Apple has reclaimed the “innovation lead” in the personal computer arena, and customers and software developers are paying attention, according to a BusinessWeek Online special report.
With products such as the iPod, flat panel iMacs and Mac OS X, Apple and its CEO, Steve Jobs, are regaining the PC industry’s lead in innovation they lost five years ago, the report says. “In a bid to improve the Mac’s lowly 5 percent market share, Apple’s product developers are the ones pushing the envelope — and the competition, too,” Business Week Online says.
The article heaps praise on Mac OS X, especially 10.2 (“Jaguar”) and the new line of iMacs. Mark Rolston, a vice-president at frog design, the firm that helped design the Apple IIc back in the 1980s, appreciates the packaging of the flat panel iMac, with its small footprint and 17-inch flat-panel monitor “that seemingly floats in mid-air.” And Mac OS X has changed the way Rolston thinks of his computer with its ease of use and world-class “i-apps,” the article said.
Finally, Apple has pulled ahead of Microsoft in incorporating industry wide technology standards. One example is IPv6, “a new system of numbering devices on the Internet that’s the equivalent of adding extra area codes to the phone network,” the article says.