28th June 2006, Though the operating system is much more advanced than earlier versions of the Mac OS, it still has the same ease-of-use that people have come to expect from Apple software.
The Macintosh interface was immediately popular with non-technical people. Instead of typing in a command to delete a file as in DOS, you could drag it to the on-screen trashcan. Although common today, it was a breakthrough to have such capability on a personal computer.
The Mac has also used consistent menus, and Apple-published guidelines for application design are generally followed. In operation, the operating system and applications are almost indistinguishable, and Apple has always kept technical jargon to a minimum. The Mac's graphical ability made it a natural for graphics shops and desktop publishing. It might have been slow, but it was far more affordable than the workstations used for such purposes.
The Mac came out in 1984, three years after the DOS-based PC. Its graphical interface was more intuitive than DOS commands, and it avoided the technical quagmire that arose when DOS users tried to add a new device to their PCs.
Why then didn't the Mac take the world by storm? There were several reasons.
DOS Was Faster
DOS PCs were much faster. It takes much more CPU power to display graphics than text, and the Mac was underpowered by comparison.
Too Much Mouse
the command languages that could automate a myriad of tasks in the DOS world were woefully absent in the Mac. There was sound reason for the expression, "real programmers don't use mice."
In addition, Apple initially overemphasized the mouse and gave little thought to intelligent keyboard commands. This was hardly a way to gain market share in a world where keyboard-intensive word processing was the single largest application.
By Then, DOS Was Entrenched
Mac applications were eventually enhanced, and speed was dramatically increased, but the DOS world was simply too entrenched by the time those improvements came about. Windows 3.0, which offered a graphical interface with some of the Mac's advantages, ran as an extension to DOS and was its natural successor. Windows 95 added most of the graphical features of the Mac, and by this time, it was no contest. The world was buying Windows.
Macs Cost More
the Mac was always pricier than a PC, which purchasing agents found hard to justify. Although many corporate users bought their own Macs due to their aversion to PCs, technical personnel were not fond of supporting them. They sweated bullets dealing with DOS and Windows. Supporting yet another environment was not met with enthusiasm.
Proprietary Technology
Unlike the PC, the Mac is Apple's proprietary technology, and except for a brief period, Apple prevented a Macintosh clone industry from developing and growing. Apple maintained its sole source vendor status while the PC industry had thousands of vendors.
In Summary As a result, the Macintosh was used sporadically in the corporate world, but due to its natural bent, became popular in desktop publishing and graphics design. The Mac pioneered the use of personal computers for these applications and became the de facto standard in the graphics arts industry.
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