Schiller says Apple is the last PC maker from the Mac era, forgets about HP

Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, recently claimed that Apple is the only computer company left from the early days of the Mac. Unfortunately for him, HP still exists.

“Every company that made computers when we started the Mac, they’re all gone,” Schiller told Macworld in an interview on Apple’s Cupertino campus. “We’re the only one left.”

I’m sorry Apple, but when exactly did HP declare bankruptcy? We contacted an HP spokesperson for a statement on Apple’s ridiculous claim and were pointed to its timeline history page.

Here are five important HP milestone years we think are worth noting, given that the Macintosh was released in 1984:

• 1968: 1st “personal computer” – First programmable scientific desktop calculator: The HP 9100A – virtually the first PC – stores programs on a magnetic card and can solve science and engineering problems 10 times faster than most other machines. It paves the way for the company’s workstation business. Ads call it a “personal computer” in the first documented uses of the term.
• 1980: HP’s first PC – The HP-85, the company’s first personal computer, resembled a large desktop calculator but could do far more than add 2 + 2. It could control instruments and even talk to other computers.
• 1983: HP introduces Touchscreen PC – HP introduces the HP-150 Touchscreen PC, allowing users to activate features simply by touching the screen.
• 1991: Portable PCs get power boost – HP advances lightweight portable computer with the HP 95LX palmtop PC. Roughly the size of a pocket calculator, it boats as much computing power as a desktop PC.
• 1993: HP introduces OmniBook. – The 3-pound (1.4-kilogram) HP OmniBook 300 was the smallest and lightest PC on the market with a full-size keyboard and video graphics array screen. It had enough battery power to last as long as a flight across the United States.

HP is the easiest counterexample, especially because it has been the top PC manufacturer for years, although it recently slipped to second place. Yet we’re sure history buffs could find others as well.

Dell also still makes computers, albeit as a private company, although it was founded four months after the first Mac was released. Sony, which produced computers in the 1980s, left the business in 1990, but reentered in 1996 with the VAIO brand, which is definitely still available for purchase in 2014. Nevertheless, Apple said it’s the only one left standing, and we only need HP to show otherwise.

There is no question that Apple is a marketing machine. Unfortunately, the company is also particularly good at making up nonsense.

See also – Apple marks the Mac’s 30th anniversary with video celebrating ‘Thirty years of innovation’ and Do you remember your first Apple Mac?

Top Image Credit: Kim White/Getty Images