> the Apple II simply had no "user experience" in the sense we understand today
Of course there is an user experience element on an Apple II. You just have to put the II in the context of the microcomputers if its time. It came in a plastic box, you could hook up your TV and you could display color and make music and sound effects in the speaker. You turned it on and you got a BASIC language interpreter instantly. You could connect a cassette recorder (an 8-track would do) and save your programs.
and you'll see the "user experience" of an Apple II was miles ahead what most of the competition could offer (monochrome text on a screen, fan noise, metal cases, serial terminals, no BASIC...) at much higher prices.
People often compare the II to other 8-bit micros like the Atari 400/800 and the VIC family, but forget they were launched 2 and 3 years after the II respectively.
I guess this is true, but it's seems like a needless digression. Woz did all that stuff. The power-on prompts (both monitor and BASIC) were his. TV output certainly wasn't a Jobs innovation (nor was it Woz's, he just did it better with a staggeringly low part count).
My point earlier was that attributing this to Jobs purely because of an intuition that "Jobs does UX" is incorrect, and speaks more broadly to my point that Woz has been terribly shafted by history.
I mean, when a site called "Hacker News" no less can't speak unanimously to this man's genius, something is terribly wrong.
While I agree the II is not a Jobs-only product, I can't imagine Jobs sitting quietly letting Woz make all the decisions. I can't picture Jobs sitting quietly at all.
Woz put up a serious fight to make the Apple II as powerful as possible.
Jobs wanted it to be as cheap as possible. Jobs planned to sell two expansion cards, so the Apple II only only needed two expansion slots. Woz refused to hobble the machine when he could easily make it have seven expansion slots.
The Apple II had seven, and within a year there was a flourishing third party market providing all sorts of expansion options.
The Apple II was the last product where Woz had any serious amount of input and (if you had any interest in technology) it was Apple's peak.
> Woz put up a serious fight to make the Apple II as powerful as possible.
A fight for user experience. Woz is the ultimate hacker advocate and he understood the II was a hacker's computer. Jobs was the ultimate common-person advocate. The Mac was the ultimate common-person computer.
And yes, the Jobs/Wozniak equilibrium is my favorite period for Apple. The II is still my favorite computer.
Not to diminish the genius of Woz, but it should be pointed out that in a design book (I think it was The Design of Everyday Things) his CORE universal remote was singled out for harsh criticism because of its overly complex UI.
Based on this, there may be some truth in the idea that he lacked some UX finesse.
I have to disagree. I used the Apple IIe and the TRS-80 extensively during this period. I coded games and other software in BASIC and assembly on both machines. I poured over the schematics of both machines for hours at a time. You could literally say that I knew those machines inside and out.
What you refer to as "user experience" was not at all uncommon. The TRS-80, the Sinclair, and many other computers shipped in plastic boxes. I don't recall the Apple natively supporting a hookup to a TV (the TRS-80 did not), but this was certainly not a positive at the time... TVs were far more difficult to read and work on than monitors.
Both the TRS-80 and the Apple shipped with BASIC and connected to a cassette recorder.
There were dozens of other computers, but there were just a few that were commonly used.
The TRS-80 didn't have color and, unless you went into 32x16 mode, text would be unreadable on a TV (it had a matching TTL monochrome monitor built with a TV-grade CRT). 40x24 text was readable on the Apple II even through an RF modulator. While it didn't come with an RF modulator built-in, you could buy one cheaply.
In 77, there were more or less two computers that didn't look too much like office equipment: the II and the TRS-80 model 1. You mention the IIe and the Sinclair. The ZX-80 wasn't launched until 3 years after the original II. The IIe was introduced in 1983 (that is, after the III). The TRS-80 you remember is, most likely, the model III.
True, I thought I mentioned the color thing, but I guess not. You definitely could not read a TRS-80 clearly on a TV. You could on an Apple, but who would? Most people - remember the buyers were predominantly hobbyists and schools - bought the monitors.
I was working on a TRS-80 Model I in the late 70s, I want to say 1977 but maybe it was '78. I remember it vividly, even down to the massive 4kb memory expansion (which weighed around 10lbs and threw off massive amounts of heat).
Later on we got a Model III. It didn't have nearly as much character as the I. I didn't like the monolithic looks of it much but it was admittedly a much cleaner machine with the built-in disk drives (the Model I eventually supported 5 1/4" floppies but they were humongous standalone units.)
Of course there is an user experience element on an Apple II. You just have to put the II in the context of the microcomputers if its time. It came in a plastic box, you could hook up your TV and you could display color and make music and sound effects in the speaker. You turned it on and you got a BASIC language interpreter instantly. You could connect a cassette recorder (an 8-track would do) and save your programs.
Compare that with the average computer of 1977:
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/year.asp?st=1&y=1977
and you'll see the "user experience" of an Apple II was miles ahead what most of the competition could offer (monochrome text on a screen, fan noise, metal cases, serial terminals, no BASIC...) at much higher prices.
People often compare the II to other 8-bit micros like the Atari 400/800 and the VIC family, but forget they were launched 2 and 3 years after the II respectively.