Filed under: Apple History

Found Photos: Rarely seen Steve Jobs

by Steven Sande (RSS feed) on Nov 7th, 2009

As Dave Caolo told TUAW readers a few days ago, Fortune named Apple CEO Steve Jobs "CEO of the Decade" for his phenomenal leadership at Apple and how he has remade four industries (music, movies, mobile telephones, and computing) in the past ten years.

Part of the Fortune article was a collection of rarely seen photographs of Steve Jobs. From the early days with Steve Wozniak, to his recent battles with pancreatic cancer, the photos chronicle the life of the iconic CEO.

Two of my personal favorites in the gallery are a photo taken in 1982 of Jobs and the Mac team having a working lunch as they hammer out the design of the first-generation Mac, and another of a barefoot Jobs meeting with Bill Gates at the Jobs home in Palo Alto to talk about the future of computing for Fortune.

The entire set of posts, along with the photos and video, are a fascinating look into the many successes and few failures of the engimatic Mr. Jobs. If you have a chance, take a look at it this weekend.

Tags: apple history, AppleHistory, CNNMoney, Fortune, mac, photos, steve jobs, SteveJobs

Filed under: Hardware, Cult of Mac, iMac, Steve Jobs, Apple History

An interview with the man behind the name "iMac"

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Nov 5th, 2009

This is a cool interview over at Cult of Mac -- you've heard of Steve Jobs of course, you know who Jonathan Ive is, you might have heard of Rob Janoff, but do you know Ken Segall's name? He's a former creative director from TBWA\Chiat\Day, and he has two claims to Apple fame: he worked on the "Think Different" campaign, and he's responsible for coming up with the one letter that may have defined the modern-day Apple as we know it. That's right, he named the iMac.

The writeup is fascinating, even if you get the sense that we're looking through the lens of history, and things may not happened quite as stylishly as they seem. Jobs apparently showed the Bondi Blue iMac to the ad team, and while he originally "hated" the name, he obviously came around -- though Segall apparently never got the satisfaction of official approval.

He closes with an interesting sentiment about the company, too: at Apple, it's always about moving forward to the next big thing, and everything is product-centered, not number-driven. Segall says he was around for a few Jobs "flare-ups," but if there was a fit thrown, it was always in trying to keep the company moving forward as quickly as possible.

Interesting stuff. It's quite a legacy, too -- the iMac was originally called so because it was a Mac that connected to the Internet, but obviously since then, the i has become symbolic of many other things, all the way up to iLife, the iPod, and the iPhone. You tend to forget, after all of the millions of dollars and the culture and promotion, that it all came from the head of a guy in a conference room looking at a computer Jobs just pulled the cloth off of.

Tags: bondi-blue, cult-of-mac, imac, interview, motion, names, naming, steve-jobs, tbwachiatday, think-different

Filed under: OS, Retro Mac, Blogs, Apple History

Need to run Classic under Snow Leopard? SheepShaver can do that.

by Steven Sande (RSS feed) on Oct 24th, 2009

I'm beginning to think that some other writers on the Mac beat are reading my mind.

About two weeks ago, one of my consulting clients was asking if there was any way that she'd be able to upgrade to Snow Leopard and still be able to run two legacy applications in Classic, one of which was HyperCard. Being the forward-looking guy I am, I suggested that we just move the data from her old HyperCard stack over to Bento (simple), and then see if we could find a replacement for the other application into which her employees could re-enter the old data.

Yesterday I was looking at posts over on the venerable Mac website TidBITS, and blogger/author Matt Neuburg had written a post about SheepShaver. This oddly-named application is a PowerPC Mac emulator, one of several that are available for both Mac and Windows. Neuburg does a good job of explaining the process of getting a ROM image, then using a Mac OS 9 installer CD to get SheepShaver up and running.

