January 4, 1994: Real World Meets eWorld…World Sighs

Apple had every chance to be a major internet service provider and the opportunity was never so glaring as when Apple began project Samuel. The result was AppleLink-Personal Edition. For $6 to $15 an hour users could connect to Apple-centric resources via the phone line. Apple provided the software and marketing while a little known company called Quantum built and maintained the system.

Unfortunately Apple and Quantum battled over the vision for the service and during a fat-cutting session at Apple, AppleLink was killed. This left Quantum a bit high and dry, but Apple compensated the corporation by funding completion of the project. With the Apple out of the way Quantum dumped the Apple branding and renamed the corporation America Online.

Straight from the "Oops, I call do over" department, Apple tried to retake the market it could have dominated with an online Macintosh-only service called eWorld. The too-little, too-late effort was announced the first week of January 1994.