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An incredible 2001 iPod review accurately predicted the iPod's impact on computing
When Steve Jobs first introduced the iPod in October of 2001, the device was greeted with a rather tepid response. Indeed, a number of fan reactions taken from a 2001 MacRumors message board have taken on a life of their own. As an example, there's this: hey - heres an idea Apple - rather than enter the world of gimmicks and toys, why dont you spend a little more time sorting out your pathetically expensive and crap server line up? or are you really aiming to become a glorified consumer gimmicks firm? And then there's this gem: I still can't believe this! All this hype for something so ridiculous! Who cares about an MP3 player? I want something new! I want them to think differently! Why oh why would they do this?! It's so wrong! It's so stupid! Of course, the iPod would go onto become immensely successful and an iconic device in two separate spheres: tech and music. In addition to revolutionizing the music industry, it also lined Apple's bank account with more money than the company had ever generated before. Looking back at how incredible a product the iPod would go on to become, it's easy, and I might add fun, to look back and poke fun at how shortsighted some of the first reactions were to Apple's iPod announcement. Even more interesting, though, is to look back at the rare folks who were smart enough to see the full potential of the iPod and the wisdom behind Apple's decision to launch it. I recently stumbled upon such an example in the form of a November 2, 2001, article from former CNET editor Eliot Van Buskirk. While some early iPod reviews were quick to bemoan the device's price or the fact that Apple was releasing an MP3 player in the first place, Van Buskirk was impressively able to see the tides shifting before his eyes. In an article aptly titled "How the iPod will change computing," Van Buskirk writes: Some of what's revolutionary about the iPod is obvious: lightning-quick FireWire file transfers, small size, and a brilliant design, not to mention its 5GB storage capacity. But a few things make me wonder if the iPod is not the harbinger of a new type of device, unrelated to its function as an MP3 player. The following seemingly random iPod qualities and industry facts lead me to predict that this player is a sign of things to come: The iPod can hold files of any type. It shows up on your desktop as another drive, so you can use it as a portable hard drive. That's an impressively prescient take on the iPod written just seven days after its existence became known to the world. Van Buskirk continues: If you add all of these disparate facts together and look at the whole picture, you'll see where I'm going with this. The iPod (and the Terapin Mine, for that matter) is more than an MP3 player; it's a prototype of the data wallets that we'll all carry around within the decade. These devices will sync info between multiple machines and allow for music and video collections to be carried around everywhere. They won't have a complicated interface, but they will include a variety of ports for connection to keyboards, Webcams, monitors, networks, cell phones, PDAs, stereos, headphones, video goggles, GPS modules -- whatever peripheral you can think of. While smartphones today don't come with a variety of ports, they do connect wirelessly to just about anything you can think of; thermostats, cell networks, cars, security cameras, keyboards and baby monitors, just to name a few. Van Buskirk concludes: If a more secure identification technology were added, the device could even act as some sort of secure digital ID for activities such as boarding planes or filling prescriptions. Touch ID, anyone? We live today in a world where tech writers all too often lack enthusiasm for and insight into the products they supposedly love covering. These days, tech critics are quick to dismiss new products and technologies by blindly focusing on what's missing instead of exploring what new opportunities may have just been created. Van Buskirk, to his great credit, saw that the grand potential of the iPod was far greater than its function as a standalone MP3 player. So bravo to you, Mr. Van Buskirk. As for what Van Buskirk has been up to since, he would later go on to write for Wired before leaving to found Evolver.fm, a site covering music apps.
Where we were when Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone, 7 years ago today
Seven years ago today, Steve Jobs delivered the performance of a lifetime. Brimming with confidence, charisma and a touch of humor, Jobs on January 9, 2007, introduced to the world, for the first time, the iPhone. Since then, Apple has cumulatively sold hundreds of millions of iPhones to users across the globe. It's no understatement to proclaim that the iPhone fundamentally changed the way we use and interact with technology, ushering in a new era of exciting technological innovation in the process. In light of the iPhone anniversary, I asked some of the kind folks here at TUAW a few questions about where they were when Jobs graced the stage at Macworld and said bon voyage to the mobile QWERTY keyboard. 1. Where were you and what were you doing when Steve Jobs first unveiled the iPhone? 2. What were your first impressions of the device? 3. How many iPhones have you owned? Here are their answers. And oh yes, please feel free to add in your own experience/thoughts/memories of the iPhone unveiling in the comments below. Steven Sande 1) I was in the audience at the keynote that day, and let me tell you that the Reality Distortion Field was turned on high that day. 2) After seeing the iPhone close up (there was one in a rotating glass column that crowds were packed around), my first impression was that it seemed so "clean". No keyboard on it, it just looked like a little black slab. At the time, I was using a Palm Treo 650 (it's now in my museum of ancient technology) and it immediately looked like an archeological relic compared to the iPhone. I knew it was going to be special; I had no idea that it was going to revolutionize the smartphone world and spawn a huge industry of app and accessory developers. 3) I've owned eight iPhones. iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, two iPhone 3GS (I lost one of them!), iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPhone 5s Michael Rose 1) Although it was my first Macworld Expo as a member of team TUAW, I could not attend in person. I was looped in via phone with Laurie Duncan, who was standing at the edge of a keynote overflow room and excitedly feeding me details. "They're calling it the iPhone," she said, but it was hard to hear her over the roar of the audience. 2) I was skeptical of the soft keyboard. But as a successor to the world-beating iPod? I knew it would have legs. It wasn't until the debut of the App Store months later that I actually got a sense for how deep the iPhone ecosystem's impact might be. 3) I've carried an original, a 3G, a 4S and now a 5 (all business/company owned). My wife has a 4, and there's an original iPod touch somewhere in the house. Dave Caolo I was glued to my computer, watching and writing for TUAW. All I knew was that I wanted one. It was the first mobile phone I ever owned. Chris Rawson 1. I honestly don't remember what I was doing that day. I remember what I was doing the day it became available, but not announcement day. Probably freezing various body parts off at Kent State. 2. The device Apple announced that day was everything I had always wanted out of a mobile phone. Everything. I refused to ever own anything lesser than what the iPhone promised. I knew I was moving to New Zealand in a year, though, so signing a contract with AT&T (barf) was out of the question. The price tag (once they announced it) put me off anyway; at the time, even with a contract it was more expensive than a PlayStation 3, a device I was certain I'd get more use out of it for my money. (Seven years later, my iPhone is essentially an extension of my brain, and my PS3 has been dead and boxed up in a closet for a year). 3. The iPhone 3G was my first, followed by the iPhone 4, 4S, and my current iPhone 5. Victor Agreda Jr 1. Hunkered down at the Marriott next to Moscone in SF, coordinating our coverage :) (we sent David Chartier to stand in line at 4am IIRC) 2. Having recently started using a fairly nice at the time BlackBerry, I knew this was going to be huge. Even the keyboard! Although my biggest concern was Flash on Safari. 3. I bought my little brother's iPhone (original) from him but had already jumped in with the 3GS. Then a 4, 4S, now a 5 (and I'll be waiting for the 6 now). Kelly Hodgkins 1. In 2007, I had five children under the age of six. Needless to say I was not at Macworld for the unveiling, nor was I watching it from afar. In fact, chances are good that I was changing a diaper and scrubbing crayon off the wall. 2. I only was mildly interested in the iPhone, mainly because AT&T/Cingular did not have coverage in my area. Why get all excited for a phone when you can't even have it? I definitely didn't see then how it would reinvent mobile browsing, kickstart mobile shopping and create the mobile app industry. 3. I have purchased every iPhone since it launched, but the first one I owned was the iPhone 4. I make the distinction because though I purchased the early iPhone models to see what everyone was talking about, I couldn't keep them -- not having coverage is a major hindrance to using them. It was a wonderful day when the iPhone 4 finally landed on Verizon. I've owned every Verizon iPhone model since then. I now have an iPhone 5s. Erica Sadun 1. I was typing. A LOT. Very, very fast. In raw html. I may also have been *squeeing*. 2. I wanted one. Wasn't sure I was going to buy one at that point, but I knew I wanted one. This wasn't my first trip to the cell phone rodeo, and I had a much more affordable plan with Qwest at the time. 3. I have owned a *lot* of iPhones and other iOS devices. Mostly for development and tech writing. Mel Martin 1. Following breathlessly on the web 2. Pretty excited. I had a Windows Phone at the time, which was just awful. (Can you say 'crash'?) The iPhone was a breath of fresh air but seemed pretty limited in a lot of areas. Even my crummy Windows phone had real apps. 2G seemed another mis-step, but everything else was so revolutionary I jumped and holding my nose moved back to AT&T from Verizon. Ilene Hoffman 1. This is the year that Apple Computer, Inc. became Apple, Inc. I was at the keynote under the auspices of another Mac site for which I wrote. Of the keynote, I wrote in a blog post, "The Apple, Inc. Keynote at Macworld Expo left a number of users less than thrilled. While many users salivated at the thought of an Apple phone, it seems that the two-product focused Keynote speech left many users wanting. Snippets of discussions overheard included comments that devout Mac users wanted to see some new Macintosh product announcements." 2. I thought it was a sleek looking device, but was more excited to see Kevin Smith at Macworld. 3. My first and only iPhone is the iPhone 4. It's still in pristine condition and going strong.
