John Timmer at Ars Technica has rerun the site’s original review of the first iPhone SDK, way back in 2008. It’s wild to see how basic it seems now.
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Kbase Article of the Week: Common Criteria Tools v1.0⇢
Apple, on a webpage I’ve never seen before, about a standard I didn’t know was a thing until today:
An internationally approved set of security standards which provides a clear and reliable evaluation of the security capabilities of Information Technology products. By providing an independent assessment of products and the ability to meet security standards, Common Criteria gives customers more confidence in the security of Information Technology products and leads to more informed decisions.
The Adorable⇢
The MacBook Adorable is not without its faultsconcessions compromises. However, especially as a secondary machine, I have absolutely fallen in love with it.
If I didn’t have to edit podcasts when I travel, I think I would have opted for the MacBook over the 13-inch MacBook Pro.
Panobook⇢
The Studio Neat guys have launched a Kickstarter for a lovely new notebook:
It all started with an insight about how we use notebooks. Even though we spend 8 hours a day doing digital work on a computer, notebooks are an essential analogue tool. We noticed, while sitting at a computer, it would be great to have a notebook directly in front of us. But that would require a different type of notebook, one with more of a panoramic ratio. So that’s what we made.
iPhone Turns Ten
This week marks a full decade since the original iPhone launched. I wrote about it back in January, on the anniversary of Steve Jobs’ incredible keynote.
There’s already a bunch of great stuff on the web about the anniversary. Throughout the week, I’m going to round up some of it here.
- WSJ: How The iPhone Was Born: Inside Stories of Missteps and Triumphs — Former Apple executives Scott Forstall, Tony Fadell and Greg Christie talk about the time and work leading up to the iPhone’s announcement.
- CBS: It had us at “Hello”: The iPhone turns 10 — A video with the four journalists who received review units of the iPhone back in 2007, coupled with an interview of Bas Ording, who was instrumental in Apple’s early multi-touch work. Don’t miss this chance to re-watch David Pogue’s painful music video of his review.
- Computer History Museum: Putting Your Finger On It: Creating the iPhone — Original iPhone Engineers Nitin Ganatra, Scott Herz, and Hugo Fiennes in Conversation with John Markoff, followed by Scott Forstall.
- Wired: iPhone-creator Tony Fadell: don’t let smartphones threaten your ‘analogue life’ — In this interview, Fadell mentions a multitouch MacBook Pro and talks about the Rokr, which is fun.
- MacStories: iPhone 1.0: The 10th Anniversary Review — John Voorhees reviews the iPhone as if it was 2007.
- The Verge: We compared hardware specs for every iPhone ever made — All the great charts.
- WSJ: Living With the First iPhone … in 2017 — Joanna Stern is braver than most.
- The Prompt #30: The Internet in Your Pocket — Back in 2014, Federico Viticci, Myke Hurley and I talked through the original keynote.
- 512 Pixels: On the Original iPhone’s Launch — A few years ago, I recounted my experience as an Apple retail employee when the iPhone launched.
Oral History of Avie Tevanian⇢
The Computer History Museum has posted a two-hour interview with Avie Tevanian, the principle designer of the Mach kernel, and Apple’s former Chief Software Technology Officer.
Fox’s Coverage of the Senate Health Care Bill⇢
This piece by Jeff Guo on how the new bill was covered on Fox shouldn’t surprise anyone:
Juan Williams, the token liberal, was the only person who brought up substantive details about the new Republican bill. “This is going to drive the premiums and costs for working people who come to the hospital,” he said. “What about the elderly, Jesse? The people we all have sympathy for?”
“They are all going to die, according to the liberals,” Gutfeld mocked.
Balance for Mac⇢
My thanks to Balance for Mac for sponsoring 512 Pixels this week. Balance is a powerful menubar app for your money built by a team from Apple, Stripe and Ethereum.
The ‘Better Care Reconciliation Act’⇢
Senate Republicans have unveiled their version of the House bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act. As usual, Vox’s Sarah Kilff has broken things down very nicely:
The bill asks low- and middle-income Americans to spend significantly more for less coverage.
The bill would roll back the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of the Medicaid program, which currently covers millions of low-income Americans, and include additional cuts to Medicaid. It would rework the individual market so that enrollees get less financial help to purchase less generous health insurance with higher deductibles.
The Tragedy of FireWire⇢
Richard Moss, writing at Ars Technica, has published a lovely article about FireWire. I learned a bunch of stuff reading it.
Kbase Article of the Week: iPod: Doesn’t Display a Podcasts Menu or Has Two Podcasts Menus⇢
The latest versions of iPod software and iTunes add Podcast features to iPod. iPod Updater 2005-6-26 and later adds a Podcast menu to any iPod with a Click Wheel. For iPods without a Click Wheel, iTunes 4.9 and later creates a Podcasts playlist on the iPod (it will do the same on Click Wheel models that haven’t been updated with iPod Updater 2005-6-26 or later).
Ungeniused #27: The Oak Island Mystery⇢
For centuries, treasure hunters have been digging up a tiny island off the coast of Nova Scotia in search of a pirate treasure. The thing is, there is very little evidence of it actually existing.