This Day in Apple History

iMovie is a the ultimate example of once prohibitively expensive media democratized for the average person. Credit Glen Reid for the truly clever programming but credit Steve Jobs with the passion for bringing low cost video editing to the masses. How convinced was Steve Jobs that iMovie would…

Steve Jobs has a many enviable qualities. His attention to detail, his ability to grasp what people actually want, his management style and presentation skills are all things that many CEO's envy.Anything, taken to the extreme, can yield less than desirable results. Steve's insistence that the Apple III…

Mac OS 8 was interesting for more than OS advances. It was interesting because the OS was supposed to be the first apperance of the all new operating system Copland but even more interesting because it effectively voided most of the contracts the clone makers had with Apple.To…

The iMac was a huge success for Apple. With a homerun like that, the question naturally arises "How can we repeat that with a laptop?" Apple's answer was the iBook. The machine had several shortcomings: it was heavy, the styling was questionable and the price was considered a bit high.

The programmer behind a lot of what was good about the original Macintosh was Andy Herzfeld. While Herzfeld had a rebel streak and couldn't abide corporate politics he was also smart enough to appreciate good ideas when he heard them.Herzfeld heard many good ideas when he attended a…

The G4 cube was hailed by the media as a design breakthrough. There is little wonder why, the small form factor and convection cooling made the cube a desirable computer for anyone who valued form and silent computing while still demanding near top of the line performance.The trouble…

The 680x0 processor by Motorola had served Apple well since the introduction of the original Mac based on a 8 MHz 68000. However, the elderly, in computer years, chips were in danger of being outclassed by offerings from Intel and other rival chip manufacturers.Apple faced a decision, how…

If you were using iTools, Apple's suite of web enhancements used to help lure people into buying Mac OS 8, you got a nasty bit of news when you checked your iTools account."Today we announced .Mac, pronounced "Dot Mac," that replaces the Apple iTools service. In the two…

A Macintosh booting into Windows seems passe since the release of Boot Camp. Perhaps surprisingly, Boot Camp it isn't the first dual boot solution Apple offered. That honor goes to the LC 630 DOS caompatible.The Mac side of the machine was powered by a 33MHz 68LC040 and ran…

Most people with a bent for technology are aware how Xerox influenced Apple's development of the GUI. What many tech geeks are unaware of is how Kodak made the Mac a viable business.Sales of the nascent Mac had been in line with expectations for the first few months,…

In the great cavalcade of cat names the first one that really mattered was Jaguar, the code name for OS 10.2. The first iteration of OS X was code named Cheetah and offered as a beta version for $29.99. The second iteration was Puma and retailed for the, now, expected…

One of the first low cost PowerBooks introduced was the PowerBook 150. The price was nice but Apple made it clear that this wasn't the top of the line model, or even close.The PowerBook 150 lacked, for the time, the ever useful ADB port and sported a muddy…

The iMac, since its introduction, has been Apple's flagship product. The iMac generally features Apple's pro line chip at a consumer friendly price and, to top it all off, an integrated monitor. In short, the iMac has always been Apple's most compelling computer for consumers.Unfortunately, for those who…

The Power Mac G4 Cube was widely hailed as a great computer, pundits couldn't stop gushing about the convection cooled, positively tiny tissue box design. The cube design smacked of originality in every area, whether it was the vertical slot loading media drive or the clever way the computer internals…

The original iMac brought a lot of nice things with it, increased market share, stylish looks and renewed profitability. With the good came some bad, in this case the hockey puck mouse. While some users loved the translucent puck, the vast majority found it too light, too round and too…

The Mac's first business plan under the leadership of Steve Jobs was crudely produced but full of ambitious sales targets. Macs, the plan plainly stated, would cost $1500, ship in 1982 and sell over 2 million units in less than three years. The plan was too rosy. The…

On July 11 Kevin Britten, a resident of Hays Kansas, did something wholly unremarkable, he downloaded a song from iTunes.While downloading a song from iTunes requires very little effort Kevin was richly rewarded for his purchase of "Somersault (Dangermouse remix)." Not only did Kevin get the song, he…

Apple's first President, Michael Scott, had lost any real power shortly after Black Wednesday. Yet former, President Scott stayed on the payroll in no small part because Apple was about to stage a second offering of stock. With Apple's second successful stock sale completed, the sole reason…

When someone asks, "Who saved Apple?" the knee jerk reaction is to give all the credit to Steve Jobs. That answer leaves out a crucial part of the equation: who brought Steve back? The answer to the second question is: Dr. Gil Amelio. Dr.Amelio had taken the reins…

Apple's board of Directors had given Gil Amelio the boot and they knew whom they wanted to take the newly vacated position. A part time advisor that came along for the ride when Apple bought NeXT, a part timer named Steve Jobs.Before Dr. Amelio's seat was cold, the…

In the early nineties Apple needed a new processor and IBM wanted a new OS. Apple was working on a project called Pink, which more or less brought the Mac experience to PCs, and IBM was working on a RISC based chip.It seemed like a marriage made in…

When Jef Raskin started the Mac project he had high hopes for a low cost machine. When Steve Jobs came on board their vision clashed and Mr. Raskin left the project. While the Mac evolved in to a beast completely different from what Jef Raskin had in mind, Jef didn't…

Most computer fans have heard of Xerox PARC (Palo Alto research Center). It is the place where, in exchange for being allowed to purchase a million shares of Apple before the initial public offering, Apple employees got their first look at the graphical user interface. While that is PARC's best…

The "1984" ad is often said to have been played only once during the 1984 SuperBowl. That bit of common wisdom is in error. The ad was aired during signoff at a televison station in Idaho in 1983, played at movie theatres just because people enjoyed it, and replayed countless…

In the olden days Apple programmers were exalted with such niceities as placing their name on the mold for the original Mac or getting some credit in the "About" box of a program. Sadly, Apple programmers, even those who do something very special, get much less credit today.One…

Apple had been selling LCD monitors exclusively since 2001 but even with the all panel lineup the monitors were in need of an update. Out went translucent plastics and in came brushed aluminum. Also gone were the feet and support of the previous generation monitors. The new monitors featured an…

After Steve Wozniak completed the Apple I he immediately saw areas for improvement. His compulsion to improve the computer led directly to the Apple II. The problem was that the Apple II cost a lot more to produce than the Apple I. If the project were going to go anywhere…

Steve Capps isn't a household name among Mac fans but it probably should be. In 1981 Steve started working at Apple and began his tenure by making large contributions to the Lisa project. That wasn't enough for Steve and he moved over to the Macintosh project in 1983.Since…

If the Mac has ever had a bigger fanboy than Bill Gates it is unclear who it was. In the days before the release of the Mac, Microsoft had more people working on software for the Mac than Apple had employees. So it was both with an idea…

Computer printers had been around for a few years but most ran over a thousand dollars and thus were out of the reach of many users. Apple, realizing that there was a market for a lower cost printer, decided to rebadge a printer by another manufacturer (Trendcomm) and offer it…