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How Apple introduced brushed metal
Remember when "brushed metal" dominated the look of Apple's software products, including OS X? Stephen Hackett at 512 Pixels does, and he's put together a look at its origins. Brushed metal didn't debut with Mac OS X 10.3, as many believe. Instead, Hackett notes, the UI motif first slipped onto our screens with QuickTime 4.0 in 1999: "The feature that's most remembered, of course, is its UI. Gone was the Platinum look that graced almost every single window in MacOS, replaced with a slick UI with embedded buttons, dials and more." Hackett will publish more posts exploring the evolution and eventual demise of brushed metal. We're looking forward to it.
Apple, IGB 'close to settlement' on Brazilian 'iPhone' trademark lawsuit
Apple is close to reaching a settlement for the "iPhone" trademark in Brazil, according to Forbes. The company has been locked in a lawsuit with Brazilian company IGB Electronica, which was granted the Brazilian iPhone trademark in 2007. IGB originally applied for the iPhone trademark in 2000. Since 2007, it has been selling a smartphone by the name of "Iphone" under its G-Gradiente brand. The phone runs the Android OS. Forbes notes that Brazil's largest newspaper, Folha de São Paulo, reported on Saturday that the two companies have entered into a "Pacific agreement," which will see lawsuits between them temporarily halted. Forbes speculates that Apple will pay millions of dollars for the exclusive rights to the iPhone trademark in Brazil, just like it has in other countries around the world.
Early iPhone prototype with 5x7-inch display
Most leaked iPhone prototypes have been run-of-the-mill devices that resemble the iPhone we know and love. This latest leak from Ars Technica reveals the tablet roots of our favorite smartphone. These prototype images originated from 2005 and show an iPhone with a 5 x 7-inch display and a variety of tacked-on ports that were used in testing. As you can see in the image above, it's a Frankenstein-like device that looks more like an iPad than an iPhone. You can read more about the prototype device and peruse a few more images on Ars Technica's website.
The Homebrew Computer Club first met 38 years ago today
Today marks the 38th anniversary of the first Homebrew Computer Club meeting. The Homebrew Computer Club was an eclectic collection of computer enthusiasts who gathered to meet and talk about tech. It was started in 1975 by Gordon French and Fred Moore. The first meeting was held in French's garage in Menlo Park, Calif. Besides talking, hacking and helping each other, the group also wrote a newsletter that was distributed around Silicon Valley. One of the biggest developments to come out of the Homebrew Computer Club was Steve Wozniak's prototype Apple-1, which was shown off to the group in July 1976 and later sold commercially for US$666.66. There are a lot of good articles about this group and those early days of Silicon Valley, but some of my favorites are this recollection from Wozniak, this memoir from Homebrew Computer Club member Bob Lash and this collection from the Computer History Museum. If you have any other favorites of your own, please share them in the comments. [Image from Bob Lash, who scribbled the date and address for the first Homebrew Computer Club meeting on the back of an envelope. ]
Steve Jobs' prank call to Starbucks lives on
On January 4, 2007, I was fortunate enough to be one of the few thousand people in the audience at Moscone West when Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone to the world. Most of us had been standing in line in a chilly pre-dawn San Francisco alley for hours, and between the lack of sleep and a need for warmth, all of us could have used coffee... lots of coffee. So when Jobs demonstrated Google Maps integration by searching for a Starbucks, finding a local store and then calling and ordering 4,000 lattes to go, the entire audience went wild. That prank call will probably go down in history as one of the more famous ones ever made, and Fast Company has tracked down the barista who took the call to get her comments on that groundbreaking latte order. It turns out that the young lady who answered the call -- coincidentally the first public phone call ever made on an iPhone -- Ying Hang "Hannah" Zhang (at right), is still a barista at the same Starbucks. She didn't know that it was Jobs making the prank call until after the event, when Apple fans began visiting the store and mentioning that the Apple CEO had playfully made the mass latte order. To this date, the Starbucks store still receives prank calls from Apple fans who want to relive a bit of history. Zhang and her boss, while being interviewed by Fast Company, did a quick calculation and figured out that those of us in the audience would have waited 48 hours for our lattes. Zhang told Fast Company that she wished she had known it was Jobs on the line, saying "she would've loved to know what he was announcing -- and, like a true Apple fan, when 'the launch date' would be." She also "would've asked him if he'd want to come down to our store so I can make him the perfect drink." You can watch that famous call starting at about 4:50 in the video below.
