History of Apple Printers
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- Опубликовано: 29 авг 2024
- Apple’s line of printers were made through the 1980s and 1990s, and many people are unfamiliar with the fact that Apple even had printers because they’ve been out of the printing business for almost two decades. They stopped releasing new printers in 1996, when Steve Jobs returned to the company. And then all of Apple’s printers were eventually discontinued in 1999.
Now you may assume that because Apple stopped selling their printers, they must’ve had poor sales. But that wasn’t the case, Apple had successfully sold printers on the market for 20 years and all of a sudden they decided to end the line. So to figure out why Apple made this move, we need to go back to 1980, when their first model of printer was released. While many people overlook this part of Apple’s history, the company’s legacy in the printing business is well worth remembering. Since the decision to cut printers from their product line may have saved Apple from a financial disaster and huge revenue losses, but we’ll get into that later after we explore their best and worst printer models.
In my junior and senior years of high school (86-87 and 87-88), we had a Mac and a LaserWriter that we used along with Aldus Pagemaker to publish the school newspaper. We split the full-size newspaper pages into 4 letter-sized pages that we would print and then send to a professional printer to print the 2,000 full-sized newspaper copies. Very advanced for the mid-to-late '80s.
The ImageWriter II was actually the first color printer Apple sold. You could use a so-called "rainbow" ribbon that had CMYK stripes stacked one on top of the other and when you used compatible software the print head would shift the ribbon up or down to the appropriate color.
ITS EXPLAINED
Thanks for making me feel so old. I totally forgot I even had the Apple scribe. I remember the cartridges were like $25 and you maybe got 10-15 pages of heavy text out of them. The Imagewriter II was a great printer. I used that all the way thru Jr and high school until I got my parents to buy me a Performa (junk) and that came with a Stylewriter II (also junk) but it worked and was almost laser quality but amazingly slow for graphics.
Thinking of how I was just whining of spending a grand on a Macbook Air for my 12yr old, my parents spent at least 10k on Apples for me in the 80's and 90's. Thanks for reminding me I have nothing to whine about..
Wow....... I never knew Apple had a printer!
Me either
Me either.....
I did. But I"m 53
Me either
Me also don't know 😂
Super interesting! We had a StyleWriter II which was so awesome! The school had a bunch of ImageWriter II printers that were the workhorses for sure. Thanks for the cool video!
Also worth mentioning is that until late 90s PCs and Macs used completely different printer connector. So modifying a printer’s design to make it Macintosh-compatible was time consuming and expensive, meaning many companies wouldn’t bother with their consumer-focused lines. Apple had to fill the space and either design their own or license the design and “Macify” it. But then USB happened and making your printer work on Mac was just a matter of writing a driver, so Apple filling the gaps in the market was no longer needed.
The Apple Imagewriter II was the first printer i ever had. And still had it all through the 90s. And im sure if i got it out today it would still work without an issue.
You should have mentioned the StyleWriter 1200, which for some reason was introduced in April 1995 and discontinued in April 1995.
why?
Dani Alexandria because it was introduced and discontinued in the same month(april) in the same year(1995).
I didn't even know apple made printers
same lol
The color printer was their first color inkjet, but the ImageWriter II was their first color printer.
It could be argued the Apple Color Plotter was Apple's first color printer...IIRC it was introduced before the IW II, although both appeared in 1993.
8:15 striking similarity with an HP Deskjet 600 (released in '96) Apple's model was released in mid '97
This guy deserves more subs than he has now
Akhil bhardwaj yea!!
Apple needs to bring the printer market back
the 80/500 had a fault in its virtual printer configuration. This was an important selling point to corporate clients (After all they were not cheap). If I remember it could support up to 5 VP’s. In testing one of my colleagues at Apple found the bug in a VP's and when it was reported the printer was discreetly withdrawn from sale. Pity, it was a nice printer.
Apple actually released something that was LESS expensive than its competitors? The computer lab at my Mom's college had macs and apple dot matrix printers in the early 90s, I used to love drawing things and printing them out while she studied for her exams.
That’s so cute!!!
"auto-generated Dutch subtitles"? What the hell, RUclips? This is English video
Anyway, probably good video :-)
@Apple Explained 2:56 small nitpicking, but you said DPM instead of DMP.
LOL 😆 😂
I noticed that too!
Based on the responses of so many people saying that, they did not know Apple Computer used to sell printers, one of your next videos should be about the scanners that Apple Computers also, used to sell.
The main reason, I picked up my first Apple Computer in the 1990's, was because only Apple Computer sold all the parts of a complete computer system (CPU, monitor, printer, scanner, camera, and software, etc.). All items within the computer system had the rainbow colored apple logo.
I'm dying at the fact that ppl were excited about a $599 printer and nowadays people complain if a printer is over $40 / the cost of ink
Not surprising considering that ink printers back then were legit better than the ones made today.
