Sour Apple

The ad ran before many of this paper's readers were even born. The third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII, Jan. 22, 1984: A roomful of bald, pale, dusty drones sit silent as a giant face on a monitor harangues them about the glory of obedience and conformity. Suddenly, a curvy blonde in a tank-top and gym shorts runs into the room with a sledgehammer. She swings it, twisting with the momentum -- and throws. The hammer arcs through the air and crashes into the monitor -- it explodes into light and wind. The drones' blank expressions have turned to slack-jawed amazement, and an announcer says: "On Jan. 24, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like '1984.'"\nIt was one of the most famous commercials in history, and not least because of its astounding prescience: The Macintosh was the first commercially successful personal computer with a graphical user interface -- that is, the first personal computer you or I could operate by clicking on icons instead of entering code. \nNow, not only could regular people afford to own computers, they could use them without needing a degree in computer science. Over the next two decades, individuals would gain the power to run their own businesses, printing presses, laboratories, movie studios and schools -- to hear from every corner of the world, and to speak back. And those in the elite -- whether in democracies or dictatorships, CEOs or celebrities -- would be shaken by the newfound power of the average person.\nAnd for a long time, Apple seemed to embody this idea of technology supporting individuality. Because of Microsoft's market hegemony and popularity with businesses, institutions and other bulk-buyers of machines, Windows PCs were computers for going along with the crowd -- the computers that the advertisement's metaphorical authority made you use. Apples, however, were the rebellion.\nBut, with Apple finally showing signs of gaining against Windows (BusinessWeek reported April 13 that Windows' new Intel machines have produced huge sales to users new to Apple), Apple appears to have forgotten its message from 22 years ago. This Thursday, in a San Jose, Calif., court, Apple's attorneys will be arguing that the bloggers aren't "legitimate members of the press" (to quote Apple's brief). Specifically, they are suing to make the e-mail provider for PowerPage.org -- a blog dedicated to news about Apple -- reveal who leaked information about a new feature of its GarageBand music production software. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has countered that PowerPage's e-mail records are protected under the First Amendment.\nMaybe Apple will win on intellectual property grounds, but it'll be at the cost of abandoning the very principles they've claimed to embody. If the personal computer has given us the ability to be so many things, why can't we be journalists? If computers should be about liberating the individual, why try to take away our freedom of the press? It's just such a Microsoft thing to do.