What announcement made you go WOW

[coolant113]

Back in the day which apple announcement made you look at apple and go "WOW, i really think apple is going to go somewhere"? Which one where you impressed by the most??

For me all of them make me go "wow they are ahead of everybody else".
:apple::apple:

[alexprice]

For me its the iPhone/iPod Touch. Or the Aluminum Portable look.

[miloblithe]

At the time I was excited about the G5.

Clearly, I'm not the best technology analyst.

I also thought Aperture looked amazing.

[gkarris]

3 come to mind:

1. The Macintosh, then a friend brought one over - WOW.
2. The new low-cost macs: Classic, LC, and IIsi.
3. The biggest - the switch to Intel. About time!! Now look...

[4JNA]

the 2 that i remember the most were the cube (and seeing the cube in person), and the G5.

i've being building/fixing/hacking computers for 30 years, and both of those left me speechless. well, except for 'WOW' :)

to me, everything since seems to be more 'improvement' than 'WOW'.

[cbrain]

Which one where you impressed by the most?

Before I got a Mac: Time Machine, Boot Camp.
After I got a Mac: iPhone/iPod Touch.

Boot Camp didn't make me go "WOW", but it's one of things that allowed me to switch to a Mac, as I would be able to run some programs that are not available on OS X.

[velocityg4]

Well for me it was reading about Copland the next generation Mac OS that was supposed to be Mac OS 8. Until after many delays and problems it was finally crushed with the purchase of Next leading to Mac OS X. Until then I was just thinking wow Apple is going places.

My next epiphany about Apples future success was with OS X's final release, about 4-5 years late. I thought this is it Apple will rule the OSes by 2010, until I tried it 10.0 and 10.1 where slow and most of my apps where still classic. It was not until 10.2 that I made the full transition since Apple finally worked out the kinks and made it run much faster.

Most recently would be Intel and the possibility of them selling the OS to any PC owner, still waiting.

[bbergie]

For me, the announcement that tops the list is the introduction of the 12- and 17-inch PowerBooks, gorgeous and ahead of their time.

I'd also like to give a nod to Apple's ads. They're always very creative and memorable.

[madmax_2069]

for me it was the G4 PowerMac commercial with the tanks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzxz3k2zQJI

[zea mays]

Clamshell iBook. That's when I knew Apple was going somewhere different (again!).

[MacBoy108]

I remember before I was into Apple as much as I am now, I saw an add for the first iPod nano and I thought it was amazing when they compared it to a pencil in thickness.

[Chromako]

for me it was the G4 PowerMac commercial with the tanks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzxz3k2zQJI

+1 for me. I was twelve, I think... I used Apple before then but it wasn't special or anything until we got the G4. The Cube was also sooo cute. :)

[thesdx]

Probably the biggest WOW for me was the iPhone. At the time, I wasn't really reading rumors or anything, so it came completely out of the blue to me. The iMac G4 was also a big wow. That's pretty much what told me that Apple was more than just a computer company, and what ultimately made me switch to the Mac.

[nissan.gtp]

the original Macintosh.

it was like something from a sci-fi show. everything seemed so obvious (WYSIWYG, the mouse, icons and folders, ...) but everything else was command lines and terminal interfaces

I still have an original brochure. Remember the tennis shoe ? :D

[PurrBall]

The original Macintosh was amazing, but the iMac G4 is the most creative oem pc design that I have ever seen, and ultimately became my Mac.

[cyberjunky]

Im relatively new to Apple, well about a year, but id go with leopard, of course being the most up to date product would means its going to be superior to the previous OS's but of all the operating systems i have ever looked at, leopard is beautiful, it did not take long for me to get a bit bored with tigers look and feel here and there, for the most part brushed metal and the blue angled folders always irritated me. I solved this using Uno to UnoShade theme the OSX window manager making it look a tad bit more Leopardy, and folders with Agua.

For the most part though, Leopard is just beautiful, i prefer the gun metal menu bar over the semi translucent one though.

[CRAZYBUBBA]

it was the iMac G3. Clamshell ibook G3... the recent announcements lack that wow factor.

[a104375]

i think it would have to be the intel switch and the iphone were the 2 the were most surprising

[t0mat0]

Apple
Time Machine. Simple backup (it's got a way to go, but it's a great start)
iPhone's wobbly buttons (Just because)

Microsoft - SeaDragon / Photosynth Bought out the tech to a degree, but that doesn't stop it being jaw dropping

Presentation: Job's build up to the iPhone at the keynote. Simple, effective. Built up that crowd :D

[thechidz]

definitely iPhone:apple::apple::apple::apple:

[Cromulent]

The Macworld when Mac OS X was announced was very impressive. Technologically Mac OS X was a huge feat for Apple. I don't think there are many companies with Apple's technical abilities that cater for the consumer market.