Apple's iconic '1984' ad originally premiered on December 31 in Twin Falls, Idaho, not during Super Bowl 18
Apple's iconic "1984" ad is largely heralded as one of the greatest commercial spots ever created. Directed by Ridley Scott, the award-winning ad introduced the world to the Macintosh, promising users a world where they could finally break free from an existence presumably defined by IBM-controlled conformity. While it's commonly assumed that the famous ad aired only once in its entirety -- during the 1984 Super Bowl -- the truth is that the ad originally premiered a few weeks earlier. On December 31, 1983, just a few minutes before midnight to be exact, the ad hit the air in Twin Falls, Idaho, on KMVT-TV. The reason behind the peculiar airtime is that the advertising folks over at Chiat/Day (now TBWA\Chiat\Day) wanted the commercial to be eligible for that year's advertising awards. Tom Frank, the TV operator who initially aired the commercial for KMVT-TV, commented many years later that he "was under explicit orders to make sure it aired and aired correctly." He also added that the tape containing the commercial was immediately mailed back to the ad agency after air. As to why Apple's ad agency chose Twin Falls, Idaho, as the prime spot to premiere the commercial, Frank speculates that it all boils down to geography. Probably because of our remote location and small nighttime audience. Remember, they were trying to qualify for the next awards season. They really didn't want anyone to see it and comment on it. The Super Bowl was to be the official "premiere." While the full 60-second ad only aired twice, it's worth mentioning that a 30-second version of the ad did air across 11 US markets, including Boca Raton, Fla., as the city at the time was home to IBM's PC division. Just a subtle jab from Apple to Big Blue on its home turf. Lastly, Apple commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Mac by remastering the commercial for Macworld 2004. The video is notable insofar as the runner in the revamped commercial is wearing an iPod. Perhaps for the 30th anniversary of the Mac, the woman won't be running at all, but rather walking slowly, head down and fully engrossed in a game of Angry Birds on her iPhone 6.
Getting a 27-year-old Mac Plus onto the web
Released in early 1986 with a whopping 8 MHz processor and 4 MB of RAM, the Mac Plus doesn't have the makings of a machine meant to browse the web. But that didn't stop Jeff Keacher from amping up his trusty 27-year-old Mac Plus in an effort to get it up and running on the modern-day internet. With fascinating and precise detail, Keacher describes the inherent and head-scratching hurdles that arise when trying to modernize a computer that was released during the Reagan administration. In doing so, Keacher takes us down memory lane to a time when the Mac OS was still categorized by a single digit. To accomplish my goal, I needed a web browser, a TCP/IP stack, and some way to connect the Mac to my home network. The web browser was relatively easy to find thanks to guys running long-forgotten FTP sites in the dusty corners of the internet. MacWeb 2.0 was both old enough to run on my Plus and new enough to render HTML and speak HTTP. Sort of. But we'll get to that in a minute. ... Getting the Mac physically hooked to the network was a bigger challenge. The Mac Plus didn't have an Ethernet port, and things like WiFi were years from being invented when it was manufactured. A couple of companies made SCSI-to-Ethernet adapters about 15 years ago, but those were rare and expensive. I thought about the problem for a while, and it occurred to me that I could channel the early days again: I could use the serial port and PPP or SLIP to bridge to the outside world. Like dialup without the modem. With a little bit of coding, along with some software and hardware tinkering, Keacher was impressively able to get his Mac Plus up on the web. You can check out the full details behind his efforts over here. It's well worth checking out, if only to see how contemporary websites render on such an old machine.
