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Apple says Happy Birthday Mac with a video shot solely on iPhones
Apple isn't done celebrating the Macintosh's 30th birthday just yet. To further mark the occasion, the folks in Cupertino dispatched 15 film crews to locales around the globe, armed with 100 iPhones to document just how far Apple has come in 30 years. The end result is 70 hours of footage culled into a minute and a half of gorgeous vistas and enough Apple gadgets to make you (or your wallet) groan.
Stanford archives provide rare glimpse into Apple's early days as mere seedling (video)
Housed in a climate controlled storage facility operated by Stanford University, nearly 600 feet of shelf space is dedicated to preserve documents, videos and memorabilia of Apple and its early days as a young startup. The collection holds rare gems such as interviews with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, both of whom discuss some of the rationale behind Apple's name -- Jobs asserts that it was selected to place his company ahead of Atari in the phone book. Originally intended to furnish Apple's corporate museum, the materials were donated to Stanford in 1997 after Steve Jobs' return to the company, which was most concerned with financial survival at the time. According to the university, more than 20 significant collections have been added to the archives in the subsequent years. The warehouse holds blueprints of the Apple I, user manuals, magazine ads, TV commercials and T-shirts, along with thousands of photographs that document Steve Jobs during his years as CEO of NeXT. Other rarities include a $5,000 loan document -- signed by the two Steve's and the partnership's third co-founder, Ron Wayne -- a spoof of Ghostbusters that starred former CEO John Sculley and other company leaders, who played "Blue Busters" to eliminate IBM, and handwritten sales entries of the very first Apple II's. While the location of the facility is undisclosed, we can only hope that, some day, the collection will be showcased for fanboys, fangirls and the public alike.
My First Apple and why it rocks
I got my first Apple computer about 4 years ago. I have always been into music production, photography, and anything creative, and I had heard from lots of people that Macs worked better then PC's when it came to these things. I ended up looking on Ebay for a few weeks and eventually bought a white 13" MacBook for about $700. I got it about a week later and there was instantly a problem. The person I purchased it from did not tell me that the CD drive did not work. It would not accept any CD I tried to put in. After many attempts to try to contact the seller, I decided to take it in to my local Apple store and see how much it would be to fix. This was my first time ever going into an Apple store and I was very surprised to learn that they had the Apple Geniuses, technicians on site at the store. I brought my computer up to them and showed them the problem I was having with the CD drive. The guy behind the counter typed in the serial number for my Mac and told me it was within its one year Apple Care warranty. The next thing he said I was definitely not expecting. He told me because it was within its warranty they would replace the CD drive for free and it would be ready in about an hour. I was amazed! I've had computers before and never had this kind of service. When I came back to get my computer an hour later not only had they replaced the CD drive but also the keyboard which they said had a crack in it. They also explained to me that they had free workshops in the store throughout the week so that I could learn how to use all of the features on my Mac. Over the next few weeks I ended up making many trips to the Apple store with my Mac and learned a lot from the free workshops. I learned how to use iPhoto to do some photo editing and make albums. I also learned how to make my own website using iWeb. I started bringing my Mac everywhere I went and started realizing that I could be doing so many things at once on my Mac and it never slowed down & never froze up. I used it for school to write papers and take on line classes in addition to using it for my business. I used it with Quickbooks to manage my business and used it to do audio mixing at my house. After spending my time using my MacBook I knew I would never go back to using a PC if I had the choice. Also realizing that Macs were 99 percent virus free gave me peace of mind. I never installed virus protection software and I never got a virus. I recommended many of my friends to mac as well. I told them about my amazing tech support experience and showed them my computer and all it could do. Altogether I am very happy that I purchased my Apple computer. A year later I bought my second Apple computer. It is a Mac Pro desktop computer and I absolutely love it. I know from here on out I will continue to purchase Apple computers and refer all my friends and family to them.