Matt pointed out a website, E-Maculation, that is dedicated to Mac emulators and how to get them up and running. While my client loved the solution I was able to provide to her, running Classic under Snow Leopard might be a better (and more fun!) solution for other Mac users. If you're up to the challenge and fun of setting up SheepShaver on a Snow Leopard Mac, be sure to take a look at both Matt's post and the E-Maculation website.

In the meantime, I'm going to go put my aluminum foil hat to make sure that Matt stops reading my mind.

[via TidBITS]

Tags: classic, mac os 9, MacOs9, sheepshaver, tidbits

Filed under: Hardware, iBook, Apple History

The growing list of unsupported Macs

by Dave Caolo (RSS feed) on Oct 22nd, 2009

Out with the old, in with the new. This week's hardware releases were met with new additions to Apple's vintage and obsolete hardware lists. The following have been added, and I'm sad to say that I'm still using the Dual Ethernet Airport Base Station:

iBook G4 (Early 2004)
iBook G4 (14" Early 2004)
eMac (USB 2.0)
Apple Cinema Display ADC
Apple Studio Display 15" ADC
Apple Studio Display 17" LCD
Apple Studio Display 17" ADC
Power Mac G4 (QuickSilver 2002)
Macintosh Server G4 (QuickSilver 2002)
PowerBook G4 (DVI)
iBook (14.1 LCD 16 VRAM)
iBook (16 VRAM)
AirPort Base Station (Dual Ethernet)

I've also got a 20" G4 iMac and my wife uses at 14" iBook, both of which were previously added to the list. Supported or not, they're still useful -- check out this Macintosh Classic being used as a window display.

Back in 1994 my employer had several SE/30's connected via LocalTalk, and we thought that was the baddest thing on the planet. Not to mention late-night games of Maelstrom and Glider Pro. Oh, memories.

[Via HardMac]

Tags: apple history, AppleHistory, hardware, legacy, obsolete, vintage

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Apple Corporate, Steve Jobs, Apple History

Dissecting the top 5 Apple myths

by Dave Caolo (RSS feed) on Oct 16th, 2009

One of my favorite podcasts is Stuff You Should Know [iTunes link]. Hosts Josh and Chuck (call him "Chuckers") are smart, funny and professional.* There's an article on the show's companion site this week that explores 5 myths about Apple. I encourage you to go and read it, but here are some highlights.

"Apple is going out of business." If we had a dollar, nay, a penny for every time we heard that, we'd all be eating caviar in the South of France. While the funeral dirge may have been warranted in the '90s when Gil was building beige boxes, things have been going swimmingly since Steve returned with the iMac in tow.

That doesn't stop pundits from making claims of Apple's demise, however. But they're greatly exaggerated.

Myth number four on their list is that Apple can't survive without Steve Jobs. This has been a hot topic since Steve took medical leave and opinions are as numerous as stars in the galaxy. Our take in a nutshell: Apple will be just fine without Steve.

We won't spoil the rest of the list for you, so go ahead and check it out.

*Maybe I'll get a shout-out on an upcoming show for this post. What do you say, guys?

Tags: apple history, apple myths, apple rumors, AppleHistory, AppleMyths, AppleRumors, steve jobs, SteveJobs

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Retail, Steve Jobs, Apple History

Steve Jobs helping overhaul Disney retail

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Oct 13th, 2009

The New York Times has posted about a new project that our own Mr. Jobs has taken on: he's now helping out Disney Stores with their retail business. You have to hand it to Disney, no matter what you think of the Mouse House -- when they have a problem with part of the business, they bring in the experts. First they have Pixar's John Lasseter come in and take over animation (and they're about to release what looks like the best 2D movie in ages), and now they've got Steve Jobs himself sprucing up their retail spaces. Sounds like they're making the store more interactive (walking by some displays with certain products will create an audiovisual reaction), and taking some of the tech as well (employees will be able to check out items on mobile units, and control certain displays in the store with iPhones).

They also borrowed another page from Jobs' playbook: they've apparently created a prototype store (just like Apple did way back when), not only to test out what everything might look like, but to give a charge to executives and investors who get a tour. Sounds interesting, but then again, it makes sense. What else is an Apple Store, but a toy shop for big kids?

[via MacUser]

Tags: disney, disney-store, disney-stores, displays, interactivity, iphones, john-lasseter, new-york-times, steve-jobs, stores

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Odds and ends, Apple, Blast From the Past, Apple History

Apple hires former Newton guru as new VP of Product Marketing

by Steven Sande (RSS feed) on Sep 29th, 2009

The New York Times Bits Blog is reporting that Michael Tchao, a member of the team that brought the Apple Newton MessagePad to market, is going back to work for Apple after a 15-year absence. In Tchao's new job as Vice President of Product Marketing, he'll be reporting to Apple Senior V.P. of Product Marketing Phil Schiller.

For the past 7 years, Tchao has been General Manager of Nike's Techlab, which has been responsible for the Nike + iPod line as well as the online integration that makes nikeplus.com so powerful.

If you wanted to start doing a bit of speculating, it's interesting to note that Tchao was part of the team that was responsible for Apple's first tablet computer. Of course, the Newton platform wasn't exactly a huge success during its 5 years of life, owing primarily to its high price and (at least in the first versions) less-than-stellar handwriting recognition. Tchao wasn't in a marketing position at the time as the General Manager of Product Planning and Strategy for Apple's Personal Interactive Electronics group, and most of the marketing fumbles of the Newton era can be laid at the feet of the Apple execs in charge at the time.

Tchao certainly has the street cred as a tablet computing expert, with 5 patents to his name during his time with the Newton team. Although we don't know for sure at this time if Tchao has been tapped to resurrect tablet computing at Apple, his background both at Apple and Nike Techlab shows that he not only has the technical background to shepherd a new product to market, but the marketing savvy as well.

Welcome back, Mr. Tchao!

[via Mashable]

Tags: apple, marketing, Newton, nike plus, NikePlus, phil schiller, PhilSchiller

Filed under: Hardware, Portables, Odds and ends, Retro Mac, Apple History

A fond look at a blast from the past: the Mac Portable

by Steven Sande (RSS feed) on Sep 21st, 2009

An email this morning from Harry McCracken at Technologizer.com pointed the way to a trip down memory lane. Harry was letting us know that Technologizer blogger Benj Edwards had written a 20th anniversary teardown post about the first truly mobile Mac -- the Mac Portable.

Why is this a trip down memory lane for me in particular? I actually owned one of these beasts for a few years. They were ridiculously expensive at the time -- US$7,300 for a 16 lb. (7.25 kg) monochrome screen machine with 1 MB of RAM, a floppy disk drive, and a 40 MB hard disk -- but since I was a developer at the time I was able to get a substantial discount and bought it for about $4,000.

I recall taking my Portable to meetings back in the day, and people were absolutely fascinated by it. Of course, about two years later it would be replaced by the much lighter (5.1 lb. / 2.3 kg) PowerBook 100, which was the first of what we consider to be the truly "laptop" Macs.

Definitely take a look at the Technologizer post if you get a chance. Benj does a step-by-step teardown, describes what you're seeing in each photo, and notes what items on the Portable made it such a technological wonder in the late 1980s. I won't spoil things for you, but be sure to look at the last page of the teardown for a comparison Edwards does between the Portable and the iPhone. We've come a long way in just 20 years.

Tags: apple, Dinosaur, history, mac portable, MacPortable, Motorola 68000, Motorola68000

Filed under: Desktops, Hardware, Odds and ends, Retro Mac, Apple History

Here's your chance to own Gene Roddenberry's Mac

by Steven Sande (RSS feed) on Sep 17th, 2009

Update: OK, we have to hand it to all of you -- you have successfully pointed out that this Mac's model number isn't consistent with a Mac Plus, but instead with a 128K original Mac. We took that key fact back to the auction house that is listing this machine, and they did their own due diligence to come up with the following explanation:

We've gotten several inquires about this by the fantastically loyal and knowledgeable Mac community. After further investigating the item, here's the information:

Firstly, this Macintosh was, indeed, presented to Gene Roddenberry by Apple. There is no doubt about this.