Steve didn't return to Apple until 1997 after the acquisition of NeXT in December 1996.
This is a shocker, I never knew Apple was involved in the printer market. :O
Some sort of testicular I.D. security feature @ 8:29 ?
Bet someone in somewhere had to try that
I noticed something rather weird too. The first Stylewriter reminds me a lot of the HP Deskjet 400 but I read that the 400 model was made in 1996, also Apple Color Stylewriter 6500 looks a lot like a HP 890 series, so I guess HP was copying Apple's designs. :)
Good going sir, I'm no apple fan boy, but I found you video compelling and informative. Total accident I hit your video I remember this stuff in offices and graphic design businesses. Thx!
It reminds me a bit of Atari's printer range. The best Atari printer was their laser.
www.atarimuseum.com/computers/16bits/printers/laser/slm804.html
It was cheap because it didn't have much onboard intelligence - rather than try to render Postscript like most lasers it just had a FIFO that was filled with DMA'd data. So the Atari ST would render the page in into a bitmap and stream it over the DMA port to the laser.
Not only was it cheap, it was actually quicker than than a smart printer. Of course these days that's a common technique - most cheap laser and inkjet printers do rasterisation on the host PC.
It's highly obnoxious the way the ads randomly interrupt, regardless of if the narration is at a pause or not. I understand the need for ad revenue, but there has to be a better way than this. Otherwise, really neat video.
1M coming soon....! Congrats Greg!
Sir I adore your video presentation skills, keep it up good job!
Keep up the videos man, really enjoy them. 😊
Its not exactly a "third place winner" is it? Thats called dead last. Germany wasn't a 2nd place winner in the world wars
????
what about those two sleek black portables they released?
Nice! I love your videos!!
I had the last laser printer, tho in the video the clear plastic part looked greenish it was clear guess it’s aged quite a bit.
Was a great printer it has Ethernet, as well as other ports.
Never owned an Apple digital camera tho. Until after the iPhone got released as today smartphone is what people think of as their digital camera
i didnt know they made printer, great video
Which one will work with Quadra 605?
I would never think I would hear about Apple making a loss on a product.
Jack Kraken Steve Jobs dumped all the losses when he came in no product that wasn’t pulling it’s own weight survived.
Keep making great content!!!!!!
We had that back in 1999
Apple never really made printers. They contracted companies that made printers for PCs and had them remake the same models for apple. For example, Stylewriter is just a remake of the Canon BJ series. There was no money in printers because the commodities were interchangeable (i.e. a Conon BJ toner would work just fine in a stylewriter.
You forgot that Apple’s first printer was the Color StyleWriter II from 1994-1995. I got that when I got my first ever computer and it was also my first ever Mac and printer. I also disagree with you about the possibility of Apple making a comeback to the Printer market. With HP and others screwing over millions with cheap printers with expensive ink and firmware updates that use up all the ink and won’t let us use third party ink and with the advent of 3D printers now would be a great time for them to make a new printer and fix this problem as well. People aren’t printing because they know it’s expensive so they look at other options like printing at FedEx office or using PDFs. Look at Business Insider’ video about why ink is so expensive. If any one company can remedy this problem it would be Apple. That’s why I would like to write a letter to Tim Cook or Jony Ive about that.
3 views?0likes?0 dislikes? wow i am early
55 likes and 25 disklikes
Oh
No 554 likes and 12 disklikes
@@infinitefandubs5078 Dislikes*
@@thessdfandubers5750 Dislikes*
what is the point of voting when also the 3rd place winner is picked
I knew Apple had printers, Used to own one along side of my Apple IIe and I am under 40. It would made sense to me of why Apple would leave this market. There was little to no money to made from it, let alone the Apple level of markup that could be made from an iPod or laptop. It was a smart move. Now days HP basically gives away printers. You can buy a fairly capable inkjet printer for $25 bucks. This is why your ink cartridges are so expensive. That's how HP makes it's money.
Nice video thanks 👍
it is not 'Apple Computer' in 2:03 ;)
It's always interesting to hear when Apple was releasing a product "for half the price of the competition". If you only look at todays lineup, Almost no one would believe this ^^
Tim R. From the “competition”. Surface products are still way more expensive than macs even though they literally have mobile specs
I thought it was a joke my dad was telling me when he said he had an apple printer
Wow I'm not the only one with apple printer
does anyone know how to vote accessibley with VoiceOver on IOS? I'm trying to do it, but I can't figure out how. Are there any other blind people who watch this channel and are able to vote successfully?
I clicked because I didn’t even know this was a Thing.
I don’t get a voting poll when I subscribe.
6:10 Ecosystem
It's wired because I still own one of this
What’s up guys
If Apple continued to make printers and business software, perhaps I would have sacrificed to switch from Windows computer use over to everything made by Apple.
