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Filed under: Humor, OS, Odds and ends

Spot the SPOD: Mac OS X rainbow cursor shows up in Pixar's "Up"

by Steven Sande (RSS feed) on May 31st, 2009

Being the Disney-Pixar fanatics that we are, my wife and I went to see Up Saturday night (in Disney Digital 3D, of course) at our local theater. Remembering the appearance of the Mac startup sound as Wall-E's waking noise in last year's Pixar epic, and the brief shot of an Apple-themed racer in Cars, I decided to look for Apple-themed Easter eggs in the movie.

By the time we were at the end of the film, I was beginning to think that there weren't going to be any love letters to Apple in Up. The credits, featuring Russell's Wilderness Explorer merit badges floating by on a typed page, began to look somewhat promising. Sure enough, I spied a stylized and stationary "Spinning Pizza of Death," the dreaded Mac OS X wait cursor, on a merit badge just about at the end of the credits.

For those of you who are either Windows users or have been lucky enough to have never seen this infamous Mac icon (seen 3 times lifesize above), it's the Mac OS X equivalent of the hourglass in Windows. The SPOD (officially known as the Spinning Wait Cursor, A.K.A. the Beach Ball of Death or the Marble of Doom) appears when an application is not responding to events.

If you go to see the movie (which you should; it's funny, action-filled, and great for absolutely any audience) be patient and sit through the credits. You'll be rewarded by the sight of a SPOD on the big screen (it's after the two nuclear merit badges). If you're an Up-aholic, you can also check out the Mac game or the $4.99US iPhone game (link opens iTunes).

Update: Slashfilm has a photo of the SPOD (BBOD, MOD, take your pick...) merit badge in a detailed post about all of the Easter Eggs in Up.

Tags: disney, mac os x, MacOsX, movies, pixar, up

Filed under: Hardware, Humor, Apple History

TUAW 1986

by Dave Caolo (RSS feed) on Apr 1st, 2009

Luxo Jr. gets Academy Award nomination
Even though Steve Jobs is no longer with Apple, we're still interested in what he's doing. You'll remember that he bought a computer graphics company from director George Lucas last year (for a rumored $10 million), which he named "Pixar."

We don't know how many units of the $135,000 Pixar Image Computer they've sold, but Pixar animator John Lasseter has put it to good use. The short film he produced, "Luxo, Jr." has been nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Animated Short Film category. Good luck, Pixar!

Lisa gets the axe
After several revisions and price cuts, the Lisa has been officially discontinued by Apple Computer. When it was released three years ago with an astounding price tag of $9,995 (Heck, the Tandy 600 is only $1599!) we were blown away. Not only by the cost, but by the machine itself. The mouse, the icons on the screen, that awesome trash can!

Sales have declined over the past 12 months, and even a re-branding as the Macintosh XL last January didn't help. The Macintosh has been selling like hotcakes since its introduction two years ago, even though it lacks many of the Lisa's features, like protected memory, expansion slots and support for an impressive 2 megabytes of RAM.

Goodbye, Lisa! We'll remember you.

The AppleColor RGB Monitor is totally awesome at $499
There are now several monitors available from Apple, and the granddaddy of them all is the AppleColor RGB Monitor at $499. This 12" analog monitor was designed for the Apple IIgs, and supports a resolution of 640x480 (Nice!). Those of you with a Macintosh II can also use this monitor, provided that you have the Apple High Resolution Display Video Card.

The Apple Monochrome Monitor was introduced earlier this year for $129.

The Macintosh Plus rocks
Finally, we've got to talk about the Macintosh Plus. With a 8MHz Motorola 68000 processor and 1 megabyte of RAM (expandable to 4 megabytes), we're excited about this machine. Of course, the big news is the SCSI (or "Small Computer System Interface") peripheral bus and the new 3.5 inch double-sided 800 KB floppy drive.

The SCSI port will allow for a nice collection of new ad-ons, like hard disks and tape drives. Of course, the double-sided floppies have twice the storage capacity as their predecessors while the drive itself is backwards compatible with older disks.

Customers will find the software programs MacPaint and MacWrite bundled with their Macintosh Plus, which is great! You can pick up your very own for $2,599.

Tags: apple history, AppleHistory, lisa, macintosh plus, MacintoshPlus, pixar, retro-tuaw, vintage

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Apple

WALL?E - Robot with the heart of a Mac

by Steven Sande (RSS feed) on Jun 27th, 2008

Several TUAW readers have reported after seeing midnight showings of Disney-Pixar's new and highly-rated movie WALL•E that when the robot boots up, he makes the standard Mac startup sound. That's not the only Apple connection with the movie.

