For the second year running, Apple has topped Fortune's list of the World's Most Admired Companies. Why Apple? Fortune ranks Apple tops in the computer industry for Innovation, People management, and Quality of products/services, while handing the company high mark in all remaining categories too. Says the overview:

It's been a rocky year for Apple: CEO Steve Jobs' health made headlines, and critics said Cupertino wasn't being open enough about it. But customers remained loyal to the brand that made white ear buds cool. As much of the computer industry struggled, Apple shipped 22.7 million iPods during its first quarter (up 3 percent from last year), 2.5 million Macs (up 9 percent), and 4.4 million iPhones. No wonder Apple tops our Most Admired list for the second year in a row.

Ah, that Mac resurgence: you can't help but see it in airport lounges, coffee shops, every place where people show up with the computer they want, not the one the company placed on their desks. Take a gander at the shot below from a New York meeting of Drupal enthusiasts. Drupal, a free and open-source system for building websites (including this one), runs on any platform; there's nothing inherent in it that calls for a Mac. Rather, it's the gathered enthusiasts who, free to choose any platform they like, created this scene:

It's hard to find the laptops in that shot that might not be Macs!

Congratulations on the Fortune award, Apple. Looks like more and more people are calling you #1 as well.

Over at Macworld, well-known TidBits editor Adam C. Engst bravely takes a stab at the six worst Apple products ever. Here's his take:

1. Macintosh IIvi and IIvx
2. Macintosh TV
3. Pippin
4. Power Macintosh 4400
5. Twentieth Anniversary Mac
6. Apple [hockey puck] USB Mouse

Any of those sound unfamiliar? Head to the article for details and links. My quick adds:

The IIvi? Hey, I almost bought one of those – I think it was that CD-ROM drive (and the reasonably modest price) that had me salivating. I ended with a PowerMac 6100AV instead. But anyway:

The Pippin? Never owned one, just played with one in a store – when it wasn't crashed. My memories of the Pippin in stores is basically that of a Netscape browser covered by a "Mac bomb" crash error. Moving on:

The 4400? Didn't own one of those, fortunately. I saw them in action, and they truly felt tinny and cheap. This had to be the epitome of the machines that had Steve Jobs cringing upon his return. Next:

The TAM? The TAM? Oh, all right, it does merit inclusion, based on that original price. But at the later blowout price, it was... well, that unique blend of unfortunate and awesome that is the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh. But hey, this was totally new to me:

Within a year, Apple had knocked the price down to $1,995, placating people who had paid more by giving them gifts of high-end PowerBooks

Really? Never heard that. Anyone have info on that?

And finally:

The hockey puck mouse? Seems to make everybody's list for worst Apple product ever, though it didn't halt the iMac's stunning success. Might make my worst list, too, if I ever used one. (Confession: I want one from the green iMac, to complement my Key lime iBook. Even if it just sits there and I don't have to make contact with its suspect ergonomics.)

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The Macintosh was born on January 24, 1984 – a quarter century ago. What does Apple have planned to commemorate the birthday?

Nothing, it would seem, as the day arrives and passes without comment from Apple. It's not like the company hasn't celebrated an anniversary before: the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh marked 20 years of Apple (if not the Mac itself). While housing some disappointments within its gorgeous bronze body, the machine was nonethless amazing, distinctive, and a testimony to Apple's groundbreaking industrial design. (You're just a click away from the web's most extensive overview of the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh, so enjoy!)

Why no similar project to mark the Mac's 25th? I can't speak a word on behalf of Apple or the Be-turtlenecked One. I can only offer this conjecture from the peanut gallery:

Apple no longer needs to step beyond its everyday products and build one-off, "what if" concepts. At the Apple of 2009, every shipping product is an idealized showpiece – like those sleek, impossible concept cars at the auto shows, only real.

The Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh said "here's what we could build if we weren't churning out the faceless bland Performas that the market demands". The modern Mac says "this is the most marvelous thing that we or anyone can build and ship, period – and we're betting that the market will love it". It's a bet that the company is winning. 

Apple can't surprise us with hidden genius on the occasion of this anniversary, because Steve Jobs made it the company's mission to inject that genius into every shipping product. How can the company go "up" from the brilliant iMac, iPhone, iPod, and MacBooks? Nothing held back means there's nothing saved for "special" products.

