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MacWrite is a discontinued
WYSIWYG In computing, WYSIWYG ( ), an acronym for what you see is what you get, refers to software that allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed document, web ...
word processor A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicated to the function, but current word ...
released along with the first
Apple Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...
systems in 1984. Together with MacPaint, it was one of the two original "
killer application A killer application (often shortened to killer app) is any software that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology, such as its host computer hardware, video game console, software platform, or operatin ...
s" that propelled the adoption and popularity of the GUI in general, and the Mac in particular. MacWrite was spun off to Claris, which released a major update in 1989 as MacWrite II. A further series of improvements produced 1993's MacWrite Pro, but further improvements were few and far between. By the mid-1990s, MacWrite was no longer a serious contender in the word processing market, development ended around 1995, and it was completely discontinued in 1998 due to dwindling sales.


History


Development

When the Mac was first being created, it was clear that users would interact with it differently from other personal computers. Typical computers of the era booted into text-only
disk operating system A disk operating system (DOS) is a computer operating system that requires a disk or other direct-access storage device as secondary storage. A DOS provides a file system and a means for loading and running computer program, programs stored on th ...
or
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environments, requiring the users to type in commands. Some of these programs may have presented a
graphical user interface A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows user (computing), users to human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through Graphics, graphical icon (computing), icons and visual indicators such ...
of their own, but on the Mac, users would instead be expected to stay in the standard GUI both for launching and running programs. Having an approachable, consistent GUI was an advantage for the Mac platform, but unlike prior personal computers, the Mac was sold with no programming language built-in. This presented a problem to
Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
: the Mac was planned to be launched in 1983, with a new user interface
paradigm In science and philosophy, a paradigm ( ) is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field. The word ''paradigm'' is Ancient ...
, but no third-party software would be available for it, nor could users easily write their own. Users would end up with a computer that did nothing. In order to fill this void, several members of the Mac team took it upon themselves to write simple applications to fill these roles until third-party developers published more full-fledged software. The result was MacWrite and MacPaint, which shipped free with every Macintosh from 1984 to 1986. The MacWrite development team was a company called Encore Systems, founded and led by Randy Wigginton, one of Apple's earliest employees, and included Don Breuner and Ed Ruder (co-founders of Encore Systems and also early Apple employees; Gabreal Franklin later joined Encore Systems as President.) Wigginton, who had left Apple in 1981, maintained a relationship with many Apple employees, many of whom were on the Macintosh development team. He agreed to lead the MacWrite development team on a semi-official basis. Before it was released, MacWrite was known as "Macintosh WP" (Word Processor) and "MacAuthor". Allegedly,
Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...
was not convinced of his team's abilities, and secretly commissioned another project just to be sure; its development was eventually released as
WriteNow WriteNow is a word processor application for the original Apple Macintosh and later computers in the NeXT product line. The application is one of two word processors that were first developed with the goal that they be available at the time of ...
.


Early versions

The first versions of MacWrite were rather limited, supporting only the most basic editing features and able to handle just a few pages of text before running into performance problems. (Early versions of MacWrite held the entire document in memory, and early versions of the Macintosh had relatively little free memory.) Nevertheless, it increased user expectations of a word processing program. MacWrite established the conventions for a GUI-based word processor, with such features as a toolbar for selecting paragraph formatting options, font and style menus, and a ruler for tabs, margins, and indents. Similar word processors followed, including the first GUI version of
Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is a word processor program, word processing program developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platf ...
and WriteNow, which addressed many of MacWrite's limitations while adhering to much the same user interface. The original Mac could print to a
dot matrix A dot matrix is a 2-dimensional patterned Array data structure, array, used to represent characters, symbols and images. Most types of modern technology use dot matrices for display of information, including mobile phones, televisions, and pri ...
printer called the ImageWriter, but quality was only adequate. The later
LaserWriter The LaserWriter is a laser printer with built-in PostScript interpreter sold by Apple, Inc. from 1985 to 1988. It was one of the first laser printers available to the mass market. In combination with WYSIWYG publishing software like PageMaker ...
laser printer Laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process. It produces high-quality text and graphics (and moderate-quality photographs) by repeatedly passing a laser beam back and forth over a Electric charge, negatively charged cylinder call ...
allowed dramatically better output, at a price. However, the possibilities of the GUI/MacWrite/LaserWriter combination were obvious and this, in turn, spurred the development of
desktop publishing Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using dedicated software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online co ...
, which became the "killer app" for the Mac and GUIs in general. MacWrite's inclusion with the Macintosh discouraged developers from creating other word processing software for the computer. Apple unbundled the software with the introduction of the Macintosh Plus, requiring customers to purchase it for the first time. Strong sales continued, and Apple eventually let MacWrite and MacPaint languish with no development resources assigned to improving them. Unfortunately this plan backfired. Users flooded Apple with complaints, demanding newer versions that would keep pace with new features in the Mac, while at the same time developers flooded Apple with complaints about there being any ''possibility'' of an upgrade. Apple finally decided the only solution was to spin off the products as a separate company, Claris.