The conflict between the photo and the serial number is as follows. This computer, given by Apple to Mr. Roddenberry, is an early production Macintosh 128 (#776), which was then upgraded by Apple for Gene to a Macintosh Plus-thus the model number / serial number / panel that "belongs to" a Macintosh Plus. The 0001 led us to mistakenly believe that it was the first one off the line.

Again, the provenance of the item is perfect and it did belong to Mr. Roddenberry. I apologize for any confusion.

So, that's the story as we understand it. The headline has been adjusted to match the new information, and in turn we apologize for the error.

----

How would you like to own the first Macintosh Plus computer? By first, I mean the one with serial number F4200NUM0001, the Mac that was given by Apple to Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. As you'll remember, a Mac Plus (presumably not this one) was used by Scotty in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

Profiles in History, an auction house with a storied history of selling amazing Hollywood memorabilia, will be auctioning off the Mac Plus at their October 8-9 auction. While most of the attention will probably be focused on the Michael Jackson glove from the 1984 Victory Tour, Apple aficionados are invited to put in bids on this piece of Apple history.

Here's the description of the Mac Plus from Profiles in History:

This is the very first Macintosh Plus 1Mb personal computer to come off the assembly line at Apple Computer in Fresno, California. It was presented to Gene Roddenberry as a gift by Apple Computer, Inc. and bears the serial number F4200NUM0001. The Macintosh Plus was a revelation among personal computers when it came on the market in 1986. With 1 Mb RAM (upgradeable to 4Mb), it supported the double-sided floppy disk format and was the first Mac with a SCSI port for fast data transfer to and from an external hard drive.

The Macintosh was the first mass produced computer to utilize the mouse and the Macintosh Plus was the longest-lived Macintosh with production until 1990. It features the beige-colored case with 9 in. display, 3.5 in. floppy drive and includes the short keyboard, external floppy drive, mouse and Apple logo deluxe padded carrying case. An incredible artifact with a wonderful association between the visionary computer designer/manufacturer and legendary Star Trek creator. Accompanied by a signed letter of provenance from Gene Roddenberry's son, Rod.

The Mac Plus is expected to sell for $1000 - $1200, less than half of its original purchase price. A closeup photo of the computer showed definite signs of use, including the lovely sludge that tends to build up on keyboards and mice after years of handling. For a view of the Mac Plus in all of its beige (Pantone 453) glory, read on.

Continue reading “Here's your chance to own Gene Roddenberry's Mac”

Tags: apple history, AppleHistory, auction, gene roddenberry, GeneRoddenberry, mac plus, MacPlus

Filed under: Software, Cult of Mac, Odds and ends, iTunes, Apple History

A walk through iTunes history

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Sep 17th, 2009

Recognize the software above? The brushed steel, the rounded buttons, the liquid digital-style display. If you said SoundJam, you're right. But if you said iTunes, you're right, too -- SoundJam is the app that Apple originally bought to turn into the multimedia/handheld software juggernaut we know today. This is the first (public) iteration of the software, as told in this interesting history of iTunes over at Mac|Life.

The program actually started as a Winamp-style (oh man, remember Winamp? Justin Frankel's now doing stuff with Reaper, which is the app artists will use to release their songs in Rock Band. But I digress...) media management application, and it's really interesting to see how it turned into a real keystone of Apple's media plans over the years, from the "Rip. Mix. Burn." idea to the home base for the iPhone, up into the current iTMS (complete with music, movies, TV shows and even audiobooks) and of course the game-changing App Store.

If you'd told the SoundJam guys that their software would one day revolutionize the music and smartphone industries, not to mention be at the center of a multimillion dollar software delivery system, they'd probably have told you to keep dreaming.