Matt Groening's pre-Simpsons art for Apple
Matt Groening of The Simpsons fame worked on some offbeat illustrations for Apple in the late '80s. According to Linus Edwards of VintageZen, Groening has never publicly spoken about the ads, but images of the works are still floating around the internet. Edwards has compiled some of these unique ads and discusses their background. We've already seen Groening's college brochure several years ago, but the other one-page ads inspired by Groening's Life in Hell series are a bit more rare. Head over to VintageZen to check them out. [Via The Loop]
Apple abandons Newton trademark
Even though Steve Jobs killed the Newton when he returned to Apple in 1997, the company has maintained the trademark for Apple's first PDA ever since. Well, until earlier this month that is. As noted by PatentlyApple, Apple officially abandoned the Newton trademark on February 12, 2013. The discovery was made when PatentlyApple was searching through trademarks in the Canadian IP office this month. With the abandoning of the Newton trademark, it's likely we will never see another product from Apple called "Newton" again.
Art Levinson discusses the post-Jobs era
Art Levinson summed up his experience as chairman of Apple's board of directors since Steve Jobs passed in one word. "Weird," said Levinson who spoke on Tuesday at Stanford's Graduate School of Business "I'm still not to the point where I walk into that boardroom and don't miss Steve," Levinson added. According to a report in Fortune, Levinson talked about a wide range of topics covering his relationship with Jobs, his role as the chairman of Apple's board and his management style at Genentech. Though there are changes at Apple under Tim Cook, Levinson is optimistic about the company in the long run. "There [are] long-term signs of how a company is doing and whether or not Apple sells 47 or 48 million iPhones -- let somebody else worry about that," he said. You can read more about Levinson's talk in the article on Fortune and view people's reactions on Twitter. [Image from Sten Tamkivi]
Apple pays dividend to shareholders this Valentine's Day
Apple shareholders get an extra special Valentine's Day gift from Apple this week in the form of a dividend from the company, says a report in AppleInsider. This will be the third dividend paid to shareholders and will amount to US$2.65 per share. Shareholders will receive the payment on February 15. Apple announced its dividend program last year and said it would distribute $45 billion to its shareholders over the next three years. This breaks down to $2.5 billion per quarter. Though Apple is paying out cash, the company is raking in cash at a faster rate. In its last quarter, Apple added $16 billion to its cash reserve, which now sits at a healthy $137.1 billion.
Flickr find: Nice vintage Mac software collection
Flickr user colecamp has posted a very nice collection of vintage Apple software, pamphlets, promotional material and more. I'm especially envious of the Matt Groening "Life in Hell" piece. He's also got an original 128k Mac manual in fantastic condition. Nice job, colecamp! We love seeing your stuff, and if you'd like to share, add a photo into our Flickr pool.
Alberta's Show Me Apple Museum a nice collection of Apple history
Apple may not be planning on opening a museum in its new Cupertino headquarters, but that doesn't mean you can't find a local museum to learn more about Apple's illustrious history. One such collection is the Show Me Apple museum located in Alberta, Canada. It was founded by Todd Boschee and is one of the largest personal collections of Apple gear in the North American continent. According to the museum's website, the collection started with a few old Apple computers that were purchased from friends. As the Boschees learned more about vintage Apple products, they got bit by the collecting bug. Their museum now houses a variety of Apple computers like the Apple Lisa 2, unusual devices like the QuickTake camera and a handful of signed memorabilia. You can read more about the collection and browse through a photo gallery on the museum's website. If Canada is too far north for your travels, there's also a museum collection of Apple devices making an appearance in Roswell, Georgia in April.
