Apple’s Macintosh has been a trendsetting computer since its launch 25 years ago. But what about the next 25?
In the near term, things look good for the Mac and its ability to influence the industry, experts say. Apple is selling more computers than ever these days and continues to introduce innovations large and small to the Mac line.
But longer term, the Mac’s influence could wane. The PC industry has adopted a common interface — the windows-style one that Apple popularized — and a small range of hardware designs and underlying architecture, making it harder for any computer to stand out.
As the computer industry has matured, innovation has moved away from the PC toward smaller devices, such as smartphones, and toward developing services on the networks — the so-called cloud — to which PCs and smart-phones connect.
“The biggest question Apple faces is how it operates in a world of “cloud computing,” said Charles Smulders, an analyst who covers the PC industry for Gartner, a technology research firm. “We expect a lot of change in (that area) in the next two to five years.”
The Mac represented a big change itself when it appeared on the scene 25 years ago. It and its successors popularized the graphical user interface, desktop publishing, Wi-Fi networking and other technologies long before they became standard on other PCs. And Apple continues to add innovations to the line.
Earlier this month, the company introduced a new battery technology that will allow its latest laptop to run for eight hours without recharging. Last fall, Apple started constructing most of its laptops out of single chunks of aluminum, giving them a sturdier but still lightweight design. Analysts also expect Apple to take some of the touch-screen technology it built into the iPhone and use it on the Mac line.
These and other…