Andy Hertzfeld, one of the founding members of Apple, posted the minute-long 1983 Apple commercial that never aired onto his Google+ account last Thursday.
According to Hertzfeld, the 60-second TV commercial by Chiat-Day was thought to be “too self-congratulatory” and as such was never broadcasted.
Titled “Original Macintosh Design Team Interview Snippets”, the commercial features Hertzfeld, Burrell Smith, a former Apple hardware engineer, George Crow, Apple's chief analog designer, Bill Atkinson, the face behind some of Mac's most well known features and Mike Murray who managed marketing for Apple for almost a decade.
Smith started off by explaining that they first started designing Mac largely for themselves followed by Hertzfeld adding that “it had to be accessible to individuals rather than corporations.” Crow then spoke about the Macs needing to be so reliable that customers did not have to “ever worry about it failing” and at the same time costing only “a quarter” of what the design team had ever designed.
Atkins then added “I can't really describe it to you in words, but if I could get you to sit down in front of it and play with it, you won't let go of it.” The clip ended with Hertzfeld saying, “We were just trying to make something incredibly great and I think we did.”
It's not hard to see how the “Snippets” can come across as “self-congratulatory”, especially when you put it beside the clip that was eventually used; Ridley Scott's acclaimed 1984 – the clip that introduced Macintosh computers to the world.
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