In 1987, Apple created a video set in 1997 that was all about how much better the world was with all of the amazing Apple products the company was going to create. Almost 20 years later, some of the predictions in this ’80s-tastic fantasy film are true, and some are laughably (and thankfully) absent from current hardware.
Check out the video below, but brace yourself for some really bad jokes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZerV5WcnBAo
In between scenes that look like they’re ripped straight out of the satirical news shows and commercials from director Paul Verhoeven’s Robocop, you can pick out a few ideas that are actually around today. They were nowhere near fruition in 1997, but the ’80s were a remarkably optimistic decade.
The Mac that scours the news feed to curate relevant data for its owner works a bit like the News app that Apple revealed at its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote last month. And many of the talking/understanding features resemble digital assistant Siri, which debuted in 2011.
While Apple hasn’t yet come up with a financial planning platform, stock-market access is such a key feature of its mobile devices that you can’t even delete it from your iPhone and have to just shove it into a folder that you call “Stuff I Never Use” or something similar.
A lot of the predictions in that video fall under what I call “science-faction.” It’s a term I use for crazy future tech proposed decades ago that is actually way less cool than what we have now. Like that standalone Apple kiosk near the pay phones. Today, that entire conversation would happen on a phone or tablet, possibly without the woman dressed as Carmen Sandiego even having to stop her endless traipse around the world.
It’s the same with those Apple glasses, which are thankfully not a reality. Not because I’m opposed to wearables or putting high-tech things on my face, but because those things are hideous. And according to the video, they’re the new, slimmer model, so I assume that the original ones looked like diving helmets.
Still, even though they were a little early on that — unless you count failed virtual-reality tech like Nintendo’s Virtual Boy console, which we don’t — wearables like Google Glass, Oculus Rift, and Microsoft’s HoloLens are taking the same basic idea and making it at least look less dorky.
I do think that the fictional V.S.O.P. desktop computer looks pretty cool, though. Especially since 1997 was the year that gave us the original, multicolored iMac, and those haven’t aged well from an aesthetic standpoint.
Still, though, the video is all in good, if awkward
Via: Daily Mail
Evan Killham is a freelance writer who lives in Nebraska and isn’t interested in football, so he has plenty of time to play and think about video games. He has written for Bitmob and GamesBeat and sometimes, he even goes outside. But not too often because he’s heard there are bees out there. Occasionally, companies send free units for review. Evan subscribes to Cult of Mac’s Reviews Policy and also does not keep the items he receives for possible coverage.
10 responses to “What Apple eventually got right in its awkward ’80s video”
Math is hard. It’s almost 30 years later.
I think he meant almost 20 years from 1997, when we were suppose to already have the predicted tech. At least I hope so!
:) I was counting from the 1887 production date. Let call it a tie. :)
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If you counted from 1887, it’d be a bit more than 30 years, I’d think?
See! Math is hard. It would be 28 years. ;)
Wow! This really SUCKS! Forget about the accuracy of it’s predictions. I mean it sucks as a production. Writing sucks. Acting sucks. Editing sucks, etc. sucks.
Actually painful to watch, but like a terrible car accident, it’s somehow hard to take your eyes away. Difficult to call this any kind of “prediction”, as they were just tossing everything at the wall and hoping something would stick.
Very cringy.
The best part is where Scully said the 90s were the decade of Apple… First of all: we all know where he was in 97… second of all: the 90s ended up being their worst decade ever. But I like the part failure prediction and 3h repair! Maybe in the iPad Air 5S Plus?