January 1 reflections on my favorite things
January 1 is always a little strange. A quiet time after a night out, a time to take the tree down and deal with all the green light cords that started out so neatly applied and wind up a tangled maze of complexity. Time to get rid of all the holiday wrappings and hope the trash pickup is soon. It is also a time to reflect on all things Apple and how the ecosystem of products has changed our lives in ways we sometimes forget or are barely aware of. This morning I was in a melancholy mood and needed some music to match. I thought a good idea was for some music by Eric Ewazen, [iTunes link] who writes some pretty deep and mystical compositions. I had already bought some of his tracks from the Apple Store. In the old days, waking up on a holiday and craving some music you don't have was a lost cause. Now I can get what is admittedly an obscure album of music, download it to my computer, put it on my Sonos system with a few clicks and sync it to my iPhone for my morning jog. Basking in the early morning Arizona light I loved hearing Ewazen's 'Hymn for the Lost and the Living' while contemplating a new year with new challenges. Apple enabled much of what I was able to do, and we take it for granted, but when you stand back from it all you can see how changed our lives are. Some of my other favorite things from this year include MacSpeech Dictate, software that allows me to reliably dictate my emails, some longer reports, and even some of my TUAW posts. It's truly science fiction in the here and now (or is it 'hear' and now?) and some updates in 2009 made it easier to use and far more accurate.
Apple drops "Computer" from name
Today Apple dropped the word "Computer" from their name. Now, known more simply as "Apple, Inc." to better reflect their steady but relentless move into the wider field of consumer electronics. With a portfolio now spanning software, retail, the on-line distribution of electronic media, home entertainment, digital audio players, cellphones and computers can anyone blame them? You paying attention Samsung, Sony, and Philips... Apple is serious about claiming your turf.
30 years in Apple products: the good, the bad, and the ugly
Has it really been 30 years since two buddies named Steve sold off their prized possessions (Woz's HP calculator and Jobs' VW van) to raise money and launch a company? Has it really been 30 years since the two Steves, tired of selling blue boxes, built the Apple I and began selling it for $666.66? Yes, it has, and if you don't believe it, just compare Jobs' hairlines from '76 and today. And while the company has become known for many things, from its groundbreaking GUI to the iTunes Music Store, we know Apple has always been a hardware company at heart. So here's to you, Apple: the good, the bad and, yes, the ugly from the past 30 years. Happy Birthday.
Apple Computer vs. Apple Corps
Dear Apple Corps:I was a huge Sesame Street fan growing up. My parents didn't let us watch most of the junk of TV but Sesame Street was on the approved list. And so I became quite familiar with the show and and some of its memorable songs. The "pinball" song that counts from 1-12, or Ernie's "Rubber Ducky" song, or my favorite "One of these things is not like the other" which was used to teach small children how to differentiate between things that are similar but different.Seeing as you, the executives at Apple Corps--the music publishing label responsible primarily for The Beatles music--didn't appear to have watched much Sesame Street to learn this valuable elementary skill, I felt it would be useful to help you out a bit.Here's a list of things that have similar names but are not the same:1) General Mills makes breakfast cereal. General Motors makes automobiles.2) Discovery Channel is a television station. Discover Card is a credit card company.3) Cisco makes networking switches. Sysco is a large food distributor.See the pattern, Apple Corps? Just because two things have similar names, doesn't mean they are in competition with each other. I know your fear is that legions of confused consumers might end up wandering aimlessly around the growing number of Apple Stores looking for Beatles music but really, have a little more faith in the intelligence of your customers. After all, I don't hear stories of restaurants suddenly getting deliveries of Catalyst switches instead of potatoes, or people shopping for their Lucky Charms at their local dealership.Instead you give us another lawsuit over the Apple brand name. This has been legally settled several times in the past with Apple Computer paying you many millions of dollars. Give it a rest. Apple Computer has single-handedly saved the music industry from obsolescence and helped it migrate to the digital future. Millions of people are buying songs from the iTunes Music Store, netting a profit for all parties involved (though the benefit to the artist is still questionable), and yet arguably the single most popular band of all time is still missing from the most popular downloadable music store. All for a stupid argument over a name?Sesame Street taught me to understand the differences between similar things, but it also taught me that greed is bad and that underestimating people is a mistake. I would love to see the statistics on the little search box that Apple Computer includes in their iTunes program. How many people do you think are searching the ITMS every day for Beatles music to buy? I'm willing to bet it's a very large number. Every day that Beatles music isn't available for sale on the iTunes Music Store is a day that you lose. Get a clue and release your substantial and popular music library to the iTunes Music Store and stop beating that dead legal horse. Few, if any, of your customers care about the name of your record label or that it's similar to the name of a popular computer company.
