Category: Apple History

Update: Tony Fadell spoke to Nilay Patel about this device. It’s fascinating.

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Sonny Dickson has unearthed something very special:

While it has always been known that Apple considered a variety of ideas when they were deciding to enter the mobile phone market (with ex employees discussing it behind closed doors, as seen in this Cult Of Mac article, not much was known about alternate versions of the iPhone until now.

Much like the first production iPhone, the prototype features many of the same features including an aluminum chassis, multi-touch compatible screen, 2G connectivity and WiFi radios. However, despite carrying a similar design, the phone itself is extremely different from the iPhone we know today.

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Well, this is a fun chart:

Currently, Apple only ships Intel-based machines. Mac OS X for Intel was released in 2006. The Intel version had been “leading a secret double life” since 2000, i.e. Mac OS X existed for Intel all the time, but was not released. In that time, Mac OS X was never self-hosting; instead, it was cross-compiled on PowerPC Macs. The first released version of Intel Mac OS X was a version of 10.4 for the Pentium 4 based “Developer Transition Kit” in 2005.

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On Dec. 20, 1996, Apple announced that it had purchased NeXT:

Apple Computer, Inc. today announced its intention to purchase NeXT Software Inc., in a friendly acquisition for $400 million. Pending regulatory approvals, all NeXT products, services, and technology research will become part of Apple Computer, Inc. As part of the agreement, Steve Jobs, Chairman and CEO of NeXT Software, will return to Apple — the company he co-founded in 1976 — reporting to Dr. Gilbert F. Amelio, Apple’s Chairman and CEO.

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I’m just surprised this watch isn’t beige.

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Remember this?

Introduction & Evolution

Introduced with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Dashboard was easy enough to explain:

Dashboard is home to widgets: mini-applications that let you perform common tasks and provide you with fast access to information. With a single click, Dashboard appears, complete with widgets that bring you a world of information — real-time weather, stock tickers, flight information and more — instantly. Dashboard disappears just as easily, so you can get back to what you were doing.

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Unlike the other three books I’ve looked at recently, AppleDesign was not published by Apple.

Put out by Graphis, Inc in conjunction with Apple in 1997, AppleDesign is 287 pages of wonderful photography not only of finished Apple hardware, but prototypes, design mockups and more. The first third of the book is dedicated to an in-depth retelling of the processes and decisions that went into what Apple had made up to this point. The Apple II to Snow White grace the early chapters, then the book shifts to things like early Power Macs and the Newton line.

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Displays and wireless routers aren’t the only things Apple has left behind over the decades. This month on MacStories, I wrote about all sorts of businesses Apple has exited. It was a lot of fun to write about old-ass scanners and more.

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Designed by Apple in California and A Personal Guide to Personal Computers are not the only books Apple has published in the last 40 years.

So Far: The First Ten Years of a Vision was published in 1987, and celebrated the company’s tenth anniversary. Unlike *Designed by Apple in California," this book mixes text and photos nicely. It’s built on the premise that Apple is about far more than computers.

Chapter names include things like “Freedom,” “Courage,” and “Sharing.” The book is full of little stories about people making a difference in the world using Apple computers. It’s all very upbeat and touchy-feely. It even includes numerous page with the names of all past and present employees as of January 1, 1987.

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Copland was Apple’s failed attempt to modernize the classic Mac OS in the mid 1990s. While parts of it would end up in Mac OS 8, the dream of a modern Mac operating system wouldn’t be realized until after Apple bought NeXT.¹

Copland is a really interesting (and sad) chapter in the Mac’s history. Here are some documents I’ve collected over the years about it:

• An Introduction to Copland
• Copland Technical Overview

“Mac OS 8 Build D11E4” was a preview build of Copland. It ran on very select hardware, and had to be connected via a serial cable to a Power Mac running a special Debugger program:

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Designed by Apple in California is far from the only book Apple has published in the last 40 years.

Today, I wanted to share some select pages from A Personal Guide to Personal Computers, a sales book put out by the company in 1982.

The book works to make the personal computer more approachable, while building a case for purchasing an Apple system. I’ve scanned the first chapter as a PDF you can download here.

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The Power Mac G3 All-in-One was not an important computer, but it’s important to me.

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This incredible two-part series on the “Get a Mac” ads featuring John Hodgman and Justin Long is gold.

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