33 years ago today, Apple launched its IPO
On December 12, 1980, Apple became a public company when it launched its IPO. Shares were initially priced at US$22, making a number of Apple employees, including a young Steve Jobs, instant millionaires. EDN reports: The shares sold out almost immediately and the IPO generated more capital than any IPO since Ford Motor Company in 1956. Instantly, about 300 millionaires, some 40 of which are Apple employees and investors, are created. That is more millionaires than any company in history had produced at that time. Steve Jobs, the largest shareholder, made $217 million dollars alone. Since then, shares of Apple have seen tremendous highs and lows. Shares of the company slightly eclipsed $700 back in September of 2012, a far cry from the sub-$5 levels the stock was at when Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy in 1997. Accounting for stock splits (there have been three in Apple's history), a lone share of Apple stock purchased in 1980 would today be worth $4,502. If one purchased $1,000 worth of Apple shares 33 years ago, that investment today would be worth $204,000. If one purchased $1,000 worth of Apple shares in June of 1997, when shares were trading as low as $3.56 a share, that investment would today be worth $632,000. One final factoid: Today, the biggest tech IPO of all time belongs to Facebook.
Apple hires radio sales exec Michael Pallad to work on iTunes Radio
AdAge reports that Apple recently hired former Cumulus Media executive Michael Pallad to take charge of ad sales for Apple's fledgling iTunes Radio service. While at Cumulus, Pallad served as the company's VP of sales. Mr. Pallad will report into the iAd organization led by VP and former Yahoo exec Todd Teresi. Mr. Pallad's appointment suggests that Apple plans to make a stronger play at the [US]$1.56 billion US digital radio advertising market, as estimated by eMarketer. One media buyer said the executive should gain traction quickly among agencies. While Apple currently has iTunes Radio ad deals with a host of blue chip companies like McDonalds, Nissan and Pepsi, AdAdge reports that those deals are set to expire at the end of 2014 whereupon Apple will try and pitch iTunes Radio ads to a broader group of companies. And that's where Pallad's expertise, experience and connections will reportedly come into play.
45 years ago today, the computer mouse was unveiled to the world
45 years ago today, an engineer named Douglas Engelbart unveiled to the world, for the first time, the very first computer mouse. The unveiling came in the form of a 90 minute demo at the Fall Joint Computer Conference. Engelbart's presentation is regarded as being so epic and influential that it's now referred to as the "Mother of All Demos." It even has its own dedicated Wikipedia page. Engelbart's first mouse prototype was a bulky wooden contraption with two wheels located on its underside. Engelbart spent about 4-5 years working on his mouse idea before showing it off to the world on December 9, 1968. Engelbart applied for a patent for the device in 1967, though back then it referred to it as an "x-y position indicator." The patent reads in part: An X-Y position indicator control for movement by the hand over any surface to move a cursor over the display on a cathode ray tube, the indicator control generating signals indicating its position to cause a cursor to be displayed on the tube at the corresponding position. The computer mouse, like many other technologies and innovations, may not have been invented by Apple but was nonetheless thrust into the mainstream via an Apple product. Though the first computer to ship with a mouse was a Xerox workstation from 1981, it wasn't until Apple rolled out the Mac in 1984 that the mouse became a mainstream input device for computing. The Lisa, released in early 1983, also had a mouse but was so expensive that it never became a popular computer. While Apple helped the mouse became a household product, the company's mouse offerings haven't always been top notch. For instance, Apple has long clung to the notion of a one-button mouse, thought it eventually introduced right-click functionality when it released the Mighty Mouse in 2005. Speaking of the Mighty Mouse, it featured a scroll wheel that would all too often "stick" on account of dust and/or dirt buildup. Still, it was eons better than the ill-fated and poorly received Hockey Puck mouse Apple introduced alongside the first iMac. Remember this bad boy? Today, iMacs ship with a wireless Magic Mouse that is as sleek as it is functional. I only wish Apple would add the ability to activate Exposé from the mouse itself, a feature that was once possible via the side buttons on the Mighty Mouse.
