Hartley Charlton with the bad news:
The custom iPhone 12 Pro is styled as a homage to the original Apple I, which was the first computer to be made by Apple. The custom casing features a back panel made of wood that resembles that used on the Apple I, a glossy titanium miniature monitor and keyboard buttons, Apple lettering in the style of the original, and most importantly, an exclusive fragment of the Apple I’s circuitry.
Joshua Stein has made a very specific utility:
StuffIt is the de-facto standard for file archiving and compression on Mac OS before OS X. Most old Macintosh software is preserved in StuffIt format, but a breaking change in StuffIt 5 makes archives created in this version unreadable in older versions of StuffIt. Since StuffIt 3.5 is the last version that works on System 6, many archives cannot be opened on compact Macs running System 6.
To go with my 5K renders of default Mac OS X macOS wallpapers, I’ve reworked Mac OS 9’s wallpapers. Some of them are wild:
I pulled the originals out of an OS 9 installer then used Pixelmator Pro’s ML Super Resolution tool, running on a new M1 MacBook Air … which gave my 2019 Mac Pro a run for its money rendering these.
The real news is that a photo of the Macintosh Portable is on Apple’s website in 2020:
I’ve been stuck in bed for the last several days recovering from surgery on my foot, and instead of reading or meditating or something else good and useful, I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of watching old episodes of The Computer Chronicles on YouTube.
This episode really jumped out at me, as half-way through, the Macintosh and its designer Susan Kare make an appearance.
In 1987, The Computer Chronicles did an episode all about HyperCard:
It is a fascinating watch, but a few things really jumped out at me:
Don’s miss this 2019 Ars Technica post about HyperCard, which was written by Matthew Lasar.
I remember when this company and its products were in the news a lot more, but I had no idea the story behind it all was so wild. Quinn knocked it out of the park with this one:
I’ve long been interested in Apple’s boilerplate press release text, and as it turns out, Apple Music releases have their own blurb:
Apple loves music. With iPod and iTunes, Apple revolutionized the music experience by putting a thousand songs in your pocket. Today, Apple Music takes this to the ultimate with over 60 million songs, thousands of playlists, and daily selections from the world’s best music experts, including all of the artists and hosts broadcasting daily across its Apple Music 1, Apple Music Hits, and Apple Music Country global live streams. Since 2015, Apple Music has welcomed tens of millions of subscribers in 167 countries. Streaming seamlessly to iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch, Apple TV, Mac, HomePod, and CarPlay, Apple Music is the most complete music experience on the planet.
This morning, my buddy Jason Snell is launching a new project: “20 Macs for 2020,” in which he is covering what he thinks are the most notable Macs. The list will include good, weird and even bad computers.
He’s kicking off the list with the Power Mac G5.
In addition to a new post every Monday, 20 Macs for 2020 also lives as a podcast on Relay FM. On each episode, Snell talks to a group of Mac watchers and enthusiasts about the machine in question.
Hartley Charlton at MacRumors:
Twitter user @DongleBookPro has today posted images of what seems to be a first-generation iPod Touch prototype with a 2013 Mac Pro-style glossy black finish.
The Twitter user claims that the iPod Touch prototype pictured has “the same coating as the 2013 Mac Pro.” Had the finish been selected for the final product, it would have been the first metallic glossy black finish to be shipped on an Apple device.
One of the first products you could purchase online from Apple was a set of golf balls and tees. Not a golfer? Apple also offered a puzzle in a can, a paddle game, luggage tags, and even a onesie with the classic Mac OS Trash icon screen printed on the front. These forgotten items and nearly 100 more products came from the peculiar world of AppleDesigns.com, one of Apple’s earliest online shopping projects.
Johns Hopkins Hospital recently completed a 10 month pilot project to assess the utility of the Apple MessagePad in the hands of health care case managers. The hospital developed its own software called the PD Tracker that runs on the Newton platform. Physicians and case managers using the PD Tracker and the Apple MessagePad combination have found it to be an effective replacement for their current paper-based system.