Skip to Content

Submit your nominations for the Luxist Awards' Best in Decor
AOL Tech

anniversary posts

Filed under: TUAW Business, Podcasts

Talkcast reminder: 100th show tonight at 10 pm ET


Last week, Mel and I joined newcomer Sang Tang for a review of the week's news and rumors. You can download the show, along with all past shows, from Talkshoe or subscribe in iTunes.

Believe it or not, tonight is our 100th talkcast, and we're bringing in a crowd to take your calls and questions. When we started back in August of 2007, the iPhone was only a month old, the Leopard on-sale date was still two months away, and the App Store was just a glimmer in our collective eyes. A lot has changed in those two years -- c'mon by tonight and let us know what your top stories are from the past 100 weeks.

To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only client, or you can try out the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the "TalkShoe Web" button on our profile page at 10 pm Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VOIP lines (take advantange of your free cellphone weekend minutes if you like): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *-8. Talk with you then! Transcripts of the Talkshoe text chat are available here.

Recording support for the talkcast is provided by Call Recorder from ecamm networks.

Filed under: Deals, App Store

Byline, others offering anniversary sale prices on Saturday

Saturday! Saturday! Saturday! One day only! You may buy the whole app -- but you'll only need the edge.

Sorry about that. Nevertheless, Byline -- Phantom Fish's flagship Google Reader app and offline browser -- is on sale Saturday only for $1.99. (It goes back to its regular price, $4.99, on July 12.) Not only that, but the first 40 people to forward their sale-price receipt to birthday@phantomfish.com will receive a promo code that entitles them to a free second copy of Byline for a friend.

We've covered Byline before here at TUAW, and version 2.5 includes speed and caching improvements, a spiffy new dark interface, and matching new icon.

In celebration of the App Store's anniversary, Sophiestication Software is also offering 75 percent discounts to their two apps: Groceries (a shopping list app) and Tipulator (a tip calculator) at 99 cents apiece. Both apps are available in the App Store.

Edovia is also offering its six products (Rocket Taxi, Linguo, NumPad, Steps, Find Me!, and Currencies) for 99 cents apiece, down from $1.99. All these are also available in the App Store, as you might imagine.

Have you found more sweet deals today? Let us know by leaving a comment!

Filed under: Apple, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Happy 1st Anniversary, App Store!


What a difference a year makes. Apple has a promo on the store (yes, iTunes link ahoy) with their gushing congratulations to themselves and the App Store for the 1-year anniversary of Cupertino's bold experiment. Since the launch one year ago, we've seen over 50,000 apps hit the store (and only a fractional percent are fart apps), dozens of apps rejected for spurious reasons or no reason at all, a couple of apps approved that never should have seen the light of day, and well over a billion downloads. Would McDonald's have grown so fast if they served virtual hamburgers?

In honor of this event I'm sharing a list of the very first apps I put on my secondhand 1st-generation iPhone. Yes, I was a little late to the party (and only signed up with AT&T for the 3GS almost a year later), but then, Apple was a little late to the SDK, weren't they? Remember when web apps were the thing? Yeah, me either.

Share your first app downloads in the comments!

Continue readingHappy 1st Anniversary, App Store!

Filed under: Cult of Mac, Apple, iPhone

Two years with the iPhone

On June 29, 2007, Apple and AT&T released the iPhone for $600 to crowded stores throughout the United States. A whole lot has changed in the iPhone-world in just 2 short years. The 1.0 software is just a distant memory, and looking back I'm a little surprised how limited the original iPhone was at release. I thought for the 2-year anniversary, we could take a little walk down memory lane and see how far things have come.

Apple announced the iPhone at Macworld in January 2007, explicitly stating they were doing it because otherwise the FCC would have outed them. Cingular/AT&T was named as the exclusive carrier. The phone would cost $600, which was a completely unsubsidized price.

Continue readingTwo years with the iPhone

Filed under: Cult of Mac, Apple

25 Years of Macintosh in photos


A quarter of a century has passed since the Macintosh was first unveiled, and we're happy to celebrate the silver anniversary of the computer for the rest of us. Here's a look at some of Apple's hits and misses when it comes to the venerable platform.

For a contemporary perspective, check out this story from the April, 1984 issue of Compute! magazine, where associate editor Fred D'Ignazio writes of the January 30 "coming out party" for the Mac at the Boston Computer Society.