Jony Ive's first design project at Apple
Thanks to a seemingly endless string of iconic products, Apple design guru Jony Ive's name has long been synonymous with award-winning industrial design. When one thinks of Ive's greatest creations, it's only natural to conjure up products created in the Steve Jobs part-deux era, beginning, of course, with the Bondi Blue iMac. But Ive's career at Apple began all the way back in 1992, nearly a decade before the iPod was unveiled and a good five years before Jobs returned to the fray. Ive's first design project at Apple, interestingly enough, was the Apple MessagePad 110 (internally codenamed Lindy). It's funny to think that Ive has been at Apple for so long that he actually helped design a device that ran the Newton OS. In Leander Kahney's new book, Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products, Kahney details the work and dedication Ive put in when designing the MessagePad 110, the first product Ive was ever tasked with designing as an Apple employee. BusinessInsider reports: Ive added a spring-loaded cover for the Lindy that popped open after you pressed it. He also integrated the pen at the top of the device. The pen telescoped out to fit in the device. "I insisted the lid fold up and over the top, like a stenographer's notepad, which everyone understands ... The stored pen at the top where a stenographer's notepad's spiral binding would be, made the right connection," said Ive. He thought the original Newton was too foreign, so he tried to make the Lindy more relatable. Ive went from his initial design concept to a foam model in two weeks, the fastest anyone at Apple had ever seen, says Kahney. When it was being made, Ive stayed at [a] hotel in Taiwan near Apple's manufacturer to help get the product right. He basically broke his back; spent an enormous amount of time in Taiwan getting that thing just right. It was beautiful. Well executed. It worked really well. It was an amazing product," said Robert Brunner, who led Apple's Industrial Design group at the time. The Ive-designed Newton MessagePad was released in March of 1994 and would go on to win a number of industrial design awards. Of course, when Jobs returned to Apple a few years later, one of the first things he did was axe the Newton. As a point of interest, here's what the packaging for the MessagePad 110 looked like. Apple's packaging sure has come a long way since then. To borrow an over-used phrase from Ive himself, this box is unapolegetically '90s. Lastly, and for any Apple history heads out there, this is how Apple, back in 1994, touted the features of the Newton MessagePad 110: The Newton MessagePad 110 personal digital assistant can help you manage information; stay in touch via fax, e-mail, and paging; and exchange information with your computer. It's the second member of the Newton family, and has more than three times the memory space and twice the battery life of the original Newton MessagePad. It can help you stay in and communicate more effectively. You can send faxes and receive pages and messages. Tap into on-line services or electronic mail. Even exchange business cards via built-in infrared technology. It can help you share and synchronize information with your Windows-based or Macintosh computer. It can help you organize ideas. Take notes. Make sketches. Format and print letters. And you can expand its capabilities with new software titles that help you keep track of your time, find your way around unfamiliar cities, and even deliver better-organized speeches. The Newton MessagePad 110 has powerful handwriting-recognition capabilities for both printed and cursive writing. So it can transform your handwriting into text letter by letter or word by word. It can also leave your notes handwritten should you wish to defer recognition until later. And as time goes by, it learns about you, your handwriting, and the way you work, helping you get more done. It comes with a built-in notepad, to-do list, datebook, and name file to get you started. And when combined with software titles offering new capabilities, the Newton MessagePad is your personal assistant with all the right connections and is likely to become your most treasured possession.
Samsung denied motion to stay damages in retrial against Apple
Judge Lucy Koh has denied Samsung's motion to stay damages it sustained in the retrial against Apple for patent infringement on the company's iPhone, reports FOSS patents. Last week, Koh ruled that Samsung has to pay US$290 million in additional damages to Apple in the infringement case, which lead the South Korean company to quickly file for a stay. As Florian Mueller writes: While the retrial jury, which ultimately awarded Apple $290 million in damages replacing a $410 million of the original verdict (resulting now in total damages, subject to appeal, of $929 million), was deliberating, Samsung brought an emergency motion to stay the whole case pending reexamination of Apple's '915 pinch-to-zoom API patent. Its lawyers untruthfully said that Apple's only procedural option left (in order to salvage the patent) was a notice of appeal, but Apple pointed in its response to what the actual USPTO communication said, which was the opposite, and said Samsung's stalling strategy had "crossed the bounds of reason." For the legally inclined, you can view Koh's order below.
