On Mastodon, @bullware sent me something amazing.
This is a concept put together by Terauma on the LEGO Ideas website, which collects projects designed by the community for voting. Some of these projects become reality, with the designer earning royalties. You know I voted before I even published this post.
This story by Cabel Sasser is just wild.
Tom Lokhorst has put together a wonderful site that catalogs WWDC sessions dating back to the year 2000. I bet this one was fun.
Seven years ago, on 27 March 2017, Apple introduced one of the most fundamental changes in its operating systems since Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah was released 16 years earlier. On that day, those who updated iOS to version 10.3 had their iPhone’s storage silently converted to the first release of Apple File System, APFS. Six months later, with the release of macOS 10.13 High Sierra on 25 September, Mac users followed suit.
In the middle of the 1980s, Apple found itself with several options regarding the future of its computing platforms. The Apple II was the company’s bread and butter. The Apple III was pitched as an evolution of that platform, but was clearly doomed due to hardware and software issues. The Lisa was expensive and not selling well, and while the Macintosh aimed to bring Lisa technology to the masses, sales were slow after its initial release.
I’m still reeling a bit from Bloomberg’s reporting on what Apple was hoping to achieve with its self-driving car project. Even though $1 billion a year isn’t much on Apple’s scale, it’s clear that a lot of time and energy went into this project over the last ten years.
Many of Apple’s ideas around the future of the car were just too far-fetched to ship anything in the near future. However, I think there are at least three benefits to what the company was working toward with Project Titan.
For a decade, we’ve all wondered what an Apple-designed car would be like. Thanks to Mark Gurman and Drake Bennett, we now have an idea:
Around the beginning of 2020, Apple Inc.’s top executives gathered at a former Chrysler testing track in Wittmann, Arizona, to try out the latest incarnation of the car the technology giant had been trying for years to make. The prototype, a white minivan with rounded sides, an all-glass roof, sliding doors and whitewall tires, was designed to comfortably seat four people and inspired by the classic flower-power Volkswagen microbus. The design was referred to within Apple, not always affectionately, as the Bread Loaf. The plan was for the vehicle to hit the market some five years later with a giant TV screen, a powerful audio system and windows that adjusted their own tint. The cabin would have club seating like a private plane, and passengers would be able to turn some of the seats into recliners and footrests.
This video from Quinn Nelson has some real gems in it:
Ernie Smith has the best article I’ve ever read about Apple’s near miss with Novell in 1992:
With the growing success of Novell NetWare and its acquisition of DR-DOS (later called Novell DOS), perhaps Novell was feeling nervous about the idea that Microsoft Windows would eventually dominate the market, harming its good-guy position in the industry. It was going around at the time, after all.
(It came out years later that Novell had plenty to worry about, as Microsoft had intentionally added a fake error into Windows that only appeared when using DR-DOS … at the behest of Bill Gates.)
In 1991, Apple made just 500 examples of a very special PowerBook:
My thanks to Relay listener Dan for shipping his very rare and expensive machine to me so I could check it out and share it with all of you.
Despite the profound impact Apple Vision Pro will have on the Apple Retail experience, I’ve scarce mentioned it here on Tabletops, and that’s no accident. A major new platform deserves careful study and an awful lot of context — the kind that’s only possible to grasp when the product is available in stores.
The future makes more sense when you understand the past, which is why I’m sharing this slice of history with you today.
Last night, the Computer History Museum put on a two-hour event honoring the Macintosh. I know how I’m spending my evening: