A Look Back at Apple's 2003

Samvit writes "The end of the year is upon us, so it's naturally time for those retrospectives to start coming in. Ars Technica has a fantastic look back at Apple in 2003. 2003 was one of the biggest years for Apple, arguably the biggest in a very long time. Still, Ars is typically fair, so the author lays down not only the good in 2003, but also the bad and the ugly. There's a bit of prognostication going on too--a little something for everyone."

Comments

Re:Right Track

[Simonetta]

Hello,

I dropped into an Apple store at the local mall for the first exposure to Apple products in five years. Very impressive: the monitors, the computers, and the store itself. All white and frosted glass and tons of recessed florescent white light. It was like a museum. I was very respectful.

I haven't been trusting or interested in Apple since the RAM expansion debacle of 1984. [If your bought a 512K RAM expansion from Apple, it cost you $400+. If you bought the RAM chips yourself for $80 and soldered them yourself (or had a qualfied technician do it with proper static-proof chip desoldering equipment) onto the motherboard, Apple would not only void your warranty, it would refuse to allow you to have access to ROM upgrades to the buggy first release operating system. This has been their basic corporate attitude since the Mac introduction and is the primary reason why they've never been more than a distant 'also-ran' in the personal computer marketplace (regardless of how beloved they are by their fanatical customers.)

As for 'damn the price', I'd say that too if I weren't one of the millions of technicians unemployed. So when I need to upgrade my 800 MHz Duron, I'll be buying a 2.2GigHz AthlonXP with video, sound, LAN, and USB2 integrated on the motherboard for $100 on PriceWatch.

Thank you,