50 Years of Thinking Different
In a public letter about Apple’s upcoming 50th anniversary, Tim Cook keys off the famous Think Different ad campaign:
April 1st marks 50 years of Apple. From the first Apple computer to the Mac, from iPod to iPhone, iPad to Apple Watch and AirPods, as well as the services we use every day — the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, iCloud, and Apple TV — we’ve spent five decades rethinking what’s possible and putting powerful tools into people’s hands. Through every breakthrough, one idea has guided us — that the world is moved forward by people who think different.
Fine words, and Apple also issued a separate press release that promises further celebrations and looks to the future:
As Apple celebrates this milestone, the company remains focused on the future and on continuing to think different in the years ahead. Apple will continue to innovate in groundbreaking silicon, life-enriching products, transformative software, and services that improve people’s lives, while deepening its commitments to environmental responsibility, education, and community impact around the world.
As much as I largely agree with Apple’s stated values and beliefs about changing the world through innovative technology—I’ve dedicated my entire professional life to using and explaining Apple tools—the anniversary rhetoric rings somewhat hollow when measured against the company’s actions in recent years.
This is the same company that is ignoring the historical Human Interface Guidelines in macOS 26 Tahoe, aggressively defending its App Store revenues at the expense of developers and consumers, and removing ICEBlock from the App Store while leaving Grok in place. There’s a reason Apple’s scores dropped in so many categories in the Six Colors 2025 Report Card.
The Think Different campaign honored “the round pegs in the square holes.” Today’s Apple forces those round pegs through the square holes to make squircle icons.
I raise this tension because Apple has long set standards for the tech industry in many ways. Today, at the height of the company’s power and influence, some reflection about where it’s falling short—and course correction—could help bring those report card scores back up and offer a stronger role model to other firms.
Last December I had the worst bug in 20 years of doing software. After an XProtect update some AppleScripts were blocked from running and made my app hang. I had to write on the developer forum to get the issue fixed. Of course, there was no reaction on the ticket.
After 2.5 years a security issue has been fixed in 26.4. That was my first security problem. I was told by the security team that my issue was not a security issue. I could use full disk access in apps where full disk access had been given and then reset. I didn’t bother to report the second security issue I found because my interaction with the security team was so utterly dumb.
And then I’ll just say “gold and glass statue”.
Two obvious things stick out like a sore thumb that go against this philosophy: 1) Apple used to adhere to the KISS philosophy, ie, Keep It Simple, Stupid. That has not been the case for a number of years. 2) Their narrow minded “handling” of their Replicator software. It has caused fits for David Nanian of Shirt Pocket Software (although he has been persistent enough to “Think Different and get around those issues), and also to the “demise” of Carbon Copy Cloner no longer being able to create bootable backups. Sad state of affairs, to say the least!
Think differently, dammit!
Anyway. Why should the empire continue? It’s had a good run. As you say, whether through accident or design, it’s been the North Star of the industry for decades. But now it’s just a big tech company—just like the others. All empires, however great, must end. Why not Apple? There will be another along to take its place, particularly now in the age of AI.
That is unless Apple distinguishes itself again. Returns to relight the fire that it stood by, to marry tech and the humanities. If it can.
Thanks Adam, well said. I go through day after day working in my Apple-rich ecosystem, installing updates when they come out, and then working thru the issues that they cause, and I really don’t think much about it, since it feels “normal” these last 3-4 years. But now that I pause to reflect on your words, I realize that the magic that drew me to Apple products over 30 years ago has really not what it used to be.
The Apple hardware continues to be impressive and consistent. But the stable software and superior UX has become just “average” relative to competition and I’m not paying for “average.” And the absolute failure in development and implementation of an impactful, or even acceptable, Apple Intelligence integration is wholly unacceptable.
Actions do speak louder than words. The way that vendors and fellow software developers are treated is important. When I reflect on the last few years of Apple performance, I have to pause when I see the pursuit of profit by Apple in some cases appears. to override the very words they use to describe themselves!
So, yes the anniversary rhetoric does ring somewhat hollow. I can only hope that Apple takes this all in and gets their actions to match their words, by doing things that “improve people’s lives” while “deepening it’s commitments” to be a responsible company.
