Five fruity flavors

Happy days are here again, at Macworld.

By Janelle Brown

Jan 6, 1999 | The phoenix, risen from the ashes! The triumphal warrior, returning as a victor from near-defeat! The prodigal son, welcomed back by his concerned family! Whichever overblown metaphor you choose to describe the prevailing mood Tuesday morning at Macworld, it all boils down to the same thing: Apple is thrilled to be back on track.

As Colin Crawford, president of Macworld magazine, put it in his introductory speech, "What a difference a year makes -- those media pundits that were writing Mac's obituary were dead wrong. But honestly, how many of us a year ago would have predicted that Apple would capture the No. 1 slot for PC sales?"

Eight hundred thousand iMacs have been sold since its release, said Steve Jobs, a respectable number by most counts and enough to make the iMac the bestselling PC in the month of November; Apple has now enjoyed five consecutive profitable quarters. It's a kinder, gentler time for Apple. And as Yoko and John smiled down on the cheering crowds in the Macworld auditorium and Joan Baez crooned from the speakers, a gleeful Jobs whipped aside curtains with aplomb to show off the future innovations that will follow in the footsteps of the iMac, Apple's polycarbonate savior. In a nutshell, the future looks colorful.

Unlike the grim mood of Macworlds in years past, there was palpable excitement throughout the first morning of the conference. "It's been a wonderful year," Jobs slyly smiled as he joked across the stage -- referring to himself as the "iCEO" of Apple, bantering with a video of a grumpy Hal 9000 (the star of the newest Apple ad) and poking fun at the inferiority of the Wintel PC. The crowd cheered at his lighthearted enthusiasm, but it reserved the most applause for the more tangible offerings.

Jobs revealed four "surprises" during his two-hour speech, and though the much-anticipated iMac laptop was not among them, the crowd was still wildly happy at the succession of demos: the new G3 desktop workstation, the new Mac OS X Server, a slew of developer products and a line of fruit-flavored -- make that colored -- iMacs.

Next Page: The G3: Too sexy for its shirt

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