We’re going to be able to ask our computers to monitor things for us, and when certain conditions happen, are triggered, the computers will take certain actions and inform us after the fact.

But the next thing is going to be computer as guide or agent. And what that means is that it’s going to do more in terms of anticipating what we want and doing it for us, noticing connections and patterns in what we do, asking us if this is some sort of generic thing we’d like to do regularly, so that we’re going to have, as an example, the concept of triggers.

I don’t see most people using the Web to get more information. We’re already in information overload. No matter how much information the Web can dish out, most people get far more information than they can assimilate anyway.

On how will the Web impact our society: We live in an information economy, but I don’t believe we live in an information society. People are thinking less than they used to. It’s primarily because of television. People are reading less and they’re certainly thinking less.

I think it’s brought the world a lot closer together, and will continue to do that. There are downsides to everything; there are unintended consequences to everything. The most corrosive piece of technology that I’ve ever seen is called television – but then, again, television, at its best, is magnificent.

These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. You may have a child with a birth defect and be able to get in touch with other parents and support groups, get medical information, the latest experimental drugs. These things can profoundly influence life. I’m not downplaying that.

Right now, computers make our lives easier. They do work for us in fractions of a second that would take us hours. They increase the quality of life, some of that by simply automating drudgery and some of that by broadening our possibilities. As things progress, they’ll be doing more and more for us.

A computer is the most incredible tool we’ve ever seen. It can be a writing tool, a communications center, a super calculator, a planner, a filer and an artistic instrument all in one, just by being given new instructions, or software, to work from. There are no other tools that have the power and versatility of a computer.

It is the most awesome tool that we ever invented (the computer). And I feel incredibly lucky to be at exactly the right place in Silicon Valley, at exactly the right time historically where this invention has taken form.

Talking about bicycles: Human are tool builders, and we build tools that can dramatically amplify our innate human abilities. We actually ran an ad like this early at Apple that the personal computer is the bicycle of the mind and I believe that with every bone in my body that all the inventions of humans, the computer is going to rank near, if not at the top, as history unfolds and we look back.

I think everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer, should learn a computer language because it teaches you how to think.

We think basically you watch television to turn your brain off, and you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on

What a computer is to me is the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up with. It’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.

Humans are tool builders. We create things to amplify ourselves. The computer will rank at the top -it’s the most awesome tool ever.

We have no idea how far it’s going to go. 

We do no market research. We don’t hire consultants. We just want to make great products.

You saw the 1984 commercial. Macintosh was basically this relatively small company in Cupertino, California, taking on the Goliath, IBM, and saying, “Wait a minute, your way is wrong. This is now the way we want computers to go. This is not the legacy we want to leave. This is not what we want our kids to be learning. This is wrong and we are going to show you the right way to do it and here it is. It’s called Macintosh and it is so much better.

You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.

We don’t stand a chance of advertising with features and benefits and with RAMs and with charts and comparisons. The only chance we have of communicating is with a feeling.

It’s a very complicated world. It’s a very noisy world. And we not gonna get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. So we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us.

To me, marketing is about values

None of those people care about the money. I mean, a lot of them made a lot of money, but they don’t really care. Their lifestyles haven’t particularly changed. It was the chance to actually try something, to fail, to succeed, to grow.

Well, they’re just yardsticks, you know. The neatest thing was, by 1979, I was able to walk into classrooms that had 15 Apple computers and see the kids using them. And those are the kinds of things that are really the milestones.

It was giant! We did about $200,000 when our business was in the garage, in 1976. In 1977, about $7,000,000 in business. I mean, it was phenomenal! And in 1978, we did $17,000,000. In 1979, we did $47,000,000. That’s when we all really sensed that this was just going through the rafters. In 1980, we did $117,000,000. In 1981, we did $335,000,000. In 1982, we did $583,000,000. In 1983, we did $985,000,000, I think. This year, it will be a billion and a half.