On January 5, 2000, Steve Jobs unveiled the Aqua user interface for the very first time. Stylistically, it was a bold departure from what had come before, and was no doubt created with the iMac G3 in mind.
The changes were more than skin deep, and no where was the influence of NeXT’s software more evident than the Dock, a place for users to stash documents, an easy way to launch applications, and generally anchor the user interface to the bottom or side of the screen.
In January 2006, the first Intel Macs were announced. We’ll deal more with that anniversary in a year, but for now, it’s worth walking through the final full year of PowerPC Macs.
Transitions happen for a reason, and exploring those reasons can tell us a lot about the priorities of the parties involved.
When the Mac moved from x86 to Apple silicon a few years ago, it was partially because Intel wasn’t delivering what Apple needed and partially because Apple was in a place with its own chips that the Mac would be radically better after the transition.
I was recently moving some files around and came across a column I wrote for my college newspaper. I was on the design side of the paper1 and didn’t get to write that much. In the fall of 2006, I was given a short-lived column covering the tech news, and this entry is from October 25.
This week, the geek world was all about one word.
iPod.
Monday marked the fifth anniversary of Apple’s beloved music player. On Oct. 23, 2001, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, stood on a stage in California and introduced the world to a 5GB, $399 device that would play music back faster and easier than a Walkman.
In November 1996, Apple released the Power Macintosh 4400 with a starting price of $1,725. Also sold as the Power Macintosh 7220, it’d be easy to write this machine off as just another grain of sand on the beige beach that was Apple’s product line in the 1990s. I mean, just look at this thing, pictured here with an Apple-branded CRT:
If you were around the Mac line in the late 1990s, your blood probably ran cold when you saw the 4400’s name in the above headline.
Joe Rossignol at MacRumors is reporting that Apple’s long-running repair extension program for the butterfly keyboard has ended:
Apple’s free butterfly keyboard service program for select MacBooks models ended late last week, nearly six and a half years after it launched.
With the program now over, it is no longer guaranteed that customers with affected MacBook keyboards will be able to receive a free repair from Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider. However, exceptions could be made.
At $450, this book makes my copy of Designed in California look like a deal at $299.
Back in March I wrote about the Jonathan, a computer Apple worked on in the 1980s that was designed around modularity:
In that post, I wrote:
My understanding is that the project never made it past the “conversations and mockups” stage. I get why the Jonathan never made it beyond the concept phase, but part of me wishes I could round up a bunch of modules meant for this platform. At least we have some fun photos and renders to enjoy.
Monday, September 9 will mark ten years since Apple announced the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, as well as the Apple Watch.
That’s all fine and good, but the real news of the day was free music from U2:
Apple, Universal Music Group and legendary rock band U2 today announced the release of the album “Songs of Innocence,” which Apple is gifting to iTunes Store customers around the world, making it the largest album release ever with over half a billion copies distributed. The album features 11 new songs from the band and charts their earliest influences from 70s rock and punk rock to early 80s electronica and soul. The album is free for iTunes Store account holders in 119 countries and is available exclusively on iTunes for the next five weeks.
When I started this project, my goal was to untangle the messiest of all Mac product lines. In my initial blog post I wrote:
At its heart, the Performa line is the fruit of badge engineering. This is often found in the car market, perhaps most famously in the Chrysler K-car platform that debuted in 1981. Over 14 years, Chrysler, Dodge, and Plymouth shipped a dizzying array of front-wheel drive cars, all based on the same platform. Features, options, and prices ranged between them, but under the covers, these were all the same car, more or less.
We’ve done it; we have come to the final three Performas. It’s taken 11,000 words to get here, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.
In a world of weird 1990s Macs, the 6400 may take the prize for the most awkward. Here it is, in Power Macintosh form, in an official Apple photo:
Launched in August 1996, this is the first (and only) Performa to use the traditional vertical tower case, and as you can see, it was quite the case.
In the spring of 1996, Apple updated its all-in-one Performa across two collections of models: the 5200 and 5400.
Thankfully, not all of them were beige…
In 1996, the Performa 5200 line was updated with three new models:
| Model | CPU | Memory | HDD Size | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5260CD | 100 MHz PowerPC 603e | 8 or 16 MB | 800 MB | $1,699 |
| 5260/120 | 120 MHz PowerPC 603e | 8 or 16 MB | 1.2 GB | $1,499 |
| 5270CD | 100 MHz PowerPC 603e | 8 MB | 1.2 GB | Unknown |
The 5260/100 came out in the fall of 1996, following the 5260CD and 5270CD, which both shipped in April of that year. All three of these systems shipped with a 14-inch CRT, running at 640 x 480 resolution, despite earlier Performas in the same enclosure using a 15-inch CRT capable of running at 832 x 624.
By the fall of 1995, the final pre-PowerPC Performas were still available for purchase by those looking to potentially procure a personal computer. Despite 68K-based Performas being on the market until 1996, Apple was already moving on, and now so must we.
These machines were an update to the 5200 all-in-one that debuted in the summer of 1995. The 5200 Series would remain on sale even after the 5300 models were announced, in true 90s Apple fashion.