And we're only at version 9. Who knows what we'll see in the next ten years of iTunes?

Tags: 10-years, app-store, history, ipod itunes, itms, itunes, podcasts, screenshots, soundjam, winamp, years

Filed under: Blogging, TUAW Business, Apple History

Greetings from 30,000 feet

by David Winograd (RSS feed) on Aug 26th, 2009

I'm typing this somewhere in the skies over Utah using a fast wireless connection on an 8 GB MacBook Pro killing time while flying to Las Vegas. When I started with computers this experience would have been considered somewhere between science fiction and magic.

Hi, I'm David Winograd and although I've been writing for TUAW for a couple of months, all of us new arrivals have been asked to write an introduction to give all of you an idea of just who is writing this stuff.

Steve Sande introduced himself as the old guy in a piece he did when coming on board. Well, I'm the new old guy. I beat out Steve by a couple of years, but we both have gray beards and wear safari-looking hats from time to time.

I got started with my first Apple ][+ in 1979 after overdosing on Creative Computing, a long defunct hobbyist magazine. I was in awe of all the neat (albeit amazingly pointless and even more amazingly expensive) things that could be done with what seemed to me as the best toy since the Betamax.

Eventually I saved enough to buy the Apple ][+ at a franchise called ComputerLand (also defunct, there's a pattern to this), where for $1795 I bought a 48k processor, a bunch of expansion slots and a yellow on black, decidedly non-graphics capable monitor. No disk drive of course since Apple hadn't made them yet, so programs were sold in hobby store racks in baggies containing a cassette tape and a mimeographed instruction sheet. Getting the volume level just right was critical for computing since one mistake and you needed to go back to the start of the tape. When playing a game,when you lost, the tape would rewind and reload taking another 20 minutes.

Ah -- Good times!

Since then I started what was arguably the first themed BBS (Bulletin Board Service) in New Jersey, called 'David's Place' which was themed like a restaurant that read like Zork. After signing on and getting my first monthly CompuServe bill, which was over $2,000, I wheedled a decade-long CompuServe gig checking Apple ][ downloads and later running their Macintosh Community Club Forum. I also wrote for the long dead Apple ][ GS Buyers Guide.

Continue reading “Greetings from 30,000 feet”

Tags: biography, david winograd, DavidWinograd, introduction

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Apple Corporate, Cult of Mac, Steve Jobs, Apple, Apple History

London Sunday Times profiles Steve Jobs over Apple objections

by Mel Martin (RSS feed) on Aug 17th, 2009

The London Sunday Times has done an interesting profile of Steve Jobs that is a good read, even though it may infuriate some and please others.

There's nothing really groundbreaking in the piece, but it brings together a lot of material and a bit of pop psychology to try an illuminate the mysterious and mercurial Apple CEO.

Jobs is, in the words of the psychiatrist and scholar of leadership Michael Maccoby, "a productive narcissist". To Jobs, the world is an epiphenomenon, a side effect of the existence of Steve. Or rather, it is a pyramid with Jobs at the top, a few bright people just beneath him, and then the rest of us - the "bozos". The customer bozo is not, to him, always right...

"The very striking thing about productive narcissists, particularly men" [said Maccoby], is that they grow up in families where there is an absent or weak father figure. You can see this in narcissistic presidents like Obama, Clinton, Reagan and Nixon. They struggle with their identity and view of the world. So they tend to come up with a very original view of things and are then driven to find followers.

There is also plenty of positive insight:

I swim through Apple newsfeeds like a whale swims through krill," says Elmer-DeWitt. Yet the company continues to surprise and amaze. I don't want Jobs to die because my computers and iPhone are, indeed, "insanely great" compared with the dismal competition but, more importantly, because he is an extraordinary figure. I don't use the word "genius" about businesspeople, but in Steve Jobs's case I'm prepared to make an exception.

It's worth reading all of the profile. Steve Jobs doesn't like being written about, and Apple did all it could to kill the piece.

