512 Pixels

Fun fact: I was born the day the Challenger exploded.

In 2012, my brother and a small team flew halfway across the globe to document the genocide taking place in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan.

His new short film — Land of the Hungry — shows that over a year later, through the combined use of bombings and starvation, Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir continues his work of systematically killing these refugees. All of this despite an arrest warrant for him being issued by the International Criminal Court in March 2009.

That warrant was issued after al-Bashir allowed the genocide at Darfur to take place.

His terror is almost as unbelievable as the world’s relative disinterest in what happens to these people.

The End Nuba Genocide Coalition is a group of non-profits and activists trying to stop this horrific tragedy. Supporting them and my brother’s work at Operation Broken Silence can help the hungry and dying of the Nuba Mountains.

As the world looks forward to another new year, many words have been written about the trends technology may follow in 2014 and beyond.

As with most things in life, the best way to look forward is to look back.

Once upon a time, ¹ using a computer meant handing a punchcard to a technician who would run the program for you, and report back with the results.

Over time, using the mainframes became slightly more direct, but there was still a big disconnect between the hardware used to program and the hardware used to execute.

With the personal computer revolution in the 1980s, the computer landed right on the desk, giving to the masses what used to be reserved for the few. Notebook computers only sped up the process of making the computer personal.

Starting with the iPhone in 2007, the keyboards and mice that helped define personal computers started being replaced with sheets of touch-sensitive glass. In a world with pocketable computers, desktops and notebooks started to feel just as cold and distant as mainframes once did.

From mainframes locked away in secure rooms to iPhones in our pockets, computers have gotten ever-closer to us. They are more intimate and more approachable than ever.

We can already see the next steps. There’s no doubt that looking down at a glowing sheet of glass isn’t ideal in many situations. While the wearables currently on the market may have some issues, the history of consumer electronics is littered with misfires on the way to greatness.

I say bring on the future.

BRB, selling my other kidney.

BRB, selling a kidney.

Matt Alexander:

Take a step back and enjoy some time off. Forget consumerism — this coming from someone who, oddly enough, owns an e-commerce store — and embrace time with friends and family. Dare to dream big for the coming year and then actively work to fulfill that vision. It’ll be far more rewarding than reflecting solely upon the immediacy of problems you face today. You won’t remember those in years to come.

Freddie V:

The iPad is, essentially, my primary work device. In the past year, I was forced for various reasons to use an iPad, and while I came across a lot of limitations for my workflow in the first weeks of extensive usage, I ended up loving the iPad as a work machine. I think that a lot of people have made up their minds about the iPad based on prejudices and won’t give the device a fair chance when it comes to using it for more than reading comics or watching Netflix on it.

I came across my Clamshell iBook G3 this weekend, and spent some time with it today. It now dual boots OS 9 and 10.0. (The former is way faster than the latter.)

OS X Cheetah is rough, and is showing its age more than ever. That said, OS 9 is super dead at this point, too.

After fiddling with it for a bit snapped this photo of the iBook with my 13-inch MacBook Air:

Modern Macs might not be as soft and inviting, as my old iBook, but I like progress.

Thomas Brand:

ADB epitomizes the Woz-era Apple of the 1970s and 80s, “intended to be as simple to use as possible, while still being inexpensive to implement.” ADB may not be considered elegant when compared to modern connections like Lightening or USB, but it was designed to meet the customer’s basic needs at a lower cost. A philosophy foreign to the Apple we have today.

This week, we talk about music consumption.

Sponsored by Squarespace (use code TALLYHO12 for 10% off)

This is the first post in my new series “Future Classics,” in which I try to guess what current-era Apple products may become collectable in the future.

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It’s hard to gauge the collectibility of iOS devices. While certain devices — like the original, 4 GB iPhone — may prove to be rare in the future, these devices are far more consumable than desktop or notebook computers.

That said, if there’s any iOS device to date that will be collectible in the future besides the original iPhone, my money is on the white iPhone 4.

Announced on June 7, 2010, the iPhone 4 came a new design, the Retina display, a better camera and the A4 chip.

While the 16GB iPhone 3G and 16 and 32 GB iPhone 3GS could be purchased in white, the iPhone 4 brought white glass into the mix for the first time, both on the front and back of the phone.

(Keep that in mind for later.)

On June 16, the company announced that 600,000 iPhone 4 pre-orders were placed:

It was the largest number of pre-orders Apple has ever taken in a single day and was far higher than we anticipated, resulting in many order and approval system malfunctions. Many customers were turned away or abandoned the process in frustration. We apologize to everyone who encountered difficulties, and hope that they will try again or visit an Apple or carrier store once the iPhone 4 is in stock.

Sadly, the pre-order hiccup was just the beginning of a list of fun press releases surrounding the product.

One week later, this press release went out:

White models of Apple’s new iPhone 4 have proven more challenging to manufacture than expected, and as a result they will not be available until the second half of July. The availability of the more popular iPhone 4 black models is not affected.

Just a few weeks later, Antennagate struck. On July 2, Apple published an open letter regarding the iPhone 4:

To start with, gripping almost any mobile phone in certain ways will reduce its reception by 1 or more bars. This is true of iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, as well as many Droid, Nokia and RIM phones. But some users have reported that iPhone 4 can drop 4 or 5 bars when tightly held in a way which covers the black strip in the lower left corner of the metal band. This is a far bigger drop than normal, and as a result some have accused the iPhone 4 of having a faulty antenna design.

[…]

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

Instead of quieting the press, the letter acted like gasoline on a fire, and two weeks later, Steve Jobs took the stage at what has to to be the most uncomfortable Apple event in recent history.

Despite all the media, Apple didn’t comment on the white iPhone 4 at this time. However, Reuters reported in October 2010 that the white iPhone was still months away from shipping:

Apple Inc said on Tuesday that it would delay release of its eagerly anticipated white iPhone again, this time until next spring.

The latest version of the popular handset, the iPhone 4, was released in June, but the white model was delayed first to July, then to the end of the year and now to early next year.

Most of the rumors around the white iPhone’s delay focused on the white glass. Even Steve Wozniak would end up chiming in on the issue, but that too got complicated.

On April 28, 2011, the white iPhone 4 finally shipped.

While Apple never disclosed why the white iPhone 4 had such big issues, the fact that the phone was slightly thicker than the black model led many to believe the glass was indeed at the heart of the delay.

In an interview with AllThingsD, Phil Schiller commented on the delayed product:

It’s not as simple as making something white. There’s a lot more that goes into both the material science of it–how it holds up over time…but also in how it all works with the sensors.

Ina Fried goes on to write:

Schiller said that it turned out there were a lot of unexpected interactions between the color of the device and various internal components. Also, like fair-skinned humans, white iPhones need a little more UV protection from the sun.

The fact that the white iPhone 4 is slightly thicker than the black model seems to confirm Schiller’s comments.

Whatever the reason, the white iPhone 4 didn’t enjoy a long life. Six months later, the iPhone 4S was announced, and shipped at launch in both black and white.

So, what does all this mean in terms of the collectibility of the white iPhone 4? I think the fact that it is somewhat rare and has a unique story will help it stay memorable as time marches on. While the overall question of iOS devices becoming future classics has yet to be answered, I think the white iPhone 4 has a great shot at being something special in the future.

If you need me, I’ll be wandering around these archives.

via The Verge