Some guy that came to fix the washing machine said his career in printing was ruined by Apple Inc.?

Question

What the hell was he going on about? What has Apple computers gotta do with his job at the printing place?

Answer 1

The computer age, Apple included, through print shop software or the like, allowed people to do alot of their own printing. Flyers, announcements, etc. The volume of work for commercial printers dropped way off when all the little projects disappeared. He got squashed apparently.

Answer 2

Yes: It's the computer age (personified by Apple) which has done it for the printing trade. I started as a boy in the 1960's typesetting by hand, then progressed to work for 30 years in sales of computer stationery and business forms. To give an example, one of our customers had 15 branches each using 3 different multi-part continuous stationery forms which equals 45 different forms in total, One day they said "We now have a new central computer system with a terminal at each branch, and all we need to buy is plain white A4 paper, the computer will print as many completed copies of the form as needed including the conditions of sale on the reverse". Result: Thousands of pounds of lost revenue from one customer.
This was repeated time after timeafter time after time throughout the business community, and I assume happened and is happening throughout the world.
Further consequence: The large printing companies were forced to look for business from smaller customers than before; the middle size printers who lost their trade to the 'big boys' repeated this example to the detriment of the small companies. They, generally speaking, were also losing trade from their customers who were now able to use computer technology to print their own forms, stationery, labels etc. and unfortunately had nowhere to go but bust !
I'm not bitter about it; this is the price of progress which started in other industries hundreds of years ago and became known as the Industrial revolution.
Technology will always make things easier for certain consumers to the detriment of others. If you cannot adapt to changing markets you do what the dinosaurs did. Anyone seen a T-Rex wandering down their high street in the last few million years? Exactly.
Just to digress slightly and not really related to computer technology, there is also the threat of cheap foreign imports. About ten years ago, one well known British sales company who have a colour catalogue which practically every household in the United Kingdom receives through its letterbox, found it cheaper to have it printed in Poland.
I shudder to think what the Far East (and particularly you know who) is doing to the trade. After all they are in almost every facet of business today and will, if speculation is correct, in the near future be a global trading nation.
As I said before, but in a slightly different context; this is the price of progress.

Answer 3

HP was among the first develop low-cost laser printers, but Apple was the first to adopt the postscript language.

From Wikipedia "Most noteworthy was the role the laser printer played in popularizing desktop publishing with the introduction of the Apple LaserWriter for the Apple Macintosh, along with Aldus PageMaker software, in 1985. With these products, users could create documents that would previously have required professional typesetting."

Answer 4

Yes, apple pioneered WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) technology. WYSIWYG refers to you being able to see exactly what will print on your computer therefore no longer requiring someone to manually set up the words (aka "type").

Although not perfect, it was usually good enough that anyone wanting to write a book and print it for the masses could do so without having to work with a Printer and their Typesetter to have it printed.

HTH.