Not so different from Apple in the late 90s. And it kept struggling to find its stride until the iPhone. Let's have some context.

1993, Apple Newton

1994, IBM Simon

1996, PalmPilot/PalmOS

1996, Apple Pippin game console

1998, iMac

1998-2000, tons of MP3 players

2000, Microsoft Pocket PC/Windows CE

2001, Microsoft's tablet PCs

2001, iPod

2001, OS X

2002, Pocket PC smartphones

2002, BlackBerry

(I included a few flops to show that this wasn't a God-given destiny but an iterative search process...)

So as of 2004:

* PDAs are an established market but mostly limited to business. The functionality will only take off in smartphones, which are really just PDA-phones

* iPod has gobbled up the pre-existing MP3 player market in a way that prefigures iPhone, with a decent device and very good marketing

* Smartphones are just getting taken up in 2004, as an outgrowth of the PDA market. It'll be 5 years before iPhone hits a pre-existing smartphone market with a decent device, very good marketing and "app store"

* Tablet PCs are bombing, largely because nobody understands or wants the form factor yet

Near future after 2004: transition to Intel 2005-2007ish, MacBook Pro and MacBook 2006, iPhone 2007, Android 2007, MacBook Air 2008, iPad 2010.

and consider the contribution of economic downturns/booms to the timing of products which did well

"WWDC 2004 Register early and save"

Ah, for the days when you didn't have to register in the first minute to have a chance of getting a ticket.

You should take a look at this 15 year slideshow of Apple's homepage: http://thetechblock.com/15-years-apples-homepage/

I've seen that but just took another look. No doubt they should have the dates on the pages otherwise it's hard to get the full effect.

The change in technology and "coolness" is staggering. I remember buying the white 20GB iPod with the scroll wheel and being the coolest kid in high school. Looking at it now and it looks painfully outdated and ugly (IMO).

The word you're looking for is "fashion."

Fashion is something Apple is good at.

Its not just Apple, of course. The entire web is very fashion conscious.

That's true. Especially today - some oldies like Amazon don't have a lot of knack for it. I meant that few companies have the same ability to predict or set fashion that Apple does. At least, the same awareness or willingness to make it a top priority.

Or the same need to make it a top priority

Ah, the 'truth stretching' benchmarks of the advertising for the Apple PowerPC machines.

It's kind of interesting how that G5 ad on the front page has a testimonial about freeing you from the chains of Intel and MS. Apple was was probably right in the middle of getting 10.4 ready to run on Intel at this point

I remember scratching my head at the numbers from Apple... The PowerPC chips were four times faster than Intel (or some such number). Then they released on Intel and it became twice as fast. (Of course, this might have been somewhat accurate if PowerPC did not gain performance at the same rate over the years. Still worth a chuckle, though.)

Apple tended to use numbers that were based on calculations made with AltiVec[0], a very powerful SIMD instruction set on PowerPC processors. Of course many apps didn't benefit much from AltiVec at all.

[0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltiVec

Apple always cherry-picked those benchmarks. The Apple PowerPC machines were so much slower than Intel-based Windows machines (in actual use) yet Apple would always claiming they were 4x faster. Then Apple releases their Intel based machines and suddenly they were the fastest ever.

Great web design basically doesn't need to change over time. Apple has kept the same ideas: big hero image, top nav bar, a few secondary things, and that's it for a decade.

Blinking "Hot News Headlines" bar. You know, great web design.

It's not blinking. It just changes headlines.

You know, like what this AJAX gizmo is often used to do today.

All completely overpowered by the skeuomorphic image background buttons.

It's more shocking see how Samsung was 7 years ago ( https://web.archive.org/web/20070222044411/http://www.samsun... ) and now ( http://www.samsung.com ). Evolving from refrigerators to smartphones!

I'm seeing LCD TVs, a smartphone, and an ultra-mobile PC...

it may well come back to refrigerators once the "internet of things" takes hold, except this time it would be your smartphone talking to your refrigerator and vice-verse :)

It's still pretty much about refrigerators, washing machines and cameras. Just the US site is different from the rest of the world. Their German site for example clearly advertises washing machines and refrigerators on the front page: http://www.samsung.com/de .

I see smartphones, solid state drives and TVs. Perhaps it's targeting based on cookies?

The navigation bar is the most interesting part I think:

- Store

- iPod + iTunes

- .Mac

- Quicktime

.Mac and Quicktime were actually two of the most prominently featured products on Apple.com. Wow. iPod and iTunes have stuck around but are now treated separately probably due to the variety of content available on iTunes (apps, books, movies, games).

