Friess, now president of The Tech Museum of Innovation in the heart of Silicon Valley, is not surprised that the world is catching on as "Macs" hit age 25 on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Friess, 49, was in his twenties and cataloguing centuries-old watches in The Deutches Museum when he learned that Apple had built a computer.<\/p>\n
"The Deutches was the largest science museum in the world, and not a single office had a computer in it in those days," Friess said. "I called Apple in Munich and told them I really needed a computer."<\/p>\n
Jobs happened to be in Munich, and visited the museum with a computer for Friess and another for the director of the institution, according to Friess.<\/p>\n
"I was a craftsman working in the basement, perhaps the smallest person in the museum, and Steve Jobs gave me and the director computers," Friess recounted.<\/p>\n
"I shook hands with him. I don’t know if he remembers, but I do. I still have that computer."<\/p>\n
Apple was in its infancy when the company, started in a Northern California garage by friends Steve Wozniak and Jobs, brought the first Macintosh to market on January 24, 1984.<\/p>\n
Apple promoted the moment with a now-legendary television ad portraying rival Microsoft as an oppressive symbol of conformity along the lines of "Big Brother" in George Orwell’s novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four."<\/p>\n
Revolutionary Macintosh features included a "mouse" for navigating on-screen cursors and small pictures clicked to trigger applications or open files.<\/p>\n
It was called "graphical user interface" because it let people interact with computers by using images instead of typing software commands.<\/p>\n
Apple computers earned a reputation for being premier products, well-crafted machines with intuitive controls non-geeks could easily grasp.<\/p>\n
"If you are a beginner on a Windows machine it takes you a while to figure out how it works," Friess said.<\/p>\n
"With Apple, this is never the case. It doesn’t give you a hard time. I’ve actually fallen in love with this product."<\/p>\n
Apple kept its technology to itself, building Macintosh computers known for high price tags that matched high quality.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a fledgling US software company known as Microsoft was busy licensing its operating systems and other programs to computer makers that cranked out affordable machines for the masses.<\/p>\n
Macintosh computers won a cultish following of artists, designers and other creative types willing to pay premiums for what they believed were superior devices.<\/p>\n
"With Macs, every little piece makes sense," Friess said. "Everything fits so nicely together. Now, the software and hardware are engaged in a way I’ve never seen in anything else – form follows function."<\/p>\n
Macintosh computers held a mere sliver of slumping global computer market by the time Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1985 as the result of an internal power struggle.<\/p>\n
Apple stumbled and nearly fell in Jobs’s absence. Jobs is credited with resurrecting Apple after his return as chief executive in 1996.<\/p>\n
With Jobs in charge, Apple introduced world-changing innovations such as iPod MP3 players, iTunes online store, and iPhones.<\/p>\n
The company’s rediscovered glory cast new light on Macs, which were made leaner, faster, and slicker.<\/p>\n
Apple added chips and software that let Macintosh computers run Microsoft programmes, eliminating a major obstacle preventing people from opting for Macs in a Windows-dominated world.<\/p>\n
"Apple went through hard times," Friess said. "It had a strong leader and the quality of the product is so good it had to survive."<\/p>\n
Apple on Wednesday reported it finished 2008 with record quarterly profit
of 1.61 billion dollars, with iPod sales hitting an all-time high. <\/p>\n
The company posted revenue of $10.17 billion in the three months ending December 27, 2008.<\/p>\n
Apple reported selling 2.52 million Macintosh computers during the quarter, representing nine percent growth over the year-ago quarter.<\/p>\n
MacBook laptop models drove the sales growth in what Apple executives said is a market trend toward mobile computing.<\/p>\n
While Jobs has conceded that Microsoft has won the computer war, accounting for some 90 percent of the world’s machines, Macs have been gaining market share.<\/p>\n