2000 - beyond the box - spots of time

Below is a chronological timeline of the year's defining moments, featuring key quotes from Steve Jobs, followed by my own personal thoughts and reflections on experiencing this historic era firsthand.

January 5, 2000 — Macworld San Francisco 2000

Steve Jobs publicly unveils the gorgeous, fluid "Aqua" user interface for Mac OS X, mesmerizing the audience with translucent buttons, drop shadows, and the very first iteration of the desktop application Dock.
Apple takes its first major leap into internet ecosystem services by launching iTools, a collection of free web utilities for Mac users that includes Mac.com webmail, HomePage web publishing, KidSafe browsing filters, and iDisk (a early 20-megabyte precursor to modern cloud storage).
Apple announces a massive $200 million strategic investment in EarthLink, establishing it as the default, pre-configured internet service provider for all new Macintosh hardware.
At the very end of the keynote, Jobs drops his final "One More Thing..." to announce that he is officially dropping "interim" from his title, permanently becoming Apple’s full-time Chief Executive Officer to a thunderous standing ovation.

Therefore, today, I am very pleased to announce that I’m going to drop the 'interim' from my title. I am going to be the CEO of Apple... Though I am still going to keep my day job at Pixar, I am going to be the full-time CEO of Apple. And the board has also graciously agreed to let me keep my 'iCEO' parking space.

February 15–16, 2000 — The "Pismo" PowerBook & Graphite iBook

Apple replaced its professional laptop line with the PowerBook G3 "Pismo", widely regarded as one of the greatest laptops Apple ever built by dropping legacy SCSI and proprietary ports entirely for dual FireWire and USB ports.
The consumer portable line gets a major aesthetic boost with the iBook Special Edition, introducing a sleek, sophisticated semi-translucent Graphite color scheme tailored to business professionals who wanted the clamshell form factor without the bright pastel colors.

Today, we are updating the last of our four quadrants. With these new PowerBooks, we have completely eliminated legacy ports—no more SCSI, no more serial, no more ADB. We are replacing them with the modern standards our users need: USB, dual FireWire, and built-in AirPort wireless networking. This is the fastest, most advanced portable on the planet.

May 15–19, 2000 — WWDC 2000 (San Jose)

Apple ships Mac OS X Developer Preview 4 (DP4) right to attendees, showcasing an optimized, lightning-fast Quartz graphics engine and a heavily refined system Dock layout.
To win over corporate and independent application engineers, Apple slashes the licensing price of its enterprise WebObjects development framework to a flat fee of $699, significantly lowering the barrier to entry for compiling network software on the Mac platform.

We have revised our roadmap slightly for Mac OS X, and I want to take you through it. We are not going to rush this. This is the most important software transition in Apple’s history, and we are going to do it right. We are going to ship a full Public Beta this summer, in September, and we will follow that with the final commercial release in January 2001.

July 19, 2000 — Macworld New York 2000

Steve Jobs unveils a stunning, polarizing feat of industrial engineering: the Power Mac G4 Cube. Designed by Jony Ive, it packs a full G4 computer into an impossibly small 7-inch clear acrylic suspension frame without a cooling fan.
Apple updates the entry-level desktop line with slot-loading Indigo, Ruby, Sage, and Snow iMac G3 variations, while standardizing digital video capabilities with the concurrent launch of iMovie 2.
The iconic, heavily criticized "hockey puck" circular mouse is officially killed off. Apple introduces the Apple Pro Mouse, an elegant, oblong, zero-button optical mouse housed in a clear plastic capsule that registers clicks by pressing down on the entire upper shell.

We didn’t just want to shrink a computer. We wanted to change the way people think about what a computer looks like and how it behaves. When you look at the engineering required to dissipate heat vertically through an open center core without a fan—this is high art. This belongs in a museum, but you get to have it on your desktop.

September 13, 2000 — Apple Expo Paris 2000

Apple changes the software landscape by officially releasing the Mac OS X Public Beta to consumers for $29.95, allowing thousands of eager power-users to install, test, and provide UI feedback on the future of Apple's computing foundation.
The professional workstation line gets a massive architecture overhaul with the introduction of Dual-Processor Power Mac G4 configurations, dramatically multiplying velocity processing for high-end digital audio and cinematic studio suites.

We want to get this into the hands of as many users and developers as possible to get your feedback. Starting today, the Public Beta is available on CD-ROM for $29.95 through the Apple Store.

For Macworld San Francisco in January, I was very happy with my 1999 iMac DV Special Edition. And I jumped right in to iTools and used EarthLink as my dialup provider. The early look at the Aqua interface for Mac OS X felt like a dream. With the management team secure, Jobs dropped the "One more thing..." that brought the Moscone Center audience to a standing ovation, he was dropping the i from iCEO.

In February, everything changed because once I saw the "Pismo" PowerBook G3, I immediately ordered one, along with an AirPort card and AirPort Base Station. This allowed me to hook it up to my dad's cable modem and have high speed internet throughout our house in New Jersey. I packed up my iMac and iSub and sold them on eBay.

That summer, I attended Macworld Expo New York. It was the first time I was present for a Steve Jobs keynote. My father drove us into the city the night before and we stayed at the W hotel. I woke up early and jumped in a taxi and was my way to the Jacob Javitz Center so I was inline hours before the keynote. Being there to see the reveal of the Apple Pro Mouse, new "Snow" iMacs starting at only $799 and the Power Mac G4 Cube was an incredible experience. Although it ended up not selling well enough to stick around, the Cube was magical and likely one of Steve's favorite products. I grabbed my free Apple Pro Mouse (thanks Steve!), my father picked met me on the show floor and we headed home.

When Steve Jobs took the stage at Apple Expo Paris to announce the Mac OS X Public Beta, the Unix-based future of the Mac was tangible, arriving on a physical CD-ROM for $29.95. Thanks to the Pismo's unified motherboard architecture and native FireWire support, that heavy, translucent, licking-good "Aqua" interface ran beautifully right out of the box. Booting into that beta felt like carrying the future of computing right in my hands.