Dropbox CEO: Jobs wanted to 'kill' the service
Dropbox founder and CEO Drew Houston gave an interesting interview at the Dreamforce conference. He spoke of where Dropbox had come from and where it's heading in the future. One interesting anecdote was the story he told of when Steve Jobs contacted him and expressed an interest in buying Dropbox. Houston said Jobs was straight with him, telling him if he couldn't acquire Dropbox, he was going to come after it. As Brian Jackson writes for ITbusiness.ca: "I kind of couldn't believe it when the meeting was getting set up," Houston recalls from the Jobs encounter. Typing the address for 1 Infinite Loop, the Apple headquarters, on his iPhone for directions, he realized the address was already pre-stored on the device. Jobs struck Houston as a straight talker. He told him he returned to Apple because he was frustrated that a company that convinced customers to pay a total of $7 billion a year to use their products could still lose $1 billion. But he was also direct with Houston, telling him that if he couldn't acquire his startup, was going to come after Dropbox. Six months after that meeting, Houston was watching a Jobs keynote and saw him make good on that promise. "He was calling out by name and saying he wants to kill us with iCloud," Houston said. Dropbox has of course survived iCloud and thrived. While iCloud has been beset with a fair amount of troubles, Dropbox's service usually runs very smoothly. The company is planning to go public with its IPO in the coming months.
Apple Campus 2 receives final approval
"Go for it." With those words, Cupertino Mayor Orrin Mahoney gave final approval for the construction of a new Apple campus in his city. Apple will receive its full building permits on November 20 and thereby be free to begin stage one of development. Phase one includes the construction of the soon-to-be-iconic 2.8-million-square-foot, circular main building, a 100,000-square-foot fitness center and a massive 120,000-square-foot auditorium. A parking garage capable of housing about 2,400 vehicles will also be built, but it will be underground and hidden from sight. As part of its construction arrangement, Apple has agreed to a reduction in the sales tax rebate it receives from Cupertino. Now, the city will refund 35 percent of sales taxes it receives from Apple-related purchases, as opposed to last year's 50 percent. This is exciting news for Cook and the gang, who are now free to begin this project in earnest.
Working Apple 1 fails to get a single bid at auction
By now we're all fairly used to hearing about the record-breaking prices original Apple 1 computers are selling for at auction. However, over the weekend, a working Apple 1 computer from a group of the first 50 that were made went up on the block in Germany, and not only did it fail to sell -- it also failed to get a single bid. The opening bid was only set at €180,000 (about US$243,000), which was relatively reasonable considering a previous Apple 1 sold at auction for $671,000. This working Apple 1 was expected to fetch between €250,000 to €400,000 ($338,000 to $540,000). It wasn't all bad for Apple products at the auction however, as an original Twiggy Mac sold for €25,000 (about $34,000), though a Lisa 1 also failed to attract any bids. If anything, the lack of bids for an original working Apple 1 goes to show that the historical-computer market is as finicky as the high-art market.
Apple II DOS source code released by the Computer History Museum
With Apple's blessing, The Computer History Museum and the Digibarn Computer Museum have released the 1978 Apple II DOS source code. The code was originally written in just seven weeks by Paul Laughton, who was a programmer Apple contracted from Shepardson Microsystems. The Apple II DOS was written on punch cards and for his work, Laughton received a sum of $13,000. According to Laughton: "DOS was written on punch cards. I would actually hand-write the code on 80-column punch card sheets. A guy at Shepardson named Mike Peters would take those sheets and punch the cards. The punch cards would then be read into a National Semiconductor IMP-16 and assembled, and a paper tape produced. The paper tape was read into the Apple II by a plug-in card made by Wozniak, and I would proceed to debug it. As the project got further along and the code was all written, and it was debugging and updating, I would mark up a listing and give it to Mike Peters who would then change whatever was necessary and deliver me a paper tape and I'd start again." The Apple II DOS source code is now free for all to download and use (for non-commercial purposes). For a complete history of the source code from creation to its public release, be sure to check out Len Shustek's piece at The Computer History Museum's website.
