The mad dash to build the future of multimedia
This is part of our package about Apple's 50th anniversary, read more here.
It's 1989. To play a video, listen to a song, or show photos on a desktop computer requires bolting on expensive hardware, built by a different company, using different software. There are no standards, no portability, no sharing.
Tyler Peppel, Apple product marketer: It should have been a natural area for Apple to be in, but we had nothing. Apple's CEO John Sculley told me, "We need to get into this," but of course, it wasn't that easy.
John Worthington, audio engineer: There were people inside the company who said, "No one's ever going to listen to music or wat …