25 years of Macintosh - the Apple report card

Part One In two short months, Apple's Macintosh will turn 25 years old. My, how tempus doth fugit.

To mark the awesome inevitability of January 24, 2009 following January 24, 1984 after exactly one quarter-century, tech pundits will bloviate, Apple-bashers will execrate, and Jobsian fanboyz will venerate the munificence that flows unabated from The Great Steve. The din will be deafening.

To avoid the crowds, we at The Reg decided to go first.

Click to expand...

Mac Report Card, Part Two In August 1983, Steve Capps of Apple's original Macintosh Division famously hoisted a pirate flag over his team's Cupertino building to embody Steve Jobs's dictum that "It's better to be a pirate than join the navy." From that day forward, members of the Mac community have been a little feistier, a little more insular, a little more picky, and a little more self-righteous than other computer users.

Five months after the flag went up, Jobs, Capps, and Co. unleashed the first Macintosh with that iconic "1984" Super Bowl ad, and after 25 years, their symbol of rule-breaking innovation is still on the market. The question is whether Apple is still the pirate it once was.

Last week, in honor of the Mac's upcoming quarter century anniversary, we unloaded Part One of our Apple Report Card, grading the company/cult on everything from sales to CEOs. Now, we give you Part Two, which dares to ask if today's Apple is just another money-hungry tech biz. How does it score on innovation? The environment? Corporate philanthropy?

Click to expand...

So we went digging. We started with the San Francisco Business Times' annual Book of Lists, which tracks the "Top Corporate Philanthropists in the Greater Bay Area." The Greater Bay Area includes Apple's home town of Cupertino, but Apple is conspicuously absent from the list for three years running.

By comparison, the list's number-three donor is Intel, which gave $10,006,961 in the Bay Area ($1,491 per Bay Area employee) and $79,443,226 worldwide. Even Microsoft, which has its headquarters 800 miles north in Redmond WA gave $1,779,200 in the Bay Area ($1,288 per Bay Area employee) and $65,000,000 worldwide - a figure that doesn't include Bill's Gates Foundation.

Click to expand...

Report Card, Part Three When the original Apple Macintosh debuted in 1984, it carried a $2,495 price tag - roughly $5,250 in 2008 money. Ever since, the debate has raged over whether Macs are more expensive, feature-by-feature and capability-by-capability, than their PC brethren.

And what a meaningless debate it is.

Click to expand...