The best news arguably came last week, in the form of Apple's $152 million first-quarter profit. This is a 300% increase over the year-ago number and it represents real growth in unit shipments, not merely cost-cutting. The company shipped nearly a million machines in the quarter (well over half were iMacs). The iMac, in fact, was the industry's best-selling computer. As a consequence, Apple's market share increased from an estimated 3% to somewhere between 5% and 10%, depending on whose numbers you believe. Clear progress by any measure.

The turnaround in the mainstream press has been striking—"resurgent" is now the favored adjective in reports about Apple, replacing last year's "beleaguered." The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, Apple naysayers during the past few years, have had some very positive things to say in recent days. The Journal, for example, cites (1/14) J.P. Morgan Securities analyst Daniel Kunstler thusly: "I think the Apple resurgence is real. If they can continue to come up with novel products the way they have been doing, I think time will be on their side."

Times coverage, meanwhile, has become more balanced since last year's return of the pro-Mac Peter Lewis. Lewis praised Apple for "...doing a better job than any other PC company today at bringing excitement and innovation back to an industry that has often been boring and beige," in the course of his glowing Macworld Expo review (New York Times link, free subscription required).

There are good reasons for this turnaround—Apple is doing a lot of things right these days. These include the pending release of OS X ("Ten") server, which we think has been somewhat under-reported. (OS X itself is due later this year, and will give the Mac an industrial-strength operating system.) We also believe Kunstler is right in saying that time is on Apple's side, and not just because of Apple's own efforts. Microsoft's dismal showing in the first phase of its antitrust trial has more people thinking about Windows alternatives, as does the recent widespread coverage of Linux and the ongoing evolution of the Internet toward mass penetration and broadband services.

The Macintosh will probably never be more than a niche-market player (although its markets—design, education, film, music, new media, publishing—are important and highly visible), but Apple Computer itself may yet achieve mass-market status one day. Ideally, this would be "mass with class," in the form of some high-style, portable information appliance yet to be devised. In the meantime, it's important to have the Macintosh and the Mac OS as viable desktop alternatives for those who prefer not to do Windows. The latest Macworld has shown the Mac to be not merely a viable alternative, but a highly desirable one.

(Reviewed January 23, 1999)