Apple at 50: cult, genius, control, and world-changing tools.

From garage rebels to global powerhouse, Apple has shaped how we compute, create, and connect, blending brilliance, control, and tools (some) people genuinely love.

(You want Apple-porn to celbrate the big five oh. Here you go!)

(first published on my substack where you can get #NerdNews, marvellous maths and general geekery)

Confessions of a Macboy.

 Full disclosure, I’m a macboy.

Not a full blown mac-stan, not a 1000% Apple-afarian. I don’t own an Apple Watch and I think those vision goggles are a bit silly.

But phone, laptop, headphones ... yeah I’m in.

I just don’t get PCs. The fact that when I insert a thumb drive it just doesn’t show up on the desktop. No, I have to left-click the C drive which is hidden down the left hand side, or is it the bottom, of the screen.

Yeah, nah. Completely ludicrous. Absolutely unusable.

So as I pen this #NerdNews I do it from inside the tent.

But regardless of where you sit in ‘team Mac’ vs ‘team PC’ vs ‘team-all -of-the-others’, you’d have to agree, for the last 50 years Apple has changed the world.

The geekiest garage band?

The cliches are true.

Jobs was the charismatic college dropout who talked his way into meetings and saw where silicon was heading.

Steve Wozniak was the shy engineering savant who could squeeze miracles out of almost no hardware at all.

They met through a mutual friend at Homestead High in California, both part of the phreak community. These were the forebears of computer hacking who manipulated phone boxes for free calls and other mischief.

And they shared a sense that computers too could be fun, not just beige work boxes.

“We’re here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why else even be here?” Steve Jobs

Woz’s hand-built Apple I, sold as a bare board to hobbyists, and the far more polished Apple II that followed, turned their suburban garage project into a real company almost overnight.

The wild ride to Macintosh.

Across the late 70s and early 80s, Apple rode the first great personal-computer wave, with the Apple II becoming the classroom and small-business workhorse of its time.

But Jobs wanted something more. A friendly computer, with icons you could click instead of commands you had to memorise.

The original Macintosh launched in 1984 with that famous hammer-through-the-screen ad. More importantly, it changed how people thought about machines. Cue a world of graphical interfaces, a mouse, type and design that looked like print on screen.

It wasn’t perfect or cheap, and Jobs was pushed out, but the Mac’s ideas spread everywhere, into Windows, into laptops, into the idea that “computer” could mean “tool for creativity”, not just “place where spreadsheets live”.

Then Jobs would return, phoenix-ish, messiah-like if you ask some, in 1997 to rescue a listless Apple that had become stagnant and bloated with an unfocused, confusing product line.

What followed was 14 years of denting the universe. The iMac, iPod, iTunes, iPhone and iPad.

Before Jobs died, aged just 56 in 2011.

(Woz and me ... and some shameless product placement)

Hits and misses.

It certainly hasn’t been 50 years of perfect success.

Sure there’s been hits, like the groundbreaking hardware of the Apple II or original Macintosh, life changing devices like the iPod (remember those) and iPhone and the friction freeing app store.

But balance these against the overheated but under-engineered Apple III, the overpriced Lisa, Newton – the personal assistant that couldn’t read and Ping, surely the least social network ever.That’s saying nothing of Siri, which whatever I did say, you could safely assume, Siri would not understand.

And the solid gold engraved, autographed, tariff-defusing, artwork sculpture presented to President Trump. #Cringe.

But after 50 years of trying to predict and dictate public desire in a field as rapidly evolving and personal as personal computers and digital devices, I think any objective scoreboard has Apple well ahead in the plus column.

Did someone say cult?

Loving Apple has never been a purely rational exercise.

The same design decisions that make the hardware feel simple and seamless also make it hard to leave once you are in.

“What Steve did was remarkable. He brought a design aesthetic and simplicity to computing that changed everything.” Bill Gates.

Messages, photos, notes, backups, watches, AirPods, the whole ecosystem is built so every extra device makes switching just that little bit tougher.

Critics argue that this walled garden, and App Store rules like the famous 30 per cent cut on many in-app payments, give Apple far more control over developers and customers than a neutral “platform” should.

They also point out that for years Macs were dismissed as pretty toys that couldn’t match a serious Windows workstation for raw grunt or upgrade flexibility.

Some of that criticism still lands. If you want modular towers you can tinker with, there are better options than a sealed MacBook.

But the performance gap has flipped in interesting ways. Apple’s own M-series chips now handle 4K and 6K video editing, 3D work and machine-learning tasks while staying ‘Apple-cool’ all on decent battery life. Their privacy stance, processing more on-device, less in the cloud, has won genuine trust from many users.

So yes, the cult and the lock-in are real.

But plenty of us stay not out of blind loyalty, but because the tools produce quality work.

The next 50 years?

 

(ok that's enough with the Apple-porn Adam!)

“If you look backward in this business, you'll be crushed. You have to look forward.” Steve Jobs, Wired Magazine 2008.

Chill out Steve. It’s your 50^th. We are looking forward now dude.

Wired Magazine re-engaged with Apple just a couple of days ago in a short piece by Steven Levy.

In his interviews with senior executives Greg Joswiak and CEO-possibly-in-waiting John Ternus, as absurd as looking 50 years ahead is by its very nature, some clear themes emerged.

Joswiak, possibly controversially, thinks the iPhone will still be a major delivery platform even as we head deep into the AI era.

“It’s hard to imagine not … iPhones are not going anywhere” Greg ‘Jos’ Joswiak, Wired Magazine 2026

Similarly, CEO Tim Cook and his team regularly talk about “saying no a lot”, keeping the product line focused, and using AI not to replace creativity but to amplify it inside the devices we already carry.

They are pouring effort into Apple Intelligence, health and fitness sensors, spatial computing with Vision Pro, and tools for the youngest, most creative users, while quietly admitting that anything beyond a five-year horizon is closer to an educated guess than a roadmap.

Maybe that’s the honest lesson of Apple at 50.

Even one of the world’s most valuable companies can’t see the future.

What it seems committed to doing is building tight feedback loops between hardware, software and the people who poke at them.

Whether I’m making the most logical of all the choices before me, or whether I’m so hopped up on Apple-aid I’ve lost all touch with reality … I’m not entirely certain.

But I’m (locked?) in.

Hey I'm now also on substack.