Apple had the motto “Think Different”. Microsoft said things like “Be what’s next” or “Your potential. Our passion.” Different slogans, different vibes, but the same goal of changing how people experience computers.

What makes this interesting is that from day one, Apple and Microsoft were after different kinds of users and yet, they kept bumping heads. Both started in the same era but quickly diverged on the road of design philosophy.

The result?

Two distinct visions of how humans should interact with computers.

Back in the 1980s, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates weren’t bitter rivals at least not in their early days. In fact, Apple’s early Macintosh computers ran Microsoft software. Yep, Microsoft Word and Excel actually debuted on the Mac, not on Windows. At that point, Apple was building the hardware and the operating system, and Microsoft was focused on making apps like Word, Excel, and BASIC.