Of course, Steve Jobs is the largest single shareholder of Disney after Pixar was purchased by the entertainment giant for $7.4 billion in 2006. He still serves on a steering committee for Pixar that oversees the Disney-Pixar animation businesses, and he's on the Disney Board of Directors. I'm not sure, but he may be tapped to be the first CEO of BuyNLarge...

WALL•E's job is to wander around an abandoned Earth, pick up trash, and compact it into small blocks. However, when he finds something nostalgic that he likes, such as an iPod or Rubik's cube, he keeps it.

The object of WALL•E's desire, EVE, was actually designed with the assistance of Apple Senior VP of Industrial Design Jonathan Ive, who apparently spent a day with the Pixar team in 2005 consulting on the ultra-sleek floating robot.

Thanks to Matt for the heads-up and inspiration for this post!

Tags: disney, jonathan ive, JonathanIve, pixar, tweet-this, wall-e

Filed under: Odds and ends, Apple

Apple helps Pixar out with WALL?E

by Scott McNulty (RSS feed) on May 12th, 2008

I'm a big fan of almost everything Pixar does (Cars wasn't their best effort, though it was enjoyable), so it is a happy day when a story that links Pixar to my favorite computer company comes along.

It would seem that the good folks at Pixar really wanted to play up the differences between the titular hero of Wall*E and a new robot that appears (Eve, pictured to the right). They wanted it to look very cool, and very high tech. Luckily for Pixar, they know a guy pretty high up in Apple who was able to get Jonathan Ive, Apple's famed product designer, to help out with Eve's look.

I wonder if Eve's battery is user replaceable.

Tags: eve, jonathan-ive, pixar, walle

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Apple Financial, Steve Jobs

Jobs/Pixar cleared of backdating issues

by Dave Caolo (RSS feed) on Mar 19th, 2007

Well, it seems that all of this may blow over...at least for Steve and the Pixar execs. Late last year, Pixar, Steve's other company which he sold to Disney, was forced to take another look at some accounting actions. One of the suggested possibilities was that Pixar's John Lasseter was given a backdated stock options bonus. This past Friday, however, Disney announced that all of the accounting in question took place before Disney acquired Pixar, and that no one currently involved with the company "...engaged in any intentional or deliberate acts of misconduct."

We don't know where this will all end up, but it looks like Uncle Steve is off the hook as far as Pixar is concerned.

Tags: apple, pixar, steve jobs, SteveJobs, stock options, StockOptions

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Apple Financial, Steve Jobs

Steve in trouble over stock options deal?

by Dave Caolo (RSS feed) on Feb 12th, 2007

There's some more news today on the stock options story. According to AppleInsider, it has been suggested that Steve gave Pixar director John Lasseter a questionable, backdated stock option bonus.

I must admit that I haven't really paid much attention to this story, mostly because it's still speculation and hearsay at this point. So we'll see where it goes. For now, though, it's still news.

Tags: apple, pixar, steve jobs, SteveJobs, stock options, StockOptions

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Apple Financial, Steve Jobs

Jobs and Apple not out of the Options scandal woods yet

by Scott McNulty (RSS feed) on Jan 2nd, 2007

The Wall Street Journal has the best summary (subscription maybe required) of the Apple options backdating scandal that I have read to date. They take a look at Apple's filings and point that that Steve 'recommended the selection of some favorable grant dates,' though he was not involved in the improper backdating of options which he was granted. The WSJ also talks to a number of experts about what this could mean for Apple and everyone's favorite iCEO.

I also found out, thanks to this article, that some options that Pixar granted to employees are also under investigation. Steve didn't receive any of those, but they were all granted while he was CEO of Pixar.

Remember folks, just because Apple's internal investigation says that His Steveness has done nothing wrong that doesn't mean that the Feds aren't going to take a look for themselves. This story is far from over.

[via Blogging Stocks]

Tags: apple, backdating, options, pixar, steve jobs, SteveJobs

Filed under: iTS, Video, iTunes

Disney/Pixar's Cars movie now in iTunes, special pricing

by Laurie A. Duncan (RSS feed) on Nov 8th, 2006



Although I'm getting older and grayer by the day, I'm still really a kid at heart. That's probably why I love the movie Cars. I love it so much that it's about to become the very first full-length movie that I personally purchase on iTunes.

Cars was released today in the iTunes Store [iTS link] and Apple has made it even more appealing with their special pricing of $12.99 for new releases. That makes me, as Mater would say, happier 'n a tornado in a trailer park!

