To understand what the Apple Store meant to me, let me tell you a personal story. In the 1960s, I had a hobby, building radio and general audio gear. Some of it I bought for myself, others I assembled for friends — at no charge. Well, I was a teenager, living at home. I wasn’t […]

You know, it’s a rare thing for Apple to tell you they aren’t going to release a new product. Usually it’s the standard “we don’t comment about unreleased products” phrase that doesn’t discourage journalists from asking anyway, in the forlorn hope that they’ll get a different response. But this time, Apple has a larger purpose […]

There’s a key figure that’s touted at every recent quarterly meeting with financial analysts, and it may give a clue why Apple’s sales are soaring. You see, some 50% of the people buying Macs at an Apple Store are new to the platform. Some, no doubt, are buying their first personal computer. Others are evidently […]

After the first Mac came out in 1984, some believe that Apple, by dint of a series of blatant blunders, failed to take advantage of its opportunity to own the personal computing landscape for a generation and beyond. To some extent, I agree, particularly during the dark days of the 1990s, before Steve Jobs returned. […]