iTools, Apple’s Original ‘Internet Strategy’, From January 2000

From the Apple Newsroom archive, dateline “Macworld Expo, San Francisco — January 5, 2000”:

Apple today took the wraps off its highly anticipated Internet strategy, introducing a new category of Internet services called iTools; a completely redesigned Apple.com web site featuring iReview and iCards; and a multi-year partnership and investment with Earthlink for Internet access (see related release).

iTools is a revolutionary new category of Internet services that takes advantage of Apple’s unique technology on both ends of the Internet — the operating system on the client side (Mac OS 9) and the services software running on Apple’s Internet servers (iTools). Providing the software on both ends of the Internet offers Apple the unprecedented ability to offer services impossible to implement solely on Internet servers.

“Our new iReviews, iCards and the revolutionary iTools offer amazing new ways for Mac users to take full advantage of the Internet,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s iCEO. “Mac users can now do things on the Internet that Wintel users can only dream of.”

It’s striking in hindsight how much Apple, circa 2000, was unabashedly the scrappy underdog. If an announcement is truly highly anticipated you don’t have to describe it as “highly anticipated”. And that Jobs quote, including the colloquial “Wintel”.

And from the feature list:

Mac.com, an email service run by Apple. Mac.com gives users an exclusive address on the Internet and works with standard POP email clients, such as Outlook Express, Eudora and Netscape Communicator. Mac.com users can easily set up automatic replies and forwarding of their email to other email addresses, and configure Outlook Express for their Mac.com mailbox from a simple web page.

So I misremembered the timeline of how I got into my bifurcated Apple Account situation earlier today (but I was correct in that post to be uncertain of the timeline). My @mac.com address did predate the debut of the iTunes Music Store, but I’ve had it since iTools was announced in January 2000, not when .Mac (worst Apple name ever?) was announced in July 2002. (Thanks to Thomas Brand for reminding me.) The branding evolution is:

iTools (2000) → .Mac (2002) → MobileMe (2008) → iCloud (2011)

It took Apple a decade to get from iTools to iCloud, but iCloud has proven to be a winner. It’s interesting to think of the “Internet moment” circa 2000 compared to the “AI moment” today. Circa 2000, the hot new companies didn’t make computers or devices, and they didn’t make software that ran on consumer devices. They made websites and web apps that ran in browsers on devices.

The bear case against Apple then was that they’d missed the boat on the big new thing, and their core strengths were no longer relevant. Pretty much the same bear case now re: AI. The difference is that Apple today is not only not a “scrappy underdog” — they’re the most valuable company in the world.

★ Tuesday, 11 February 2025