The iPod first went on sale 12 years ago
Twelve years ago yesterday, on November 10, 2001, Apple began selling the first iPod to the world. The original iPod came with a 5 GB hard drive (minuscule by today's standards), a 160 x 128-pixel monochrome display, a FireWire connection and a mechanical scroll wheel. It was also the only iPod that ever worked with Mac OS 9. Hardly anyone on Wall Street or in the tech press believed the iPod would be a success. Matter of fact, after Apple announced the iPod to the world just a few weeks before it went on sale, The Street's Arne Alsin wrote this little gem: Don't buy Apple's (AAPL) stock. And if you own it, sell it. I know the company has a core following that is loyal, even cultlike, but the broader base of believers has been steadily eroding for years. To wager on this company is to bet that the exodus of users can be staunched and then, implausibly, reversed. It's hard to imagine such a scenario, given Apple's shrinking girth. With less than 5% of the market, the company is no longer an afterthought in PCs -- it's irrelevant. Since that time, Apple's stock is up 5,589 percent -- and it all began with the iPod. Of course, many in the day would have agreed with Alsin's outlook, but one man didn't. Here's Steve Jobs introducing the iPod. It seems like only yesterday...
Tracking OS X's evolution to Mavericks
Remember Cheetah? Or Puma? Or Snow Leopard? If you are a Mac user, you likely have fond memories of these different versions of OS X. If you want to take a walk down memory lane, then you should check out iMore, which has an interesting piece on OS X and its evolution to Mavericks. iMore starts with the radical jump from Mac OS 9 to OS X, when Apple adopted a UNIX foundation for its desktop OS. The company originally released new versions of OS X on a yearly basis, until it hit OS X 10.3 Panther. At this point, Apple moved to a biannual upgrade cycle. Somewhere in the middle of these desktop upgrades, Apple switched from its PowerPC architecture to Intel-based hardware. It was smooth sailing as the company made this transition during those Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard years. When Mountain Lion debuted in 2012, Apple recommitted itself to a yearly upgrade cycle and used its last cat breed for the name of its desktop OS. Now we have OS X 10.9 Mavericks, a name taken from a popular California surfing location. Apple added a lot in this latest version of OS X, improving memory and battery performance as well as bringing OS X and iOS closer together via iCloud. You can read more about the path to OS X Mavericks in the iMore article.
Apple ordered to pay 12 million euros for unpaid iPad copyright fees
Apple has been ordered to pay 12 million euros by a French court because of unpaid taxes on iPad copyrights between March 2012 to December 2012. The judgment is a continuation of the battle between Apple and the society of authors, composers and music publishers (SACEM) in France. SACEM is a French organization that doles out the "copie privée" tax to writers, artists, producers, musicians and other content creators. The "copie privée" is a tax in some European countries on digital devices that can display, copy or transfer copyrighted content. SACEM alleged that Apple has collected the "copie privée" tax, but failed to turn it over to the organization so it could dole the money out to its members that create the content sold on Apple's iPad. SACEM says Apple actually owes more than 30 million euros since 2011, but this most recent ruling was only concerned with the period between March 2012 to December 2012. Apple has not yet issued a comment on the ruling.