I had a Apple priner in 1999
I have never seen somebody with a mac use a printer...
A lot of those 90's printers Apple made look like HP and Cannon knockoffs.
These printers were not made by Apple but, were "Branded" by them (i.e. sold with an apple logo). This was because both HP, Cannon, and others had to make two versions of their printers one for DOS/windows computers and another version for Apple computers because each used different types of ports.
With only a few exceptions, Apple's laser printers used Canon* print engines combined with Apple-designed print controllers and industrial design. Many don't realize Apple introduced the FIRST laser printer with built in PostScript and the first commercially-available networkable laser printer. Back in the day the high-end Apple LaserWriters competed quite strongly against the HP versions, which also used Canon print engines** but inferior print controllers. For example the Apple LaserWriter 16/600 and HP LaserJet 4M+ both used a 17 PPM Canon EX engine, but the Apple version employed an AMD RISC-based controller that rendered pages about twice as fast at the HP 4M+.
*Apple also used engines from Fuji Xerox in various models from the entry-level LaserWriter Select 300-series to the high-end tabloid-capable LaserWriter 8500 series.
**In fact, to this day many (most) HP laser printers actually use Canon print engines. That may change in the future due to HP buying Samsung's laser printer division.
If you want to know the real and simple reason Apple stopped making printers is (as stated earlier), they contracted other (PC printer manufactures) redesign their existing models to work on a Mac hardware and software wise. For example Stylewritter 1200 was the Apple version of Canon BJ 200ex. Today Mac is now linux based using CUPS for printing and the same ports (USB and WIFI) as PCs. So the invention of USB and Apple basing their OS on Linux was the final nail in the coffin for Apple printers.
Actually the "REAL" reason Apple stopped making printers was that Steve Jobs killed off most Apple-branded peripherals...from printers to scanners to many expansion cards...upon his return to control of Apple's reins. At the time, MacOS X was still under development and Macs were running OS 7, 8 or 9, which still used the "classic" Mac printer drivers. You are correct that the LOW END Apple printers were little more than repackaged Canon or HP printers typically with Apple-customized firmware. This goes back as far as the Apple Silentype in 1980 (a rebranded Trencom 200 with a custom interface card) and the Apple Dot Matrix Printer (a rebranded C.Itoh with custom firmware). OTOH, the high-end Apple printers, such as the original LaserWriter, the LW II series the LW 630 and LW 16/600, were heavily-modified by Apple to the point that other than some basic print engine and power supply parts and toner carts they don't interchange with their Canon and HP counterparts. The print controller board in those (what Apple calls the "I/O Board", which contains the raster image processor and Postscript interpreter in PS-capable models) was 100% Apple developed and manufactured for Apple.
FWIW, the Mac OS has *NEVER* been "Linux based" as you stated. Mac OS X is based on Darwin, Apple's version of BSD UNIX, which itself evolved from NeXTSTEP. CUPS was not integrated into MacOS until 10.2, when Apple purchased the rights to it and continued development. However CUPS natively supports Postscript (the Mac's native display interface) and non-postscript printers still generally require a printer-manufacturer-specific "filter" to convert the raster file to the specific printer used (although CUPS supplies a few common filters like PCL and ESC).
Now AirPrint is almost useless
Why are you picking this topic for today, when just 15% of your subscribers wanted to see this video. There must be a reason why this topic was at the last place. (Still good video, but I just want to point that out)
Rui Fernandes because he already did the other two the voting is just asking which ones they want to see first
@@ramiiiYT Oh ok thx for answering.
7:37 NTR???????????
You should of not had named your channel to 'apple explained'. you basically shot your self in the foot limiting your self to only apple
Really
Who use paper in 2018?
Teachers makes me use paper
Wrong pole
Hi
Who the fuck is interested in the history of printers? Am I missing something here?
I have a image writer 1.
Were is the voteing poles
Should I feel bad for not knowing Apple made printers?
I think what you mean is most kids don’t know it.
No
The Scribe. The biggest piece of shit. Ever. It was slow, and ate those expensive wax ribbons, especially the color ones, like candy.
Tacos
Iprint
PAW Team idon’t
🤔 interesting... Apple made printers...
The scribe was a piece of shit that produced low quality printouts with $10 cartridges.
☺️
Could you maybe explain all tech rather than just apple?
The Amazing World of Jag! The name of the channel is Apple Explained so... 🙃
This is an Apple channel. Come here for Apple or don’t.
What’s the point of voting polls if you answer all the questions also “third place winner”
Dimitris Moutsos The order doesn’t really matter, it’s probably to get subscribers
500th like 👍
Early
You're right, I was wrong!
wew
First
Nope
1st
Nope
2nd
Nope
Why nope
i was faking
1st
Nope