Snippet: The Mac at 30: Apple Execs: ‘The Mac Keeps Going Forever’ ☇

Macworld’s Jason Snell interviewed some of the current Apple execs on the Mac’s thirtieth birthday. I mentioned in our coverage that today’s Macs are really nothing like the original other than sharing some philosophies and ideologies—they’re more like NeXT machines and PCs, but I think Apple has kept the most important ideas at the forefront, as explained by Bud Tribble, Apple’s vice president of software technology, and member of the original Mac team:

An incredible amount of thought and creativity went into the original Mac metaphor…So there are some extremely strong threads of DNA that have lasted for 30 years. The sign of the strength of them and the underlying principles behind them—that the Mac should be easily approachable and learnable by just looking at it, that it should bend to the will of the person and not bend the person’s will to the technology—those underlying threads also apply to our other products.

Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing speaks about the role iOS and OS X play in Apple’s future:

…There’s a role for the Mac as far as our eye can see. A role in conjunction with smartphones and tablets, that allows you to make the choice of what you want to use. Our view is, the Mac keeps going forever, because the differences it brings are really valuable.