Category: Apple History

Twenty years ago, Apple announced the creation of a subsidiary to run the Newton program:

The new company, to be named at a later date, will provide customers with market-driven products and technologies, based on the award-winning Newton operating system, in conjunction with its licensees, value-added resellers, and systems integrators.

The press release is complete with a quote from Dr. Gilbert F. Amelio, Apple’s Chairman and CEO:

Over the past year, we have seen the Newton Systems Group launch compelling products based on the Newton operating system. We believe that the time is right to establish the group as a focused entity. This decision allows the new subsidiary to pursue its business and create the marketing and operating strategies it needs to succeed.

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This week on Simple Beep, the guys talk about several Apple museums around the world. Really great stuff if you’re into old Apple gear like I am.

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MacMuzeum is an incredible collection of Apple hardware that may be up for sale soon. I really hope it goes to a good home.

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This article got sent to me by several people, and I can’t pass up linking to it. In it, Peter Lewis responds to the then-new Bondi Blue iMac G3:

Apple was certainly “thinking different” when it created the iMac. The new personal computer, which goes on sale on Aug. 15, has already won popular acclaim for its creative design and its refreshing departure from the computer industry standard of boring beige boxes.

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This month on MacStories, I spent some time with the first iPad to really stick around more than a year, the iPad 2:

While that doesn’t seem remarkable today, it was an eternity when it came to iOS devices at the time. The iPad 2 was one of the first devices Apple kept around to fill a lower price point on its product matrix.

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For 29 years, New York City’s Tekserve was the hub for Mac nerds in the Big Apple. Here is Rick Rojas in The New York Times:

Tekserve found its niche in an era when Apple had a much smaller slice of the computer market. Among many of Tekserve’s customers then, Apple computers had a devoted following. “It was the cult of Mac,” said Mr. Gepner, who, before running Tekserve, was a regular customer.

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Devin Coldewey:

The Apple I, you may or may not remember, wasn’t much of a hit. Only 200 were made — by hand — and it wasn’t long before the company put its hopes in the Apple II, which would go on to be more popular by far. One of the Is, however, Jobs kept in his office as a demo machine for industry people.

When Jobs left in 1985 he left in a hurry, and this I was left behind on a shelf. Don Hutmacher, one of the company’s first employees, grabbed it and it stayed in his possession until he passed away last year. His wife generously allowed the museum to take care of it, and you can imagine their gratitude.

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I know crowd-funded movies often fall apart, I can’t help but link to this one:

This is a film about a little green computer and the people who love it.

Newton was the first mass-produced touchscreen handheld computer made by Apple. It only lasted a few years on the market (1993 to 1998), but that wasn’t because it sucked! A large community of people still love Newton, and this film is an homage to the little device(s) by the people who still remember and even still use one.

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In 2013, Apple didn’t simply knock $100 off the price of the iPhone 5 when the 5s was announced. Instead, it replaced it with the plastic, colorful iPhone 5c.

The 5c was pretty much an iPhone 5 with a slightly larger battery and a better FaceTime camera, wrapped in a seamless, colorful plastic case. To date, I think this iPhone feels better in-hand than any other.

Leading up to this, there were many rumors about a cheaper iPhone. The 5c was decidedly not that phone; all it did was take the place of the iPhone 5 in the $100-less-than-it-used-to-be spot in the lineup.

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Jason Scott:

After offering in-browser emulation of console games, arcade machines, and a range of other home computers, the Internet Archive can now emulate the early models of the Apple Macintosh, the black-and-white, mouse driven computer that radically shifted the future of home computing in 1984.

There’s a lot of good stuff in this collection. I’m glad to see it on Archive.org.

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After the Clamshell, the iBook got a lot more traditional.

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This is a big blow to researching Apple stuff. I’m not shocked, but I wish I had scraped it before this happened.

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