See what you think, and come back and share your thoughts.

Tags: Jobs personality, Jobs success, Steve Jobs, SteveJobs

Filed under: Software, Surveys and Polls, Apple, Apple History, Snow Leopard

Mac OS X Snow Leopard one step closer to release, now Golden Master

by Steven Sande (RSS feed) on Aug 12th, 2009

Mac OS X 10.6, AKA Snow Leopard, is one step closer to being released sometime in the next month. Multiple reports indicate that build 10A432 of the new OS has reached Golden Master status, which indicates that all testing has been completed to the satisfaction of the development team.

As we've noted before, Snow Leopard won't introduce many new features. Instead, it's intended to reduce the size of the OS and run much faster on Intel hardware. Snow Leopard will be the first version of Mac OS X that cannot be run on PPC Macs. Amazon.com is already taking pre-orders for Snow Leopard at US$29 for a single-user license or just US$49 for the five-license Family Pack.

The next step is to release the OS to manufacturing, so that the requisite millions of copies can be burned into DVDs prior to the actual release date. When will that actually happen? My personal guess is September 25th, as the last two versions of Mac OS X were released on a Friday (October 26, 2007 for Leopard and April 29, 2005 for Tiger). Of course, Apple could release Snow Leopard on September 15th to rain on Microsoft's release of the Zune HD.

Take our reader poll and give us your best guess for when Snow Leopard will arrive.

[via MacRumors]

Tags: golden master, GoldenMaster, mac os x 10.6, MacOsX10.6, release date, ReleaseDate, snow leopard, SnowLeopard

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Apple History

Interview with Apple logo designer Rob Janoff

by Dave Caolo (RSS feed) on Aug 3rd, 2009

There's a great interview at CreativeBits today with Rob Janoff, designer of the Apple logo. That simple Apple with the chunk bitten out is as iconic as the company and products it represents. The logo has undergone several tweaks over the years, from the original rainbow to the aqua version that accompanied the original iMacs to the glassy version we see today.

Fanatics will remember that the logo was introduced with the Apple II in 1977. Rob talks about this and other insights into the design's history, like the fact that he originally presented only two versions of the logo to the Steves (Jobs and Wozniak): One with and one without the "bite." Other tidbits include why the original design had stripes and what the bite really represents. It's an interview worth reading.

Rob has been interviewed many times before, naturally -- see these past conversations for more insight.

Tags: apple history, apple logo, AppleHistory, AppleLogo, design, features, rob janoff, RobJanoff

Filed under: Accessories, Hardware, Peripherals, Odds and ends, Retro Mac, Apple History, This Old Apple

Retro Apple: The QuickTake 100 digital camera

by Steven Sande (RSS feed) on Jul 29th, 2009

In 1994, I was working as the IT manager for a natural gas pipeline company (all Macs, of course), had long hair pulled back in a ponytail, and none of that hair was gray. In January of '94, I remember being invited down to Apple's Denver office -- they had a Denver office in those days -- to see some new products that were being introduced.

While I was disappointed that they didn't show us an updated Newton (the MessagePad 110 would be introduced in March), I was intrigued by another device that was demonstrated -- the Apple QuickTake 100 digital camera. At the time, the only other small business / consumer digital cameras on the market were the Canon Ion, a device from Kodak (rebranded by Apple as the QuickTake 100), and the Logitech PhotoMan.

After the demo, we passed around the camera and took photos of each other, and then waited as the pictures were uploaded to a Mac. Considering that "digital photography" for us at that time meant taking a picture with a film camera, waiting for the film to be developed and prints made, and then scanning the pictures on an expensive and slow SCSI scanner, this seemed like the future. Of course, I remember comments from many of the people in attendance to the effect of "digital photography will never replace film photography."

Continue reading “Retro Apple: The QuickTake 100 digital camera”

Tags: apple, digital camera, DigitalCamera, features, history, retro

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