30 Years of Apple: Was the IIc Apple’s PCjr?

Yesterday we asked if the last twenty years at Apple were as good as the first ten years. Today we pull out something from those first ten years that seemed to be an instant hit from its announcement at Moscone Center in 1984 but later proved in lackluster sales that it really wasn’t what Apple had hoped it would have been.

The Apple IIc was the next phase of the very successful II line. It really was just the IIe with more memory crammed in a smaller shell. I remember when the IIc came out and how Apple put on the media campaign as heavy as ketchup on a meatloaf; it was everywhere and thick.

My first experience with the German designed white (iPod inspiration?) sleek computer was at a friends house. It was their first computer and they were proud owners of it. They happily turned it on for me and beamed a large smile when it came on. “Go ahead. Do something!” they encouraged me. Having been a huge fan of the II and IIe (where I learned programming on,) I was hot to go. My excitement quickly faded after only a few key strokes. ‘What is that funky feeling?’ I thought as I typed “10? Sven was here!” and continued onto line 20 (I was a sloppy coder, I didn’t use an END statement. :) ) The plastic membrane under the keys, to protect against dirt, took away that tactical feel I loved on the IIe. I kinda left that day thinking I’d never get a IIc and just stick with the IIe. Many others felt the same way.

Apple had high hopes for the IIc. Releasing it as the economical computer for the home just after its Macintosh release. All seemed to look like the IIc was going to be that very hot product Apple thought it would be. With 52,000 pre-orders of the unit from dealers on the day it was announced, who would have thought it would have only sold 400,000 in a little over four years?

While not a bomb, it certainly wasn’t anything like the pre-order excitement would have gauged one to believe what future sales would be like. Apple over estimated the publics demand for a white box that didn’t have the expansion possibilities of its sibling the IIe. While not tremendously expensive, it was still a bit more than its competitors offerings such as the Commodore C64, Atari 8-bit (400 and 800), and even the Coleco Adam. Like IBM and it’s PCjr, Apple got ahead of itself when creating the home computer and forgot about the home user. David Durkee’s remarks in Marketalk echoed the same thought the year of the IIc when he wrote back in 1984, “Just as IBM overestimated the market when producing its PCjr (which eventually failed and was discontinued), so did Apple when producing the IIc (and the original Macintosh).”

So, was the Apple IIc the equivalent of the IBM PCjr? Well, in light of total sales and in the shadow of the success of the IIe, I’d have to say yes. Just like the PCjr to its older brother the PC, the IIc just didn’t measure up to the IIe. Everything you could do on the IIc could be done (relatively) on the IIe. Further, the IIe could expand into the horizons of better and mightier computing power while the IIc couldn’t. There was just too many things not right with the IIc that just made it suffer through its four year reign. (Remember how the monitor stand was has heavy as the monitor it held because it was solid aluminum casting?)

While the IIc wasn’t a flop, it was no IIe. I think Apple learned a lot from that computer, though some other silly mistakes where made in the name of the Mac Plus later, and it fortunately hasn’t seemed to have made another IIc mistake in a long time. But still, the IIc did have some draw to it that will make it — without a doubt — a very memorable computer for years to come.

[tags]iic,iie,pcjr,flop?[/tags]