Not day one when they did this as you can see in China and Hong Kong long before.
That elegant simplicity was part of what brought me to the Mac. When I saw my six-year old daughter sit down at one of the first Macs and start playing with it, I saw something easy for all of us to use. Now I worry that any new “upgrade” is going to break something.
Perhaps this is a sidebar for its own thread, but if we assume that this “former Apple” is gone for good, who would be the potential new 80s Apple now? And is computing for the rest of us even possible anymore?
Well stated, Jeff! I distinctly remember the very first time I used a new Apple IIE! It was a trip! Later on (around 1984), the company I was working for (a bank) got some brand new original Macs in, and I got to play with it too. But I still relished using my Apple IIE.
As for the KISS philosophy, many other companies have long since abandoned it also. And it certainly makes me long for the good old days! Now it seems like it has got to the point of “Stupid is as stupid does” (great line by Tom Hanks in “Forrest Gump”).
Good questions. Sadly, there is nothing that mandates the existence of a “potential new 80s Apple now.” It’s at least as likely there is no such thing.
Thank you for the explicit grammar correction. (long overdue)
Yes, to me, this is the most egregious Apple issue in the recent past.
Just a correction: Carbon Copy Cloner can create bootable backups. (I just created one this week of my Mac Studio, on an external drive, and booted from it immediately afterwards.)
The two caveats Bombich Software make about external bootable backups are:
From my own, very limited experience, I can see where CCC is coming from. Luckily for me, I will want to make a bootable external backup for very short-term scenarios — tests for a few days, for example — and always on the same Mac that I made the backup from.
Ditto. My first computer was bought in the Stuttgart PX in October 1984. I had to decide between an Apple IIc and a Mac finally going with the IIc because it came with an Apple Scribe printer. I bought a Mac LC about 10 years later and have stayed with MacOS machines since.
Regarding your first bullet about Silicon Macs, David Nanian of Shirt Pocket Software has been able to program around those Apple “headaches”,ie, “Think Different”, and SuperDuper! has always been able to make reliable, bootable backups. And still does. Glad we still have someone like him around.
I actually used my Apple IIE, then an Apple IIGS, until 1996, and they were easily productive enough. In fact, I was able to use them for my on call responsibilities. Started using Macs (at home) permanently since then. But I have fond memories of those “Apple II days”.
I still have all my IIc hardware & software along with the MacLC & its installed IIe card in storage!
Do you “take it for a run”, so to speak?
No, unfortunately after we moved and downsized, the older computer stuff had to stay in the storage shed. I’ve been thinking of building a large workshop and maybe have a computer area in it but it will be awhile (if ever).
It would be cool if you could give it a test run. Who knows, could be a productive setup! At least, though, it would be nostalgic.
About ten years ago Horace Dediu spoke at Úll, an Apple centered conference in Ireland (úll is the Irish for apple) looking at technology cycles. He had it at every 30 years there was a major shift culturally and technologically. That the mainframes/minis and centrally controlled systems of the 50s onward moved to the desktop individualistic era of the 80s on and then to the connected distributed mobile era of the 2010s.
His point was that Apple had successfully navigated and indeed led two of these cycles but he saw little preparation or evidence of what the next one might be.
It feels however like it’s accelerating if anything…
Well compared to Windows 10 and 11, MacOS is a breath of fresh air. I moved to MacOS in 2018 with a Macmini, and haven’t looked back. Our household is mostly all Apple (except for the linux laptop my son is learning with). He also has a mbp ;)
how explicit - for a grammatical correction?
Compared to Windows MacOS has always been a breath of fresh air, and I have been using both since about 1986 (I suppose I have to celebrate some kind of anniversary too
). But macOS has also had its ups and downs. In my experience we’re in a down phase now with bad interface design decisions, lots of little bugs that hamper usability which are not fixed (even after giving Apple feedback about them multipel times).
I also find hardware design has taken a step back. For example, the MacBook Pro I bought last year has no LED that shows if the laptop is on, sleeping or off and it does not have a button plus a series of LEDs to show the charging state of the battery. That may give the laptop a ‘cleaner’ look, but it is a design choice of looks over function, it actually hampers usability. I also think the notch at the top of the screen is bad design. I’m not sure what’s behind there, but since the laptop does not have FaceID it seems it’s only the camera, and that does not need a notch that big. Where Apple designed to perfection before, that is clearly no longer the case sadly
I loved that ad campaign and was so satisfying to see the themes repeated in Tim Apple’s letter.
I’m getting a bit aged and doing some housecleaning. A few years ago, I sold my original Mac (upgraded to 512K), along with system 1.1, Macwrite, MacPaint, an autographed MacPaint manual (Bill Atkinson I think), and a couple of games. I kept two of the Think Different posters in 20x30”frames. The logo at the top of the letter reminded me of my Picasso mousepad, which I tossed in with the Mac. I would be thrilled to see some color come back to the Apple. My favorite Mac was my tangerine iBook.
I do agree that Apple in general is not quite the company it was decades ago. And certainly that it has made some software and hardware decisions that were absolutely horrid. I do, however, celebrate its upcoming 50th anniversary - since it has not only survived (the almost bankruptcy of the late 1990s), but thrived. I lived through ALL those years and stayed an ardent supporter when everyone in the entire world (it seemed) was on the Windows platform. With no internet (except email) back then, I got my hands on and read every Mac/Apple magazine that I could. I love the fact that Apple is one of the most valued companies on the planet. I think it deserves that after all the previous hell it went through.
I’d also like to give a shoutout to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, not only for the special Apple exhibit they have currently on display for the 50th anniversary, but for hosting an excellent program/session of Apple alums (going all the way back to Ronald Wayne in the audience!), and led by David Pogue, who just released a book on Apple’s history. The event is almost 2 hours in length, but I enjoyed every minute of it and so will anyone else who has even a passing interest in this subject:
Happy Birthday, Apple!
Sorry to say that the Macs have not had this for some time. I think the last time I had the series of lights indicating battery power left was on my 17” PowerBook! Seeing how much battery life is left was SO convenient, as was the led light on the connector itself to tell you if it is done charging or not. All we have with MagSafe is the led light on the connector, but not the button with the “how much charge is left” series of lights. I also hate it when Apple chooses form over function. We lose every time they do that.
The Mac wasn’t the first or the second computer I owned and used, I was all in on the Commodore Amiga exploring video graphics and had a PC which my then girlfriend would earn money with typesetting equations.
But once I did start using one, around 1988, the thing that impressed me the most was its utility. It was immediately useful. I designed a catalogue for an art exhibition over the course of a weekend and I was hooked.
Macs are useful. That’s always been their best argument.
I don’t pretend to be an English expert but I once read an explanation from Apple of the intended meaning. It suggested it was using different as a noun, something along the lines of Think, ‘different’.
Regardless, I’m eternally grateful for Apple over the years. I started playing with generic, cassette driven machines with text based interfaces and virtually no software. It has BASIC installed and you tried to make it useful. From there I bought an Apple 11C with Appleworks and from there I became a devotee.
By learning to Applescript, and later program, Apple gave me a path to far greater working opportunities than I would have had using other machines (I’m a photographer by trade who worked in media and magazines before moving into IT when computers became popular).
Whilst Apple hardware consistently achieves impressive quality and performance, the degradation of its GUI and software has been a constant source of ongoing disappointment.
Tidbits should be compulsory reading for senior management at Apple. The commentary here is far more detailed and granular than anything you see via a few influencers posting Youtube shorts.
Apple is considerably younger than me, but I’m lucky to have had it run a parallel course to my career.
At least one member of Apple’s executive team is a subscriber, but I don’t know how often he actually reads it. I’ve known this guy for decades, but we correspond only extremely infrequently, and I’ve never gotten even the level of special treatment that other members of the online Mac press do because of it.
Devil’s advocate question, assuming you mean TidBITS Talk not the TidBITS newsletter: do you think the regulars on TBT are representative of the people who generate most of Apple’s revenue these days?
Neither TidBITS readers nor TidBITS Talk participants are representative, sadly. We’re demographic (largely via age) and technical (vastly more experienced) outliers.
And this is why their opinions should be valued. I suspect most on here can remember just how good it was in the past - especially with MacOS. I understand Apple’s focus is more on phone users, but that doesn’t preclude it from improving all their software platforms.
