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The Lisa is the computer that Apple used to introduce the GUI and the mouse. It was far too expensive, and after getting booted from the development of the machine, Steve Jobs wandered around the company until he took over the Macintosh project from Jeff Raskin.

The new, smaller computer packed Lisa-inspired technology at a much lower price. Since history honors winners, the Mac is the computer people remember.

That’s not to say the Lisa isn’t worth knowing about. I realized recently the machine’s 35th anniversary is coming up, so I spent a bunch of time researching the computer and it’s ground-breaking software for my column on MacStories this month. It’s on the long side, but if you use a Mac or iOS device, this computer is where much of the magic started.

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MiniCast is a new iOS and watchOS app that can send a podcast file from Apple Podcasts, Overcast or Pocket Casts to your Apple Watch. Here’s a bit from its launch blog post:

After many many many hours of prototyping, building proof-of-concepts and experimenting with watchOS’ (and iOS’) limitations, we found a way to achieve a “companion-ness” that felt right. On iOS, all features of MiniCast are contained in a single Action Extension. If we could have shipped an Action Extension without a container app, we probably would have. But that’s not possible on the App Store. So there is a container app which guides you through the first steps, how to enable the extension and how to transfer the first test episode. The primary interaction happens directly in the Action Extension in your favorite podcast app.

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Well, it’s here. You can now order an iMac Pro. As expected, the base $4,999 model includes:

• 3.2 GHz 8-core Xeon W CPU with Turbo Boost to 4.2 GHz)
• 32 GB DDR4 EEC RAM
• Radeon Pro Vega 56 GPU with 8 GB HBM2 Memory
• 1 TB SSD

From there, everything is configurable.

CPU Options:

• 3.2 GHz 8-core with Turbo Boost to 4.2 GHz: Stock
• 3.0 GHz 10-core with Turbo Boost to 4.5 GHz: +$800
• 2.5 GHz 14-core with Turbo Boost to 4.3 Ghz: +$1,600
• 2.3 GHz 18-core with Turbo Boost to 4.3 Ghz: +$2,400

The 14 and 18-core options aren’t shipping until February.

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The Henry Ford, keeper of many of technology’s most important artifacts¹ has recently acquired the first project between Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak:

Created to make free illegal phone calls, Blue Boxes were the first joint business venture between the two innovators, three years before the founding of Apple Computer Inc. in 1976. The new acquisition joins The Henry Ford’s collection, which also includes an original 1976 Apple I Computer. The Blue Box was purchased at Bonhams’ History of Science and Technology Sale.

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Feeling stranded on your Lisa? There’s a way out:

You need the Lisa to Macintosh Migration Kit, available from Sun Remarketing. It converts LisaDraw, LisaWrite, LisaProject, and LisaCalc files to their Macintosh counterparts.

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John Voorhees, in his review of the new update:

Workouts++ has come up with a solution that works surprisingly well given the audio API limitations of watchOS. It has a dedicated tab in the iOS app where you can subscribe to your favorite podcasts, which show up in the ‘All’ section of the tab. If you tap on an episode, it downloads and is transferred to your Apple Watch, a process which can take a while. The advantage of downloaded episodes is that there’s a little button on the Watch’s playback screen to skip ahead and back 30 seconds or one minute at a time depending on the length of the episode.

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This week on Connected:

Myke was surprised by Apple’s Shazam acquisition, Ticci is living that 4K life and Stephen is thinking about an iMac Pro.

We are collecting stories for our year-in-review episode. Please tweet your favorite Apple and tech topics from 2017 with #ConnectedYear and we’ll see them!

My thanks to our sponsors:

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Over on iMore, I’ve written about my justification for an iMac Pro:

I make stuff for a living. While even one of my old PowerBooks is enough computer to blog with, the podcasts and videos I produce follow Parkinson’s Law: “Work expands to fill the time available.” The same is true for computing. No matter how fast my Mac may be, the applications I use will steal every scrap of power available.

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Apple has updated the iMac Pro webpage, indicating that the machine will be for sale on Thursday, December 14.

Some hands-on coverage is surfacing this morning, including this video by MKBHD. In it, he mentions the 18-core option won’t ship until early 2018. There’s also a previously-unannounced 14-core model.

I’m extremely interested in this machine. I’m going to let the dust settle a little bit, but at this point, am really considering picking one up early next year.

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Apple:

You can now make your new apps available for pre-order on the App Store on all Apple Platforms. Customers can see your product page and order your app before it’s released for download. Once your app is released, customers will be notified and it will automatically download to their device. Let your customers know your app is coming by using the pre-order badges in your marketing materials.

This will be great for developers who want to build hype for their new apps. I like it.

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Jen Rae Wang, NASA:

President Donald Trump is sending astronauts back to the Moon.

The president Monday signed at the White House Space Policy Directive 1, a change in national space policy that provides for a U.S.-led, integrated program with private sector partners for a human return to the Moon, followed by missions to Mars and beyond.

Under Obama, NASA had a directive to go to the Red Planet that side-stepped lunar missions. Trump follows both Bushes in wanting to return to the moon. Republican leadership really likes the idea of putting Americans back on the lunar surface, it would seem. Assuming we see another president after Trump,¹ will they change direction yet again?

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Michael Cole at Spaceflight Insider:

Engineers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, are reinventing the wheel in a way that may allow rovers and other future mobile vehicles to traverse the treacherous surface of Mars with greater and longer success. They have developed a woven mesh tire made of a shape-memory alloy, or SMA, that “remembers” its ideal shape and immediately springs back into form after absorbing the bumps and beatings of traversing rocky terrain.

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