Sharky Extreme: Apple 1st or best with popular features

Pretty cool. An article at Sharky Extreme, a PC hangout for hardware extremists, talks about how many of today’s personal computers features were brought about first — or at least made successful — by Apple:

“Remember the command line interface? Remember when you had to play with IRQ and DMA settings then add lines to the autoexec.bat just to install a sound card? Remember when you wrote down phone numbers on paper instead of a PalmPilot? Remember when computers were ugly?” Associate Editor Jon Simon wrote.

“Every successful feature of today’s PCs and related products had to be invented somewhere,” said Simon. “Even if the inventor or the first company to use the idea lost their shirt in the process, someone eventually made these ideas successful enough for them to become the industry standard. Shocking as it may sound, many things we take for granted in today’s PC, including everything listed above, either started at or was proven successful at Apple Computer.”

He credits Apple for the popularity of the “windowed” graphical user interface (which Simon feels is even better in Mac OS X), stylish computers, creative design (such as systems with hinge mounted case side that open via a screwless latch), fanless systems (the Cube, natch), AirPort, slot loading DVD/CD drives, the proliferation of USB devices, FireWire, gigabit Ethernet, and more. And looking at Apple’s current and upcoming products, here is what Simon predicts we’ll be seeing on future PCs:

Pleasing interfaces: “With all the 2D power current video cards have to spare, PC operating systems will eventually make use of the power to make more attractive interfaces”;

Improved case access: “Easier to work in cases will ease upgrading and repair”;

Full featured, yet slim, notebooks: “Why not have all the features and none of the size?”;

Integrated wireless LAN: “Notebooks are not meant to be tethered, and standard wireless LAN keeps it that way”;

No legacy I/O: “Legacy I/O increases cost and system overhead. It won’t be around forever.”

Check out the complete article for more info. And thanks to MacCentral reader Graham Fair for the heads-up on this story.