saw to it that the expandable towers were redesigned to make them less difficult to work inside. Hence the blue-and-white G3s.

    Yes, the tide eventually shifted towards closed boxes, but certainly not right away.

  73. They were mocked for the aesthetics, not the utility. Utility-wise, particularly on pairing, price and maintaining a connection, they’re leaps and bounds over the competition. The main valid beefs are sound quality and look.

  74. Yes, and I loved the big, expandable PowerMacs and cheese grater Macs of that era (which were originally the G5 based PowerMacs). They were that size however, due to the incredible thermal requirements of the PowerPCs, especially the G5, not out of some noble desire to do right by expansionists. Since they had to be so big to properly handle the heat, they engineered an elegant, easily accessible housing that most of us loved, but Steve Jobs did not*. He very much wanted to get them back to the core Mac; minimalist, perfectly designed, closed system. He failed with the Cube, and Apple somewhat succeeded with Mac Pro that came after his death, but was designed with his philosophy.

    (some of this comes directly from friends that worked on the Pro apps team back in the early Aperture/Final Cut days, and some from media reports)

  78. I am reminded of a noteworthy modern philosopher’s warning about the failure of “…contempt prior to investigation….” when considering any new venture, and how that reinforces the “It’ll never fly” attitude of critics of all stripes.
    I have accepted Apple’s noteworthy design failures since my first Mac, the PowerBook 190cs, with the assertedly “upgradable motherboard” that would have cost more than the sister Mac, the 5300. I am OK with that as I am with most modern tech that has been released, well, just a bit too soon.
    But I am delighted with my original iPod Mini, my replacement multi-gigabyte iPod, my subsequent laptops, and my HomePod, which does exactly what I bought it for: It plays music exceptionally well. It is far from being the first of its type, but its music performance, tied with iTunes, is exactly what I have wanted from the very beginning of my use of Mac products and music. I am delighted every time I use it. Apple snuck in the back door, and while all the other developers were making devices that tried to do everything equally well and made some that were mediocre at best, Apple succeeded with speakers that are great speakers, by focusing on one thing at a time.

  80. No one has mentioned the mouse! Dvorak and others criticized the mouse too. . . Not to mention no stylus on touch screen phones. . .

  83. I can’t believe no one’s brought up the mouse yet. In 1984 all the guys who were typing into their command line thought that thing was just stupid!

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