But that's the thing: the Apple II simply had no "user experience" in the sense we understand today. You turned it on and got an Integer BASIC prompt (or the monitor). That software was a stripped down version of BASICs that existed elsewhere, not something meaningfully "improved" by Apple (except in the sense of running amazingly well in 8kb of RAM) it was hand written (hand
assembled I believe) by Woz.
Eventually, sure, real software shipped for the Apple II. But in the early days it was all out of house (c.f. Applesoft). It wasn't until the days of ProDOS that Apple got serious about writing its own software, and by then Woz had left and Jobs was working on the Mac.
Really, download an emulator and try this thing. Then download the Red Book from bitsavers.org or wherever and read it. It's a hacker's paradise. It's very much not a precursor to the Mac, or the iPhone.
And it's all Woz. He's one of the greatest hackers ever to live, and yet people like you, trapped in the reality distortion field, have managed to needlessly forget him and/or write him out of the history books. And that makes me sad.
