Don’t click on this link unless you’re a hardcore Apple geek and have lots of time on your hands. It includes high-resolution images of every Apple ad from 1976 to 2002. Including ads for things I didn’t know existed.
Category: Apple
Apple’s Lessons From the Newton
I ran across an article today on Roughly Drafted titled “Newton Lessons for Apple’s New Platform.” It’s an interesting read, especially considering it’s two years old.
The article discusses the failure of Apple’s Newton project of the early 1990s. The Newton was Apple’s first foray into the PDA/handheld computer, and frankly, it was not a bad attempt at all. The early models were plagued with slow hardware and rough software ( made famous forever in a comic strip), but at the end of the series (with the MessagePad 2000 & 2100 models), Apple had the kinks worked out.
Apple Enterprise: Is the Sky Falling?
Al Shipp, Apple’s senior vice president of enterprise sales is retiring, and isn’t being replaced. Lots of people have cried out that Apple is moving away from enterprise-level hardware and software. Macworld’s John Welch:
But honestly, every time I see that meme go around, I have to wonder why people would think that. Apple has never been an enterprise company, even when it had one of its Pre-Return Of Steve “Apple in the Enterprise” spasms. The company has less clue of how to be an Enterprise company than IBM had about selling computers to home users.
iPods Get Ready for New Earbuds
A while back, Apple announced new earbuds with a mic (like the iPhone’s earbuds) for iPods. And while the earbuds haven’t shown up yet (being promised in October), Apple has dropped updated software for the new iPod Nano and Classic to turn on support for the in-line mic. Apple:
The control capsule located on the cable of the right earpiece includes a microphone and three buttons. With this convenient remote, you can adjust the volume, control music or video playback — including play/pause and next/previous — and record voice memos.
On Tim Cook
Tim Cook is believed to be Steve Jobs’ successor as CEO at Apple. CNN examines this possibility. On Tim Cook:
One day back then, he convened a meeting with his team, and the discussion turned to a particular problem in Asia. “This is really bad,” Cook told the group. “Someone should be in China driving this.” Thirty minutes into that meeting Cook looked at Sabih Khan, a key operations executive, and abruptly asked, without a trace of emotion, “Why are you still here?”
Remember This?
I stumbled across a link to the original “My iBook G3 Keyboard Smells Like Ass” thread this morning over at discussions.apple.com:
Terrible body odor type smell coming from keyboard that seems to increase with the machine temperature. It can be smelled when walking by the iBook when it’s on.
If you haven’t smelled it, it’s awful. New keyboards was the only reliable fix, even hardcore cleaning offered temporary relief.
Lessons Learned from Leopard
PCWorld.com discusses 5 lessons Apple has learned in the last year:
“Overall, Leopard is a pretty stable operating system at this point, but the interesting thing is that it really wasn’t so when it shipped,” says Michael Silver, VP of research for Gartner.
Apple’s ability to quickly identify the problems and release fixes successfully turned what could have been a major black mark for Apple into a minor blemish. Microsoft has had less success dodging a problematic reputation for its flagship operating system, Windows Vista. It’s not necessarily an apples-to-Apple comparison: Windows Vista is a major rewrite of Microsoft’s operating system, while Apple’s Leopard is a minor revision. Still, Microsoft’s failure to quickly fix the problems left the company with public relations damage, Silver says.
The Current State of OS 9
In October 1999, Apple released OS 9.0, heralding it as “The Best Internet Operating System Ever.”
With Sherlock 2, Internet Explorer 5 for the Mac, iTools, improved TCP/IP, and more, OS 9 connected Mac users to the Web in a way that no OS had ever done before.
With all these features, OS 9 was still very closely tied to the previous revisions of the Mac OS, and thus, was riddled with bugs and legacy code. The dreaded bomb error, for example, endeared users to the OS for years. With no memory protection, application crashes would very often bring down the entire system. Fun stuff.
People Don’t Miss Firewire, Right?
Check out this 16 page thread over at Apple’s Discussion Boards. This is the longest thread I’ve ever seen there. Seems that people do miss it. Who knew?
Want iDisk Files from your iPhone? Okay.
MobileFiles ( iTunes link) is the first application (that I’ve seen) that allows MobileMe users access their iDisk from their iPhone/iPod Touch.
After briefly testing it tonight over EDGE (hey, we have a kid now), I have to say, I’m impressed. And it’s free, but that MobileMe membership is still $99/year.
Old System Info
Be forewarned, the Retro-Mac-Geek factor on these links is high:
The People Have Spoken
CNET has posted some comments on their MacBook/MacBook Pro reviews:
“No FireWire – No Thanks.” “The loss of FireWire is a deal killer for anyone wanting to edit video or audio or anyone needing to use Target Disk mode.” “Even glossier display than before.” “No FireWire. Bad move. Bottom line.” “Due to the glass reflections it has to be at maximum brightness all the time to over-power the glare.” “The new glassy screen is a glare nightmare.” “Like everything, except lack of FireWire and glossy screen.” “Glossy screen with sometimes annoying glare.” “The highly reflective glass screen is a deal breaker.” “They look and feel great…except for the glossy screen”