Category: Guest Post

This Old Mac of the Month entry is written by Brian Ashe, a Jack-of-all-trades/master-of-none when it comes to computers, networking, web app development, hardware, and design of all kinds. His website is perpetually coming soon and he neither tweets nor blogs but he loves hearing from strangers.

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image courtesy of Apple PR

As Steve Jobs said in an oft-quoted interview with Newsweek in 2004, “At the critical juncture in the late ’80s, when [Apple] should have gone for market share, they went for profits. They made obscene profits for several years. And their products became mediocre.”

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On a recent episode of my podcast CMD+SPACE, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jonathan Coulton. On this episode we spoke about some of his recent projects and a little about his history in creating music—pioneering some of the methods of crowd support that we have today.

During this episode we were attempting to try and describe the nature of his audience. On the whole they tend to be quite geeky or nerdy, but Jonathan wanted to avoid these terms. The best description we were able to come up with instead was, ‘enthusiasts’.

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On the day I started OneThirtySeven, Stephen Hackett wrote one of the most touching articles in memory. Reflecting upon his parenthood, his son, and the struggles he and his wife have both faced, he wrote a letter addressed to his children and published it, importantly, on his technology-centric weblog.

For some, I suspect the notion of posting such an intimate, personal, and revealing piece of prose on such a public and well-read forum would be daunting. Perhaps even ill-fitting. Stephen shared the deepest of his fears — as he has done innumerable times both before and after this specific day — and he offered himself up for your collective thoughts.

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Here are some of my key takeaways from this quarter, from the eyes of a consumer with no real insight:

• 19 million iPads sold in this quarter alone, up from 11.8 million this time last year. I think at this point we are truly in a tablet market, in which desktop computers are sold—not the other way around. The majority is shifting.
• It would potentially seem that profits are down – even though revenue is up – due to the fact that the profit margins on the iPad mini are tighter (and they sold more of these than the full size). Imagine where this would be if Apple had felt forced to shrink their margins even further, to meet the price-point we all felt they should.
• Horace Dediu tweeted that “Revenues per Mac were $1378, highest since 2008.” I find this number insane and very smart. I feel like Apple would be aware that the work they are doing with their iOS products, could be cannibalizing potential Mac sales by making the most of the margins they are effectively combatting that.
• “Our teams are working on new hardware, software, and services that we can’t wait to introduce this Fall and throughout 2014.” Even though it’s obvious that Tim Cook would have said something like this, I cant help but feel better now that he has.
• Apple will also be entering a new product category this year. OMG iCAR!

It wasn’t a hit all-round this quarter, but I don’t believe Apple are doomed. Of course they’re not. I shall look forward to the next quarter — the same as I always do — with my eyes on the most exciting company in tech.

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Only Apple earnings days could cause such disgusting link-bait articles. The NME ( New Musical Express) has just posted this story, detailing how Apple may post a loss in profits today.

I mean, seriously? I know that iTunes sells music, but does this really fit the beat of a music magazine’s news website?

Buckle up everyone, it’s going that be that sort of day.

This is a guest post by Myke Hurley, as Stephen and his family are on a much-needed break.

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As those who visit the site can see, it now reads “This is Pat Dryburgh.” This is who I am; this is what I love, what I hate, what inspires me, what challenges me, the questions I am asking myself and the answers I’m discovering. I could go and scour the internet again to fill another “Top 10 Best Websites with a Green Background and Sans Serif Type” post, but that’s not me.

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I’m not a writer. So please forgive the multitude of grammatical errors that may follow. I am a podcaster, so I speak on the internet. Frame this article in the mind of someone who is writing from a stream of consciousness, rather than a meticulous outline.

When Stephen asked me to help him out this week – whilst he is taking a much-needed break – I started to think about what I could share with his handsome readers. So, I decided that I would talk about the most important thing I have learned over the last three years of being a podcaster:

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This episode of Generational is required listening.

Hearing about how Federico Viticci battled cancer whilst managing to run and build Macstories is incredibly inspiring.

There’s a lot to take out of this episode. It really made me contemplate how I operate what I do online; hearing how he refocused himself is very interesting indeed.

Federico also details how he is now working primarily with iOS and how being stuck in a hospital bed helped him discover the power of the platform and make that change.

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This month’s post is by Jordan Merrick, a freelance writer and web designer who runs Sparsebundle, a UK-based blog about technology, Apple, web design, video games.

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This year celebrates the fifteenth anniversary of the iMac. You’d think that if we looked over the lineage of the iMac, we’d see a number of major design changes as time went on. But that’s not the case and, in fact, since the introduction of the iMac in 1998 it has had only two major design changes. Sure, it’s had a coat of paint, a change of clothes and it’s gotten bigger whilst losing weight, but the fundamental form factor of the iMac that we see today has been unchanged for almost ten years, a chinned display with (up until recently) a side-mounted optical drive. It’s a form factor that owes its beginnings to the iMac G5.

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Linus Edwards is a writer who hails from Pennsylvania and has been a lifelong Apple user. You can check out his blog VintageZen and follow him on twitter at VintageZen66.

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If you lined up every laptop computer made in the last twenty years end to end, one would glaringly stand out from all the others, Apple’s original iBook. While the other laptops would mostly be monotone colors in rectangular shapes, the iBook was brightly colored and in a distinctive clamshell shape. The shape was so outside the norm that some came to refer to it as the ‘Toilet Seat Mac.’ It looked radically different because it was based upon Apple’s other radically different computer, the iMac.

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This month’s Old Mac of the Month submission is by Thomas Brand, writer of Egg Freckles. Thomas is a great guy, a lover of old technology and one heck of a writer. If you don’t read his site, shame on you.

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Before the MacBook Air, before the 12 inch PowerBook G4, and long before anyone heard the term NetBook, there was a small light and powerful machine released by Apple Computer Inc. Developed during Apple’s troubled years, this portable computer was the last of its kind. A sub notebook that weighed only 4.4 pounds, when most laptops weighed nearly twice as much. Powerful enough to work on its own without the added complexity of an optional dock, this machine boasted its speed with codenames like Comet, and Mighty Cat. Manufactured by Apple’s original arch nemesis IBM, this laptop returned the PowerBook line back to its roots, with a form factor inspired by the legendary PowerBook 100. Big in Japan, this powerful portable machine would gain a cult following of its very own, and outlive a death sentence from Steve Jobs by selling for another seven months.

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This month’s submission is by Scott Smith, a professional nerd from California, which seems radical.

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I have been using Macs my entire life. As long as I can remember, from when my Dad bought a Macintosh Plus in the year I was born, there have only been Macs in the Smith Family House. Even though I am 25 years old, I would consider myself an old-time Mac user going back to System 6. However, it wasn’t really until 1993 that I realized the potential of what a computer could offer.

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