Welcome to Macintosh

Written by Philip Roy | 28 January 2009
Posted in Other

Mac users will love this DVD simply because of the asking price...$19.84 USD. Get it? Welcome to the Macintosh is a Mac lovers video treat. Nicely put together, with a few famous people appearing from the Mac's past. This isn't so much a documentary about the Mac, but really a collage of discussions about all things Apple.

Weighing in at 1 hour, 20 minutes, the movie begins with an exceptionally brief history of Apple, which really just sets the scene for the film. The movie is quite quirky, even with the music and fonts used. It's easy to see the makers of the film are Mac fans.

It starts with famous Mac users reminiscing about how many Macs they have owned...which makes you warm to them (and be slightly impressed) immediately. The very famous Andy Hertzfeld starts off the first of the list of Mac celebs. Ron Wayne, the third founder (the 10% guy) of Apple Computer features next.

Then some Mac aficionados comment, including someone who had gone to the effort of replicating an Apple I motherboard. It also takes a step back to look at the history of how the Apple II became popular before the launch of the first Mac in 1984 and the competing products that were around at the time. This sets the background for the initial development of the Mac, which must first be credited to Jeff Raskin and Burrell Smith really.

Strangely, little is discussed after the indication as to how Mac development started but instead, the film jumps to the day of the Mac's launch (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0FtgZNOD44). This seems an incredibly big jump for the film to make and soon shows that this documentary isn't really about the Mac, but Apple.

It seems strange to jump through what many would see as a major defining moment in the development of such a ground-breaking computer. But then again, many others have chronicled the Mac's development, including Andy Hertzfeld himself. So perhaps this is why the decision was made to make this jump. You do hear more about these aspects of the Mac's early life in the special features, but jumping from the launch in 1984 to the loss of Wozniak and Jobs at Apple in the following year...that's quite a leap.

Watching this segment of the movie makes you appreciate something I hadn't really thought about before...the Mac launched in 1984 and by the end of the next year, both Wozniak and Jobs had gone from the company. So much of the growth of the Mac was in fact without these two and Jobs was gone for some time. I'm not trying to suggest that Jobs's influence isn't a huge part of Apple, but it's a shame to suggest that the "Steve-less years" were a great loss. In fact Apple had some amazing achievements in those years, but then began to falter prior to his return.

Next we meet Guy Kawasaki, hired as an Apple evangelist (twice) to promote the use of Apple software and hardware, who provides some hint as to the inner workings of the Apple at the time. CEO's Sculley, Spindler and Amelio are summed up beautifully in a brief montage, but Kawasaki is brutally honest in his opinion of the time and of the leverage he continues to gain off a job he hasn't done for 20 years.

Next, the developing dominance of the Mac is balanced with the financial crises at Apple in the '90s. Jobs's return is highlighted in his first keynote, which was remarkable in itself (a hero returns!), but became historical in proportion when he introduced Bill Gates via video to boos in the audience, to announce the Microsoft investment in Apple at the time (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxOp5mBY9IY).

Moving on to the iMac, it skips through many of the now famous innovative Macs produced, OS X, the iPod, iTunes music store, G5, Mac Mini, the move to intel, Apple TV, iPhone and Mac Book Air. That's one heck of a fast summary.

One of the more interesting aspects of the movie are the photographic inserts between clips. These feature well known Mac models photographed in unusual places.....on a bridge, in a stream, in a hay barn, on a swing or at a cemetery. It's interesting but doesn't really serve a purpose other than add some visual appeal. These photos are available as a DVD slideshow extra called "Symbiosis".

The movie then turns back in on itself to discuss Apple as a whole. With 40 minutes left, it seems odd for the movie to almost reverse upon itself. The reality is that the people being interviewed are not discussing specific periods of Apple's history, but the company as a whole. This is evident when they move on to discussing the Macworld conferences and that we hear more and more from the author of the Cult of Mac at this point.

By this stage I felt the movie almost should be called "Welcome to Apple" or "The Cult of Mac" (to mimic the book)...even including a pimped out car covered in Mac and Apple graphics. It then jumps back to one person's incredible collection that might be consider a hoarding of Macs more than a collection...and while it is an impressive collection indeed, it's almost disappointing to see half off it piled high (including in the ceiling of the building) and not given the attention to preservation they deserve. You almost plea for this chap to start selling these Macs (he says he won't) or pushing them onto eBay for others to enjoy. This is supposedly the worlds rarest personal Mac collection.

Next, a very very honest former Mac engineer (responsible for the Mac startup sound) Jim Reekes, whose brutal honesty is refreshing. He might not believe in the Cult of Mac, but he a great (and harsh) speaker. Just witness his comments about how he feels about his Mac...

I like a good movie more than I do a good mac. I like good beverages more than my computer.

It's great...it's honest and it shows that liking the Mac, loving the Mac and being obsessed with a Mac are very different things indeed and that were not all the same.

The film then moves on to a discussion of the rumour sites. Then, oddly, with 22 minutes left, it goes back to discussing the Mac startup sound. This is where the film shows that perhaps it has been made by Mac enthusiasts as opposed to documentary makers...some of the discussions seem out of place. Then it moves on to talking about people's relationship to their Macs ("Cult of Mac" all over again), product placement and then movie editing with an Academy Award winning film editor.

Steve Jobs is discussed next. Nothing of any great circumstance is mentioned despite who it is that is being interviewed (some of these people worked with Jobs for some time). There is some post-Steve speculative discussion, with Kawasaki perhaps saying it best (many of the others say little new)...suggesting anyone attempting to recreate or mimic Steve if they were to take on the role of CEO, would be a "dick head" if they tried to work by competing or trying to match Jobs as a person or visionary.

The DVD then wraps up by looking back at the Apple II and the spirit of the computer revolution, taking the movie back to where it began, which as a wrap-up is a nice touch.

Special features = added value
I still felt a little disappointed by the documentary given the amount of aspects about the Mac that they skipped over. However the special features help restore faith in the DVD.

The special features includes a movie showing the behind the scenes development of the film. It's great to see the effort and enjoyment the documentary makers had and where they promoted the film after they finished, as well as the obvious Apple tools they used to create the movie.

It's not until you see a much extended interview with Andy Hertzfeld that you realise the documentary makers had a lot of more specific material they could have worked with. However some of it is very, very specific, so perhaps they realised that they could have switched viewers off by putting it into the documentary itself.

There is a very interesting interview with Ron Wayne, where he comments that he has no regrets in not working for Apple and making lot of money, because he didn't want to have to experience the highs and lows of working with the two Steves. Jim Reekes starts commenting on the kind of hardware Apple needs to develop (his interview would have been in 2006 some time), with him more or less describing an Apple TV that in fact came out the next year (did he have inside knowledge or was that just a coincidence?).

Conclusion
This probably isn't the first movie on the Mac or Apple I would recommend, as despite its title, it seems a little unsure about what it is meant to be. It's not a movie about the Macintosh per se, nor it is about industrial design that includes Apple (Objectified is the movie to watch on that). The MacHeads movie seems more relevant if what you want is a movie about Mac aficionados and how 'unique' many of them are. Instead, this movie seems slightly lost in what its focus wants to be.

I'm not saying that it makes it bad...just not memorable, although I'm glad I now own a copy. It's got some great names discussing some aspects of the Mac, but some of those events are almost trivialised in the way they are dealt with quickly. There's so much more to the Mac story. This documentary hasn't added anything to the Mac's history that some very good books detail....but it's a nice evenings viewing and great to see and hear from some people we're unlikely to ever meet in person.

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