iMac Circa 1988

Couldn’t resist this one, since the iMac has had a special place in my heart for so long. They were cheap and powerful, and I used them in my multimedia business for years. Heck we even bragged that our web site and content management system ran with months of uptime on a lowly Grape-Ape iMac.

The machine that saved Apple was a gimpy little thing by today’s computing standards, but it really had a big influence not only on the computer industry, but also on consumer product design for years to follow. Heck, even the George Foreman Grill riffed on the candy-colored plastic motif .

The look was so radical that it sent the competition back to the drawing boards. The iconic design of Jonathan Ive would prove to be just the shot in the arm that Apple needed. In the decade since then, Apple has gone from near bankruptcy to the market leader with $24 Billion in the bank.

Just goes to show…design counts.

[ via Tuaw ]

Boy, you gotta love “analysts” (hmmm…starts with “anal”—go figure.) Seems that some lovely ANALysts are signing death warrants for Apple TV already. Even the well-respected ArsTechnica jumped on the Bandwagon o’ Doom. Ok peops, crack pipes down. Test over. You failed. Here’s why…

(But first a word from our Sponsor. I own Apple stock. Far from a dripping fanboy. I like making money. They made me a lot. Deal with it.)

Since when does Apple have to have a blockbuster hit for a product to be successful? They offer a $300 box that sells about 500,000 in its first year. No advertising. No promotion. Hmm…if you do the math, assuming a paltry 20% profit margin, they added about $30,ooo,ooo dollars in profit to an already phat bottom line. A Beyonce’-sized bottom line, knamean?

I think the guys over at RoughlyDrafted have it right. Apple already owns the video download market with a 91% total share in TV shows and movie downloads, this after being in the market less than 2 years. But what few folks have mentioned is this: Apple is on such a roll right now, they clearly have bigger plans for the Apple TV. Why would they even offer a product that depends on paid downloads only for content? Even with their market position, they can’t change the fact that people don’t want to buy movies as much as they want to rent them. So, will they start doing this? Time will tell. But in the meantime, they continue to add to the $15 billion dollar pile of dead prezidentz under their mattress. God I love money.