Think Different Before the Minimalist Myth

Apple's October 1997 homepage sits at a fascinating hinge point. The title reads "Apple Computer," while the metadata calls the site the global entry point for Apple online information. The visible copy leads with the "Think different" campaign, a QuickTime TV commercial, Mac OS 8 chart movement, refurbished hardware, lease offers, and Steve Jobs audio.

Visually, this is not yet the pristine Apple web aesthetic people now remember. It is busy, modular, and promotional, with navigation graphics, news blurbs, and many routes into product and press material. Yet the brand voice is already turning. "Think different" is not just an ad slogan here; it becomes the organizing mood of the whole page.

The page matters because it shows Apple rebuilding confidence in public. The company is still selling operating systems, leases, upgrades, and FileMaker, but it is also selling a posture: creative, defiant, newly coherent.

Seen in context, the page is a corporate recovery document disguised as a homepage. It has the density of the 1990s web and the first signs of the disciplined mythmaking that would define Apple's next decades.