MacWrite II

Claris formed in 1987 and re-released the existing versions of the Apple products under their own name. Initially it seemed Claris was as uninterested in developing MacWrite as Apple had been. Several minor upgrades were released to allow MacWrite to run on newer versions of the
classic Mac OS Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Mac (computer), Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and end ...
, but few other problems were addressed. Things changed in the later 1980s with the introduction of MacWrite II. The main changes for this release were an updated user interface, a number of new "style" capabilities, and the inclusion of Claris' file translator technology, XTND. MacWrite II was the first really new version of the software, and was based on a word processing engine purchased from Quark, Inc. By 1989 Word already dominated the Mac with about 60% market share, but the introduction of MacWrite II changed things dramatically; by 1990 Word had dropped to about 45% of the market, and MacWrite had risen to about 30%. This seemed to demonstrate that it would be worth developing further, but Claris did not respond quickly with updated versions. Microsoft, on the other hand, did, and soon introduced Word 4.0. MacWrite's share once again started to erode.


MacWrite Pro

In the late 1980s, Claris started a massive upgrade series to produce the "Pro" line of products. The main change would be to integrate all of their products with a consistent GUI based on that of
FileMaker FileMaker is a cross-platform relational database application developed by Claris International, a subsidiary of Apple Inc. It integrates a database engine with a graphical user interface ( GUI) and security features, allowing users to visu ...
. This included a common toolbar running down the left side of the screen, and a number of standardized tool palettes. In addition, the Pro series also used common international spelling dictionaries and a thesaurus. The result was a suite of products that all look and work the same way, and are able to read and write each other's formats. The resulting MacWrite Pro, released in early 1993, was a major upgrade from previous versions. Reviewers almost universally praised the new release as offering all the required tools while still being very easy to use. However, development had been slow; one developer claimed it was primarily due to extremely demanding
quality assurance Quality assurance (QA) is the term used in both manufacturing and service industries to describe the systematic efforts taken to assure that the product(s) delivered to customer(s) meet with the contractual and other agreed upon performance, design ...
requirements. By the time MacWrite Pro was released, Word completely dominated the word processor market. Pro did little to address MacWrite's rapidly dwindling market share, which briefly stabilized at about 5% of the market before starting to slide again. Sales were apparently dismal, and it was one of the first products Claris abandoned in the mid-1990s. The word-processing module of AppleWorks was very similar to MacWrite Pro. While it was written entirely from scratch, it retained some of the design limitations of MacWrite Pro. However, later versions of AppleWorks are unable to read older MacWrite Pro files.


Reception

In a survey of five Macintosh word processors, ''Compute!'s Apple Applications'' in 1987 wrote that "once a bold pioneer, ''MacWrite'' now seems frozen in time ... it lags behind other word processors in power and responsiveness, and it's clearly unsuited for outlining, layout, and other advanced tasks".


Version history


See also

* List of word processors * Pages, the word processor in Apple's
iWork iWork is an office suite of applications created by Apple Inc., Apple for its macOS, iPadOS, and iOS operating systems, and also available cross-platform through the iCloud website. iWork includes the presentation program, presentation applicat ...
suite *
TextEdit TextEdit is an open-source software, open-source word processor and text editor, first featured in NeXT's NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP. It is now distributed with macOS since Apple Inc.'s acquisition of NeXT, and available as a GNUstep application fo ...
, the word processor that is bundled by default with modern Macs beginning with
Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...


References

Citations Bibliography * * Stan Liebowitz
"Word processors"
University of Texas


External links



at mac512.com



(shows a chart indicating MacWrite II's brief but meteoric rise in market share) {{DEFAULTSORT:Macwrite 1984 software Discontinued software Classic Mac OS software Classic Mac OS word processors Classic Mac OS-only software made by Apple Inc.