Disney CEO Bob Iger speaks about his relationship with Steve Jobs
Yesterday at the Hollywood Radio and Television Panel, Producer Brian Grazer lead a Q&A with Disney CEO and current Apple board member Bob Iger. Though the discussion was to center around the television and film industry it quickly turned to Iger's relationship with Steve Jobs. In 2006, Disney purchased Pixar. However, Iger said the deal almost didn't happen because of Steve Jobs' disagreements with previous Disney CEO Michael Eisner. When Iger found out he would become the next CEO of Disney in 2005, the first thing he did was call his family -- and then Steve Jobs. "I don't even remember it being totally premeditated," Iger told Grazer. "I just decided to call my parents and my grown daughters in New York and a couple of good friends and Steve." Iger said he asked Jobs if Apple's and Disney's relationship could be "salvaged" to which Jobs responded that he thought Iger was just "more of the same" as Michael Eisner. According to The Wrap, Iger said Jobs' directness was infectious. That in turn led to Iger himself being candid with Jobs about Disney's desire to improve its animated film division by buying Pixar. The Pixar deal was eventually achieved for $7.4 billion in Disney stock, making Steve Jobs the largest shareholder in the company. As for Jobs and Iger, the current Disney CEO said that he took to calling Jobs on Saturdays to see if a Disney movie he saw the night before had "sucked" -- a phrase Steve Jobs was not afraid to use.
Steve Jobs reportedly threatened Palm over anti-poaching agreement
Documents released in a civil lawsuit against Apple and other high-profile tech companies claim Steve Jobs threatened to sue Palm if it refused to sign an anti-poaching agreement. Defendants in the lawsuit asked the court to keep these documents sealed, but Judge Lucy Koh denied this request, according to Reuters. The civil suit focuses on anti-poaching agreements signed by Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit and Pixar. The agreements would prevent these companies from stealing talented employees from each other. The DOJ eventually stepped in and forced the companies to stop entering into these anticompetitive no solicitation agreements. Former Palm CEO Edward Colligan said in an affidavit that the Jobs tried to coerce Palm into participating in an anti-poaching agreement after the company hired a handful of Apple employees. "As a solution, Mr. Jobs proposed an arrangement between Palm and Apple by which neither company would hire the other's employees, including high-tech employees," Colligan said. "Mr. Jobs also suggested that if Palm did not agree to such an arrangement, Palm could face lawsuits alleging infringement of Apple's many patents." Colligan provided copies of emails sent between himself and Jobs to support this accusation. Tim Cook is slated to give a deposition on this matter, and other high-ranking executives from Google and Intel are also expected to be questioned in the next few weeks. [Via AppleInsider]
Happy birthday, Apple Lisa and the Apple IIe
A happy belated birthday to the Apple Lisa and the Apple IIe! As of January 19th they both turned 30 years old. The two computers pretty much launched Apple and chances are that, without either, none of us would be using our MacBook Airs, iPads or iPhones today. As someone who is barely older than Apple's two 30-somethings, I never had a chance to use either (my first computer was a Commodore 64), but Macworld has a nice history of the two. Both computers were unveiled at Apple's annual shareholder's meeting in 1983. It's crazy to think that at the time the Apple Lisa cost US$9,995, or a whopping $23,000 in today's dollars. For that price you got a lot of plastic, some floppy drives and a 5MHz processor. Compare that to the $499 you pay today for an entry-level iPad with a touchscreen and 1.4GHz A6X processor. For those of you interested in learning even more about the Lisa and Apple IIe be sure to pick up Walter Isaacson's biography on Steve Jobs. Both computers feature heavily in the opening chapters and the history behind each is fascinating.
