Harry McCracken has a cool article out about Lumafield, a company that is working to reinvent CT scans, and Tony Fadell, the father of the iPod.
Category: Apple History
The HP iPods
In addition to the Harry Potter iPod and the U2 iPod, there is another special edition iPod that was a little … less special.
Let’s talk about the HP iPod.
Mmmm, Brushed Metal and Windows XP…
I always like referring to Apple’s press releases when looking at historic products or announcements. This time, the dateline includes something a bit unusual:
LAS VEGAS, Consumer Electronics Show, January 8, 2004
The U2 iPod
Over the span of two decades, Apple made a bunch of iPods. The original may have been just a single 5 GB player delivering 1,000 songs in your pocket, but the line spread from there to meet the needs of many more users. The iPod mini, iPod shuffle, iPod nano, iPod photo, iPod classic and iPod touch all enjoyed time on store shelves.
A couple of special-edition iPods were created, such as the Harry Potter Collector’s iPod released in 2005.
Apple Discontinues the iPod touch⇢
Apple PR has announced that the iPod touch will be for sale as long as supplies last:
Since its introduction over 20 years ago, iPod has captivated users all over the world who love the ability to take their music with them on the go. Today, the experience of taking one’s music library out into the world has been integrated across Apple’s product line — from iPhone and Apple Watch to iPad and Mac — along with access to more than 90 million songs and over 30,000 playlists available via Apple Music.
A Little Journey to AppleFest ’88
I am working on a thing, and I needed to find the release date of Apple’s GS/OS. I knew from this article that it had come out at AppleFest in September 1988.
Finding the date of an event like this isn’t easy on the modern web, but I have collected a massive amount of computer history research over the years. I store it all in DEVONthink, which has some amazing search tools.
In my library, I found a PDF of a September 1988 edition of the Washington Apple Pi Journal, which covered loads of Apple stuff back in the day. There, on page 9, was an ad for the very event!
The eMac Turns 20
Here in April 2022, we’re enjoying a rare treat for us Mac nerds — an entirely new Mac desktop.
Beyond the Mac Studio, we’ve had the iMac Pro, the Mac mini, and of course, a couple of different attempts at the Mac Pro.
But 20 years ago, there was another — the eMac G4.
In April 2002, the iMac G4 was basically brand-new, and while there was technically still an iMac G3 on sale, Apple wanted to do something new for its education customers that had purchased so many iMacs over the previous few years.
Inside 1980s Apple⇢
Inside the Newton Keyboard⇢
Kali at Admiral Shark’s Keyboards has built the case that Apple’s Newton keyboard was based on the IBM Model M6-1.
A Tour of Apple’s External (LCD) Displays
With the 2022 Apple Studio Display, the company has returned to the display business in a big way. To celebrate, I thought we could walk through the history of Apple’s standalone flat displays.
1984: Apple IIc Flat Panel Display
In April 1984, Apple introduced a 1-bit, 7-inch LCD for use with the somewhat-portable Apple IIc:
With a resolution of 560 x 192, it provided an 80-column text mode and hi-res graphic support, but things were a bit … squished, as you can see in these photos. At $595, it didn’t sell very well, with estimates putting the number made at just about 10,000 units.
Mac Pro Exit Review
Five years ago this week, we got news that the Mac Pro wasn’t dead, and more importantly, that Apple knew that it had lost the plot when it came to the Mac.
In the years since Apple has shipped both the iMac Pro and a new Mac Pro, but also a Retina MacBook Air and (eventually) notebooks with non-busted keyboards. The Mac mini was overhauled to be much more powerful. macOS got a new, fresh design and some amazing new features.
Infinite Mac
Developer Mihai Parparita has launched an amazing project dubbed “Infinite Mac” that lets you run System 7 or Mac OS 8 right in your browser. Don’t miss his blog post outlining some of the details. It’s just wonderful.
Why the Black MacBook Cost More
From 2006 until 2008, Apple sold one of the coolest Macs ever: the black MacBook.
The black MacBook was sold alongside the more popular — and less expensive — white MacBook.
The price difference between the white and black models is often brought up when discussing Apple’s various strategies around product design and pricing. Many people wrongly believe that the extra cost of the black model just got you a nicer-looking laptop, but that’s not completely true.