As a user for virtually the entire 50 years, I’ll never understand why they’ve chosen to ignore the HIG which made them ‘different’ to other offerings. Nothing dismays me more that playing hide and seek for basic functionality - and this should not be the specific domain of Tidbits readers.
Perhaps the targeted young folks just don’t know how good it could be.
You don’t have to resort to the deprecated methods of creating bootable backups. There are ways to do it that will work (and are supported by both CCC and SuperDuper!) and are compatible with the security changes made by Apple for macOS. You might want to take the time to get familiar with them so that you aren’t scrambling when Apple finally cuts the old methods (or breaks them again).
Joe Kissell’s “Take Control of Backing up Your Mac” has an excellent discussion on the subject…
I am reading David Pogue’s new book, Apple: The First 50 Years, and it’s bringing back so many memories of old Macs and the pre-internet era. I’d forgotten so much about that time. It was a fantastic experience because everything was new and revolutionary. I recalled my first Mac in 1989, a Mac II with 24-bit graphics card that cost as much as a house, and watching as it displayed – line by line over several seconds – a full color picture. It was mind-blowing, like walking on the moon.
Reading about how Apple engineers made the decisions they did about the user interface was fascinating – one has to remember that no one know the “proper” way to do anything. Everything was an educated guess at best. Some things turned out to be wrong and some things were brilliant (mostly the latter, thankfully).
It makes me think about how different it is for the engineers of today, probably in their 20s, having grown up with computers, internet, touch screens, full color pictures and computer video, to think about human-computer interfaces. Pogue writes about how concepts like copy and paste had to be explained to new users. Users today grew up with that and have no idea there was a time it didn’t exist. That’s got to affect how they think about exposing such features to users.
Sure, sometimes the new people are making weird decisions (especially from a traditional viewpoint), and sometimes they are just doing something to be different. But maybe it works for them and makes sense to them. I can’t say they are totally wrong or the old ways are totally right. Probably some blend of the two is ideal. The pace of change is so fast now there’s little time for gestation. Something controversial like Liquid Glass might be looked back on in a few years and be fine. Maybe not. It’s hard for us old folks to judge. We’re biased toward the past.
Reading the book is making me see the big picture instead of the day-to-day. It’s really been an amazing 50 years (though I didn’t really know Apple until the Mac came out).
@xdev might be right on with the engineering change of generation/command.
I was at San Jose State ’81-’83 majoring in photojournalism, just miles from Apple’s offices, was becoming aware of Apple and desktop publishing and worked at the local paper before heading north to a small paper, where soon we had a photo editor with a Mac-in-a-bag, then we hired a graphics person and got her a Mac. She was on holiday once and I got to do a couple of graphics on the Mac for publication!
(I’ve only ever used Windows on other people’s computers or in VMs on my Mac when it was necessary. Recent developments and experiences with my Apple Devices have led me to install Linux in dual-boot mode on an Intel MBAir, however.)
Maybe I always thought of myself as a ‘different thinker’, and that appealed to me, or maybe it was what I recall from early Apple as focusing on quality, design, and human interface that appealed, combined with the supportive User Group people I met many times. I just recall that using Macs seemed to be a statement in favor of caring, about these aspects of products, and for each other.
In any case I’ve stuck with Apple products for nigh on 40 years myself, so those who started things up must be another decade or more older and well into retirement time, with noobs taking over leadership in these areas. It is what it is.
I’m curious to know, for those reading Pogue’s book, are you reading it on paper or digital (and if so which/how)?
Paper. The extensive illustrations are a vital part of the story.
Dave
Audio. Pogue reads it, which is neat, and he plays actual audio recordings from some of the people he quotes!
(The audiobook isn’t an afterthought: he came up with “start sidebar” and “end sidebar” sounds for the many sidebars in the book, so you’re aware they’re tangental, and when he talks about things like Apple TV commercials or videos, he describes what is happening in the visuals as the sound effects play in the background. I am impressed by the quality.)
Though it is in the odd size valley between readable and coffee table book size. I am reading the physical copy for all the illustrations.
The illustrations and appropriate shading for the sidebars are in the Apple Books version. I haven’t started reading, but have skimmed a bit of it
The book has high production quality, too.
Dave
Another audiobook listener here. Pogue does an excellent job as Marc highlights.