Tony Fadell discusses inspiring designers
Tony Fadell, the CEO of Nest and former designer on Apple's iPod team, has revealed his list of secrets that inspire designers to make amazing products. Speaking at the Bloomberg Design conference this week, Fadell said it was important for companies to try to create a culture where everyone is striving to tell the same story. Fadell was asked about the differences between Apple and Philips. He said at financially driven companies like Philips, a majority of the products a designer works on will never be shipped -- and the designer knows that. It's customary for new project managers to come in, not understand a product, and scrap it entirely. Fadell says this type of corporate culture doesn't spur designers to do their best work since nine times out of 10 a product would be killed no matter how far along it was. Apple, on the other hand, virtually always ships nine out of 10 products that get to a certain point, according to Fadell. And because those workers were trying to tell the same story with a product -- no matter if they were in design, or programming, or marketing -- a product isn't totally derailed if a new manager comes in. "When you're in a culture that has a point of view, and drives to launch everything it does, you know you're on the hook and you better bring your best game every time," Fadell said. [via GigaOM]
Apple wins Emmy for technology, engineering
Apple was a prominent part of CES even though it didn't have a physical presence at the trade show. Not only were there a large number of iOS and OS X vendors on the show floor, Apple was also awarded a Technology & Engineering Emmy for its iCloud service. As reported by The Loop, the Emmy recognizes "an individual, company or to a scientific or technical organization for developments and/or standardization involved in engineering technologies which either represent an extensive improvement on existing methods or are so innovative in nature that they materially have affected the transmission, recording or reception of television." Apple won the award for its ""Eco-system for Real Time Presentation of TV Content to Mobile Devices without the use of Specialized Television Hardware." It's not entirely clear what ecosystem the award recognizes, but we presume it has to do with iCloud. The Emmy was awarded at an event at the Bellagio Ballroom in Las Vegas. [Via Macgasm]
Tim Cook: cellular iPad to hit China in January
Tim Cook is visiting China this week, and confirmed that the cellular version of Apple's iPad mini will become available in January while talking with Chinese reporters. Cook also noted that the country's approval process prolongs release schedules, and that's something Apple is working to improve. Cook also said that he has plans for 25 Apple Stores in China. There are currently eight up and running on the mainland. During his stay, Tim Cook and Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller visited an authorized Apple reseller, and Cook met with representatives of China Mobile and the country's government. He famously toured a Foxconn plant last March.
Happy 12th birthday, iTunes
Twelve years ago today on January 9, 2001, iTunes 1.0 was released to the world. Arguably it was as important as the iPod to Apple's eventual turnaround and its growth into the largest and most influential tech company on the planet. iTunes 1.0 was released for Mac OS 9.0.4 (9.1 was recommended and 9.0 wouldn't run it) at Macworld Expo that January 9th. Successive releases made iTunes an increasingly important part of our digital lives. Here are some features introduced in major updates: iTunes 2.0 (October 23, 2001) -- iPod support, OS X support iTunes 3.0 (July 17, 2002) -- Smart Playlists, Audible.com audiobooks iTunes 4.0 (April 28, 2003) -- Arguably the most important update ever, the advent of the iTunes Store. At first it only offered music, but eventually TV shows, movies, books and apps would be added. iTunes 4.1 (October 16, 2003) -- iTunes for Windows iTunes 4.9 (July 28th, 2005) -- Podcasts iTunes 7.0 (September 12, 2006) -- Click wheel iPod games iTunes 7.6 (January 15, 2008) -- Movie rentals iTunes 10.0 (September 1, 2010) -- The ill-fated Ping iTunes 11.0 (November 29, 2012) -- Most significant UI redesign in its history Love it or loathe it, iTunes is a necessity for anyone with an iOS device. In 12 years, it's become a household word. Here's to another dozen years, iTunes! (People who want to see a full list of version release features should read the excellent iTunes version history Wikipedia article, where some of the info above was pulled from.)
Apple Safari is 10 years old today
Sniff. Those children of ours get so old so quickly... Today is the 10th birthday of Apple's Safari web browser, so have a little cake or maybe propose a toast to the default Mac and iOS browser. The first version of Safari was released as a public beta exactly 10 years ago today. The app was designed by Apple to replace Microsoft Internet Explorer, which was the default Mac browser up to OS X 10.2. Steve Jobs introduced Safari at Macworld San Francisco on January 7, 2003, announcing that Apple based the browser on the company's internal fork of the KHTML rendering engine -- Webkit. The first official version was released on June 23, 2003. Safari's little brother for iOS made its debut in 2007 along with the iPhone. As of today, Safari 6.0.2 is the latest version of the Mac browser, while Windows users can still run Safari 5 on their devices. Happy Birthday, Safari!
IDEO founder David Kelley talks about Steve Jobs on 60 Minutes
David Kelley is a well-known entrepreneur and design professor at Stanford. The IDEO founder recently sat down and talked to 60 Minutes about his life, his work at IDEO and his time at Stanford. A small part of the segment also discusses his interactions with Steve Jobs and Apple. Kelley's design firm IDEO worked with Apple on the first mouse, the Apple III, the Lisa computer and more. Through his work on these products, Kelley became a personal friend to Jobs. You can jump directly to the Apple parts at the 3:00 and 7:40 marks or listen to the entire 12-minute remarks. [Via MacRumors]
