204. Predictions: 101 Ways to Save Apple (June 1997)

On the day of Apple earnings, always fun to look back at the punditry around the demise of Apple.

Apple earnings today. Some happy (after hours trading). Some might say less than perfect. So much short-term punditry over the years has been so very wrong about Apple in the long term.

My favorite predictions came more than a quarter century ago as Apple was on the brink... 1/

2/ Best of the industry got together to come up with 101 ways to save Apple in June 1997.

"Dear Apple: In the movie Independence Day a PowerBook saves the earth from destruction...We don't believe Apple is rotten to the core...You have the power to save the world and yourself."

3/ What follows are 101 predictions from the Wired editors and dozens of sidebars from luminaries with their ideas. Here are a few. Maybe chuckle but most of all these serve as a reminder of punditry as a sport. We need that reminder now.

4/
1. Admit it, you're out of the hardware game.
2. License the Apple name/technology to appliance manufacturers and build GUIs for devices.
3. Start [sic] pampering independent developers....
6. Apologize.
10. Get a great image campaign.
19. Get rid of cables. Go wireless.

5/
31. Build a PDA for less than $250 that actually does something: a) cellular email b) 56-channel TV c) Internet phone. [ed, how about ~ $600?]

34. Port the OS to the Intel platform, with its huge amount of investment in hardware, software, training, and experience.

6/ From Ann Winblad ❤️
1. Merge with Nintendo
2. Buy Gateway
3. License Win95/NT and keep the guts/make just a GUI

7/ Bruce Horn of the original Mac team 🍏. Adopt, acquire, and create new technologies that can give Apple yet another technological edge. [ed note, guess what they did]

8/ Milo Medin president of @ Home - "I'm a Mac lover, but last year I switched over com pletely to Windoze because Apple couldn't build a reasonable laptop. I really want it to succeed, but I think the company's finished."

9/ Marvin Minky, AI Pioneer - Make a lightweight, portable, palmtop Mac. [ed note, wait 10 years and see what they come up with!]

10/ Nathan Myhrvold, CTO Microsoft - "The NeXT purchase is too little too late. The Apple of the past was an innovative company that used software and hardware technology together...That Apple is already dead....A company with the letters A-P-P-L -E in its name might survive..."

11/ 101. Don't worry. You'' Survive. It's Netscape we should really worry about. // END