I find it strange that Mac's aren't featured on the 2004 navigation bar. Instead it's OS X.

Navbars are a great way to get a sense of the company's priorities, generally influenced by the biggest money makers.

Amazon's navbar in 2004: https://web.archive.org/web/20041102060756/http://www.amazon.... Books, clothing, electronics, toys/games, music, phones. Today, it's streaming video, streaming music, ["streamed"] ebooks, Kindles, apps ... and then (separated by a horizontal bar) Books / Audible (still plugging digital goods!), music/movies/games, electronics, home, etc.

Or what they want to be money makers.

Or what they don't want to be money losers. When the support link is in the top nav, it's an indicator of a customer-focused company. Bonus points for a toll-free number at the top. If it's buried in a tiny font at the bottom, you might want to walk away.

Indeed: Quicktime wasn’t making much money at the time (or ever was) but when streaming films became a Moor’s law prospect possibility, the fight with Real became insane.

Quicktime was mainly to have access to some of the rare actual videos on-line at the time: film trailers, hosted by Apple (and streamed by Akamai at great expense). It seemed incredible at the time. I would religiously connect there every Saturday for new releases and wow at how fast a 240 would download.

You had that, dancing-baby/wombat gifs, or that guy jumping into a tree (that because YouTube first big video) if you weren’t tired of it, and… that’s it.

The Show with Ze Franck was insane idea: the technical feat was more mind-bogging that his antics.

Seeing the 'Education' section makes me disappointed.

Apple's recent departure from the educational market really changed how school districts (like the one where I'm currently employed) made their purchasing decisions.

They used to offer deep discounts for K-12 and higher ed, even featuring it on their main page. Now they don't offer anything of the sort.

That lampshade imac was one of the coolest bits of hardware ever. I find it more interesting than the new "trashcan" model. I had a friend with a lampshade imac and I was very envious. It still seems more useful to me than the new all in one macs where you basically can't service anything. The lampshade was a good compromise.

That's a PowerMac/Mac Pro you're thinking of, lampshade is iMac.

The biggest thing that sticks out to me is the design of the tab buttons in the nav bar. I remember looking at Photoshop tutorials and using Macromedia Fireworks to create buttons that looked similar to this for phpBB styles. Yikes, I'm not old. But damn I'm old.

That machine still feels modern to me. From the outside.

Kind of funny that the "iBook Logic Board Repair Extension Program" gets a front page link.

"Introducing iLife '04

- it's like Microsoft Office for the rest of your life"

I nearly pissed myself in laughter.

Can you explain this line to me? I somehow don't get it.

As far as I can tell: He is extremely easily amused and has a terrible case of urinary incontinence. The former will heal with age, but the latter will get worse.

Microsoft Office was pretty much was computers were to most people, and they came off (Bill Gates personally, ‘computer-savvy‘ managers in general and meetings involving PowerPoint in particular) as… no really inspiring. ‘Office life’ was an oximoron -- the title of the show “The Office” didn’t make sense. It was dredge reports, inexplicably weird titles, erratic page numbers, section numbers and inserted images on crack, illegible bar-charts because color-copies where too expensive, and tweaking with margins that sent the key information outside of your fax borders.

Apple played on that angle a lot. They were the computer for the cool kids who made music, took wowing photos, edited gorgeous books, and gave snappy presentations. Things clicked. They had the cool typeface, always, without even pointing at it. They even knew those were not called ‘fonts’. They made computers you actually wanted to spend time with, not be paid to be next too.

Not sure why OC is pissing: either at the office gimmicky memories, or how Apple’s angle seems dated now. But, at the time, that was compelling.

I was a mac specialist for a few year 07-09. People were just dumbfounded and some angry that a new Mac didn't come with MS Office. Some refused to believe me and thought I was trying to upsell them (for no commission).

Sir if this laptop is for your daughter starting college, you'll probably want to get MS Office or Pages. "What? No Office included?!" Well it comes with TextEdit. "That's fine she'll use that" I'd then tell them about OpenOffice but that would confuse most people even more

If MS Office is a suite of programs that you use in the office, iLife would be "for the rest of your life" = free time, that is, Photos, Music (Listening + Arranging), and more(?)

Sounds like a pretty accurate description of hell to me.

Poor line. Sounds like a prison sentence.