When was the first time you heard of the Mac? Our team will be sharing their reminiscences later today.

Filed under: TUAW Business, Podcasts

Reminder, TUAW Talkcast 1st anniversary show at 10pm ET

If you haven't tuned in yet for last week's talkcast, go check it out -- it features Scott's farewell announcement and our cranky assessment of MobileMe's first weeks. Download direct, or subscribe to the TalkShoe feed in iTunes.

Join us again tonight (Sunday 8/3) for our next live show, 10 pm ET as usual. Since this is the first anniversary of our little podcasting experiment (the kickoff show was back on 8/2/2007), we'll be looking back at the past year of Apple news and casting our Predict-O-Matics forward into the fall. We'll also be digging into the Ghost of Trivia Past bag for some trivia giveaways, all quite vintage (Mac OS 9 games! A broken iPod Mini! A copy of iMovie 3 Solutions by Erica Sadun, which we can probably get autographed for you! A pile of Zip disks -- with a drive!) but delivered with love.

Continue readingReminder, TUAW Talkcast 1st anniversary show at 10pm ET

Filed under: Apple, iPhone, Apple History

Happy Birthday, iPhone

Yes, it is hard to believe, but our pal the iPhone will be 1 year old at 6 pm EST today. The iPhone has undergone many changes over the past year: from generating all the hype and buzz to being the best way to do everything on-the-go. The original iPhone sold at 6 p.m. (in each time zone across the US) at Apple and AT&T corporate stores for a retail price of $599 for the 8GB model and $499 for the now-discontinued 4GB model.

With Apple set to release the next generation iPhone on July 11th, we can only stop and look back at all the accomplishments Apple has achieved over the past year. The iPhone has definitely changed the way we look at smartphones.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Filed under: Macworld, Apple

Apple web site features teaser shot


Is it a sunrise? A monolith? The light from an oncoming train? Whatever it is, it's now decorating the website of everyone's favorite fruit-flavored company.

Presumably we may expect big things this year from AAPL.

[via MacRumors]

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

CNN reflects on Apple's great turnaround

I'll admit it, when I was in college (early 90's), I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that Apple's days were numbered. After Steve's departure and the parade of boring, beige boxes that followed (not to mention the bad press, failed Newton and the ultimate vaporware, Copeland) I begrudgingly admitted that it might be time to learn Windows. The rest, as they say, is a different story.

CNN Money takes a nice look at Apple's turnaround from down-and-out computer company to the darling that it has become. My favorite quote from the article:

"Apple has struck a cultural nerve, especially with Generation X and Gen Y, while Windows and PC are viewed in essence as 'My parents' computer',' said Tim Bajarin, president of technology research firm Creative Strategies."

I love it. Windows as the Buick of the computer world. You can read the full article here.

Filed under: Cult of Mac, Odds and ends

How would you convince a PC user to switch?

We've all tried to fill this role at some point in our lives. Sometimes we get the job done, and other times, well...Dell is still in business, aren't they?

BeLight Software wants to celebrate Apple's upcoming anniversary by bringing a few more sheep into the fold. Describe to them whatever successful technique you've used in the past, and the top three suggestions will win a 12 month subscription to either Macaddict or Macworld magazine.

Now, we all know how annoying an evangelist on a mission of conversion can be, so don't pound those poor Windows users over the head. You get more flies with honey.

[Via MacMove]

Tip of the Day

F11 moves all your windows off the screen so you can quickly glance at your desktop. F10 shows you every open window in an application. F9 shows every open window for every application that isn't hidden or in the dock.


Follow us on Twitter!
 TUAW [Cafepress]

Featured Galleries

DNC Macs
Macworld 2008 Keynote
Macworld 2008 Build-up
Google Earth for iPhone
Podcaster
Storyist 2.0
AT&T Navigator Road Test
Bento for iPhone 1.0
Scrabble for iPhone
Tom Bihn Checkpoint Flyer Briefcase
Apple Vanity Plates
Apple booth Macworld 07
WorldVoice Radio
Quickoffice for iPhone 1.1.1
Daylite 3.9 Review
DiscPainter
Mariner Calc for iPhone
2009CupertinoBus
Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D
MLB.com At Bat 2009
Macworld Expo 2007 show floor

 

More Apple Analysis

AOL Radio TUAW on Stitcher