Apple's special anniversary treat for us is the same brilliant ideas and execution it's always been offering, and constantly improving upon, especially for the last decade. Here on its big birthday, the just-as-it-is Mac is far more exciting than any one-shot concept model could be. And that's something for both Apple and its customers to celebrate.

Sifting through some junk, I came across a Newsweek from July 26, 1993. Just 15 years ago, but that's a long time where a magazine's technology notes are concerned.

There was a blurb on a programmable gadget that mounts on telephone wall jacks, to limit teens' talking time on the household phone. (Would a teen even go near a landline now?) An article on US carmakers' charge into a bright new future of productivity by using Cray supercomputers to design parts. (A correct step, though it didn't solve bigger problems.) An introduction to a high-tech, $364 million year-round indoor ski structure near Tokyo. (That closed down some years back.)

Change. It happens everywhere, and then happens more, and sometimes un-happens, all at triple speed where technology is concerned. So it was especially interesting to see a bigger tech story in that old Newsweek: "From a Champ to a Chump?", the latest on the then-departing CEO of Apple, John Sculley. You'll recall him as the Pepsi-Cola marketing whiz that Steve Jobs lured in Apple in 1983, leading to the power struggle that led to Jobs' departure in 1985. Sculley was seen as a visionary. He oversaw the Mac's fabled introduction in 1984, published a best-selling autobiography in 1987, ushered in low-cost ($999) Macs in 1990, and even became a Washington DC insider, seen by some as bound for the Cabinet. 

So what was wrong at Apple in 1993? Lots. It was the beginning of the company's mid-90s Dark Ages. Microsoft's Windows was eating into sales, even before the explosion of Windows 95; Mac shipments slumped despite Apple's slashing prices again and again. The result: a $188 million 3Q loss at Apple. Its stock price was down over 50% from the start of the year. One in six employees faced a layoff plan.

Even as he gave way to new CEO Michael Spindler, Sculley gamely pointed to new hope on the horizon. The top-secret Apple-IBM "Pink" operating system "will blow people away", Sculley said. The upcoming PowerPC processor offered more promise. And a whole new product line, the Newton PDA, was just months from launch.

Not surprisingly, not much of that went down as planned. "Pink" fizzled completely. The PowerPC had its run, but eventually yielded to Intel. The Newton took its best shot and played a huge role in creating the PDA and smart phone markets of today. But it itself is gone.

Fortunately for Apple, there was much more change coming. Steve Jobs famously returned in 1997; the mid-80s change of management was thoroughly undone. So was the "beleaguered" Apple of 1993. Against one of the worst global economic backgrounds in decades, Apple in January 2009 announced the best quarterly results in its history. It was a $7 billion company in 1993; it now generates over $10 billion in revenue each quarter. Mac sales continue to boom, to over 2.5 million per quarter. While Mac market share rises, the iPod and iPhone continue to dominate their markets with millions of units sold per quarter.

Apple's "closed" ecosystem, lambasted in 1993 as one of the mistakes killing the company, is now seen as a stroke of genius that allows product integration and healthy margins that competitors can't match. Even as Microsoft struggles with troubles both old (security woes, unprofitable side businesses) and new (the Vista debacle, layoffs, competitors like Google, Linux and Apple eating into its core businesses), a debt-free Apple sits on tens of billions of dollars in cash, rakes in accolades for its technology, design, and customer service, and is increasingly seen as the standard-bearer for both product and management excellence.

Change. Some sticks, some gets reversed, some takes off in crazy directions. 15 years after that gloomy Newsweek article foreshadowing the bad years for Apple, here on the Mac's 25th anniversary, Apple sits on top of the tech world. Who could have seen that coming?

Change is good. Elsewhere in that old Newsweek was an unrelated article on a Japan election, with a curious parallel to our time. A 1993 campaign banner in Tokyo, underneath its main slogan, carried a single English word: "Change".

May all your change be good this year.

One oft-misunderstood difference between Mac OS X and Windows behavior is the way users close applications. Many people misunderstand the specifics for one or both of the operating systems, while other aren't aware that there is a difference. 

Case in point: Even tech reviewer extraordinaire Walter Mossberg goes a wee astray in Some General Tips for Switch to Mac From Windows, an article I expand upon to correct Mac vs Windows inaccuracies. With additional input from smart readers, some good stuff gets scattered throughout that page's comments. Here I'll summarize what you need to know about closing applications the Mac way and the Windows way:  Read more »