[Killyp]

Possibly the iMac G4? I didn't see it at the time, but having watched most of the major past ones on YouTube etc... the G4 iMac one seemed most impressive.

The latest iMac is my favourite design though...

[Malfoy]

quad g5 liquid cool. putting liquid cooling in a stock consumer machine? yea sign me up.

like everyone else said, iphone. Has there ever been a hype machine so big that delivered on almost every promise? The last time I felt something delivered on the hype of that scale was final fantasy 7 for Playstation. :)

[Sly]

For Me it has to be the T.A.M. followed by the G4 Cube then the G3 & G4 iMacs (what a disappointment the G5 iMac was:( ) All the above blew me away at the time of introduction. The closest thing lately was the iPhone which would be in my top ten. Maybe I'm getting jaded in my old age but were has the wow factor gone, even the Macbook Air is a little yawn IMO?

[dejo]

The iPod! I remember thinking after it was first announced, and confirmed after getting to try one very early on, that someday Apple might become better known for its influence on music than on computers. And in some circles, that's kind of true, although thankfully not in many circles. There are still people out there that don't even know Apple makes the iPod, although I think it was more widespread a few years ago.

[daneoni]

iPhone. Especially the Conference calling, Pinch, Accelerometer, Coverflow & Visual Voicemail demos.

A close second would be the iMac G4 announcement, especially the part where he demonstrates the LCD movements. Its still the best designed iMac to date IMHO.

I occasionally go back to watch the announcement keynotes of these products

[Sun Baked]

I still like the first Mac and the Lisa -- huge chance in how things were done.

And the NeXT OS was the next big step ... though Apple bought there way into that.

[840quadra]

Having made the jump from a personally owned LC (my only mac at the time) to a 6220cd Performa at school, I was blown away by the B&W G3 Tower. At the time, going from my home LC (and Pentium 166 PC), it was a rocket ship of a system.

I wasn't able to afford my own until 3 years later, however this system is still functioning and only lightly tuned up (G4 - 500 Mhz), is still a viable system on my network, serving up Audio / Video, and used as an internet workstation!

[Stuart in Oz]

The original Titanium Powerbook.

I bought one the week it was released. I knew as soon as the release happened that this was how a laptop should look and work. Every Powerbook and MacBook Pro since has just been a refined version of that design.

Mine was early so I got the standard flaws - the paint chipped and the battery latch broke several times and the frame buckled a little and the hinge broke big time and it came with OS9 - but I still loved it.

It gave me 5 years of faithful computing, the battery lasted 6 hours of researching in the State Library here in Sydney (I was doing my BA in history at the time), I got to try networking with another student using IrDA (a technology that deserved to die!) and I got incredible amounts of envious looks at Uni and out on the street. :)

Oh, and I got to watch DVD on a great LCD - very cool stuff at that time! Of course, I did once spill a bourbon & coke through the whole machine when the interstate train I was on lurched as I raised my cup....

To top it all off, the machine is still doing sterling service for my father as his desktop. Even though the busted hinge means the screen can't close & it only has a 40GB HDD and 512Mb RAM, he happily checks his email & surfs the web on it every day. The only thing he doesn't like about it is that he can't load Google Earth!

[teleromeo]

iMac G4.

I only bought my G3 a few months earlier and if I knew this was comming I would have waited. I never owned one but some time ago I did a clean install of one for a friend so it was standing on my desk for a few days, I still want it beck there. Even more, it was in mint condition.

As a matter of fact all my macs were exciting, even my beige LC and my performa 5200.

[PkennethV]

1) iPhone

2) iMac G4 even though I never watched the actually keynote until about a year ago.

[krye]

When the IIc went 3.5", I mean, WOW!

[UltraNEO*]

When one of the PC magazines rated the MacBook Pro as the best and fastest laptop for running Windows (can't remember was it for XP or Visa) but the benchmarks we're definitely on the MBP's side... I guess, when they announced that, loads of PC users found themselves buying Mac.

Makes a refreshing change, doesn't it? :D

[Pees330]

For me it was when I first saw the first generation Nano. I couldn't put my mind around how small it was. Of course the iPhone was amazing but we all knew it was due to come at some point.