I am not a fanboy, but Microsoft started almost exactly 1 year before, and hasn't faced an existentialist crisis in it's lifespan. It is actually rare among companies to have gone from strength to strength almost year after year.
While some products like windows 95 inspired very long queues on launch day, the crowd I associated with never thought much of them. Infact some of them made expensive mistakes with os2.
Today I am a consumer of both apple products and steve folklore, and sometimes get confused as to where fantasy ends and reality sets in.
As a former Apple ][ owner, it makes me sad to see that the Apple I used to love and admire has become the very evil entity they set out to destroy in their seminal 1984 Superbowl commercial.
You cant have one thread about apple these days without some idiot coming in and spouting the evil bullshit. Oh no, they have a different business model, how evil of a corporation for wanting to make money.
All corporations want to make money, what makes you think Apple is different?
They have turned evil in the sense that they are restricting developer freedom, overwork their employees (who are happy to oblige, at least in the US, but that doesn't make it right), play the patent game to stifle competition, and all in all, are behaving in worse ways than Microsoft ever did. Thanks to Android, they have had to back off on some of their initiatives, luckily.
The only reason why they're getting away with all this is because they are producing pretty good products overall, but again, this doesn't make it right.
One Company that not only handled mid life crisis well, but actually came back with a vengeance to rule the industry it kickstarted. Hat's off to AAPL!