Boogity Boogity Boogity! Let's go racin'!

Tags: cars, its, itunes, ituns store, ItunsStore, pixar

Filed under: Multimedia, Cult of Mac, Odds and ends

Apple easter egg in Pixar's "Cars"

by Dave Caolo (RSS feed) on Jun 12th, 2006



Brian at FreeMacBlog writes in to point out an Apple easter egg he spotted in Pixar's Cars. During the opening race, one of the cars that is briefly on screen has an Apple logo on the hood, and is fittingly numbered "84." Pretty cool, Brian! Did anyone else spot this car?

Tags: apple, cars, easter egg, EasterEgg, pixar

Filed under: iTS, Video, Podcasting

Cars video podcast

by Scott McNulty (RSS feed) on May 8th, 2006

Who doesn't like Pixar movies? The latest effort from our favorite part of Disney is 'Cars.' I know, I know this isn't exactly breaking news but the fine folks at Pixar have created a video podcast chronicling different parts of the movie, and it is available via iTunes.

[via Luxo]

Tags: cars, itunes, pixar, video podcast, VideoPodcast

Filed under: Steve Jobs, Apple

Jobs to spend more time at Apple

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Apr 29th, 2006

Steve Jobs told shareholders this week that, in light of Disney's acquisition of Pixar, he would actually be spending more time at Apple, in part because he'll be relinquishing his CEO position at Pixar in a couple of weeks once the merger finishes. Many have been speculating that Mr. Jobs would be spending more time at Disney, but he publicly responded "that couldn't be further from the truth... It'll require less of my time than Pixar did."

This should be good news for anyone concerned about Mr. Jobs' continued involvement with Apple.

[via Wired]

Tags: acquisition, Apple, CEO, chief, developing, development, Disney, head, involvement, leader, leading, merger, Pixar, products, Steve Jobs, SteveJobs, Wired

Filed under: Cult of Mac, Odds and ends

The Incredibles use Apple gear

by Scott McNulty (RSS feed) on Feb 20th, 2006



Danny was watching the Incredibles with his wife the other night and noticed a familiar key on a decidedly unMac like computer in the movie.

Oh, Pixar, you kidders!

Tags: incredibles, pixar

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Apple Corporate

Poll Results: The future of Pixney

by Dave Caolo (RSS feed) on Jan 26th, 2006



Yesterday, we asked for your opinion on the quality of films that will come out of the Pixar/Disney union. In our utterly unscientific poll, your options were:

  • Fantastic news!
  • Disaster! Disney will kill future movies
  • I'll wait and see
  • I have no opinion
Of the 2,008 of you who voted, a full 45% selected "I'll wait and see." "Fantastic news" and "Disaster..." were very close at 26% and 24% respectively, and 5% of you really couldn't care less about this.

I'm with the skeptics. As long as Disney lets Lasseter and co. do what they do unfettered, we should be all right.

Tags: apple, disney, lasseter, pixar, steve jobs, SteveJobs

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Apple Financial, Steve Jobs, Apple

Disney buys Pixar: Good or bad?

by Dave Caolo (RSS feed) on Jan 25th, 2006

Yesterday's big news, of course, was Disney's buyout of Pixar. Steve got more money than he could use in 10,000 lifetimes, a seat on Disney's board of directors and boatload of stock. But what does this mean for the films that are yet to be born of this union? I'm hoping that the Disney suits will look at Pixar's track record (every film has earned more than its predecessor) and just leave well enough alone. Of course, they could come in and clean house. So, what's your opinion of "Pixney"? Take the poll and return tomorrow to view the results.

Disney buys Pixar: Good or bad?
Fantastic news
Disaster! Disney will kill future movies
I'll wait and see
I have no opinion
  

Tags: apple, buyout, disney, pixar

Filed under: Video, Steve Jobs

More on the Pixar buyout

by Scott McNulty (RSS feed) on Jan 24th, 2006

The finance obsessed people at Bloomberg have a very comprehensive article up covering the Disney/Pixar deal (it was as if they were working on it before the deal of finalized. Imagine that!). Disney will pay $59.78 a share for Pixar stock (and since Steve Jobs is the largest stockholder of Pixar he is going to make out like a bandit), though Disney will be paying with Disney stock (helping to diversify his Steveness' stock interests in the process).

Disney is hoping that Pixar will transform the company into the animation powerhouse it once was. Disney is taking the right steps by placing Pixar people in key positions, however, something tells me that Disney and Pixar have very different corporate cultures.

Only time will tell.

Tags: disney, pixar, steve jobs, SteveJobs

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