Similar to the way we’ve almost come to take “Every movie ever made” for granted, we’ve come to take many of the technologies underlying this prophesy from 1999 for granted too.
That same year, Apple again did its distribute-the-Future-much-more-widely thing with another now-taken-for-granted technology: WiFi. WiFi is so taken for granted now that we even take the name “WiFi” for granted. But things were quite different in 1999.
On July 21, 1999, at Macworld NY, Apple introduced a new laptop, the iBook. As part of that introduction, Apple also took the already-here Future technology then known by the captivating moniker of IEEE 802.11 and began its distribution to the rest of us as “AirPort” or “wireless Internet.”
One of the ways Apple often helps distribute the Future is by solving otherwise “Catch-22” problems. In this case, 802.11 was way too expensive and difficult to set up, so almost no one could use it, and since almost no one used it, it was way too costly to manufacture and simplify, resulting in it being way too expensive and difficult to set up.
By including AirPort with its best-selling iBooks, Apple was able to break that vicious circle. The iBooks introduced the economies of scale needed to make the technology affordable, as well as the simplifications needed to make it usable. No more catch-22.
Almost immediately, “wireless Internet” took off in homes, businesses and coffee shops, here in Ashland and around the world. More on that in part 2…