Class action against Apple and others in anti-poaching lawsuit given the green light
A class action lawsuit against Apple, Google and a number of other high-profile tech companies has been given the green light by US District Judge Lucy Koh. The lawsuit stems from anti-poaching agreements that Apple and a number of other tech companies entered into from 2005 through 2009. Parties to the agreement all promised not to recruit employees from one another. The companies involved include Apple, Intel, Google, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and Adobe. The suit, originally brought forth by five software engineers in 2011, alleges that the anti-poaching agreements served to lessen their employment opportunities, thereby weakening their negotiating power and ultimately affecting the salaries they were able to command. Counsel for the plaintiffs previously indicated that the anti-poaching agreements may have compressed employee salary levels by 5 to 10 percent. We reported back in April that class action status for the suit was initially denied because the proposed class group encompassed more than 160,000 employees and was deemed to be overly broad. Since then, the plaintiffs made some adjustments and it now appears that the definition of the proposed class group is sufficiently narrow to have warranted a green light from Koh. SFGate reports: Koh denied class-action status for the suit in April but gave the plaintiffs' lawyers another chance to show that the alleged conspiracy had a common, anticompetitive impact on employees in different companies that could be shown in a single trial. The evidence they have since presented meets that test, she said in her ruling this week. "This extensive evidence supports plaintiffs' theory that each technical employee's compensation was linked to those of her peers within and across (all of the) firms," Koh said. She said there was also evidence that the companies engaged in "collusive communications" and "benchmarked their compensation structures" to each other. If the facts of this case sound somewhat familiar, it's because a number of the accused companies, including Apple, settled a suit over the same matter with the US Justice Department back in 2010. A chart highlighting the chronology of the anti-poaching agreements can be seen below. As you can see, Apple got in the game early, striking deals with Pixar, Adobe and Google. Note that the current class action suit only targets Apple, Adobe, Google and Intel as the other three companies already reached confidential settlement agreements with the plaintiffs. It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out given that the plaintiffs appear to have a rather strong case that even includes damning emails from company CEOs. For instance, one message that was brought to light during the US DOJ case involves Steve Jobs emailing then Google CEO Eric Schmidt and asking him to stop trying to recruit an Apple engineer. "I would be very pleased if your recruiting department would stop doing this," the email read. Schmidt subsequently responded to Jobs, informing him that he'd pass the email along and that he would ask the folks responsible to "get this stopped." Another damning email penned by Jobs involves him threatening former Palm CEO Ed Colligan with legal action if he kept recruiting Apple employees. Colligan's response to Jobs reads like a smoking gun. Your proposal that we agree that neither company will hire the other's employees, regardless of the individual's desires, is not only wrong, it is likely illegal. [...] Palm doesn't target other companies -- we look for the best people we can find. l'd hope the same could be said about Apple's practices. However, during the last year or so, as Apple geared up to compete with Palm in the phone space, Apple hired at least 2 percent of Palm's workforce. To put it in perspective, had Palm done the same, we'd have hired 300 folks from Apple. Instead, to my knowledge, we've hired just three. A trial on the matter is scheduled for May 2014.
Apple's Campus 2 will feature a 1,000-seat, all-glass keynote auditorium
Apple Gazette has found out something pretty cool about Apple's Campus 2. In addition to being the future flying saucer-like headquarters of Apple we're all familiar with by now, the campus will actually feature a second, independent building on the grounds entirely dedicated to media and staff events. As Apple Gazette notes: Apple Campus 2 comes with its own detached structure built specifically for media-filled keynote presentations of new products (though I imagine it will be used for plenty of staff events, too). This new theater will seat 1,000, and get this: the auditorium itself will be underground. Visitors will reach the underground theater by entering a large, round lobby with a disc-shaped metal roof and circular walls made entirely of glass. As you can see from these artists' renderings, the resulting structure strongly resembles a slender flying saucer floating in a forest. The lobby also boasts a pair of cylindrical glass elevators, like the one inside New York's 5th Avenue Apple Store. You can see one of them in the rendering at the top; it's on the left side next to a staircase. The 1,000-seat capacity means that the auditorium will surely replace media events at both Apple's Town Hall meeting rooms and the Yerba Buena Center where product launches for iOS devices and Macs take place now. It will also give Apple the added advantage of more secrecy as people will not be able to get up close and photograph banners going up like they do now at the public Yerba Buena Center. But WWDC shouldn't move however, as 1,000 seats is nowhere near enough room to house everyone who attends.
USPTO confirms 'Steve Jobs patent'
Last December, the US Patent and Trademark Office gave Apple a tentative rejection on 20 claims by Apple regarding the "Steve Jobs patent" after it was anonymously challenged by one of Apple's rivals. The patent covers a "touch screen device, method and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics." However, that December 2012 decision was not the end of the story. Foss Patents has picked up on a decision granted last month by the USPTO that upholds the 20 claims covered by US Patent No. 7,479,949. The September 4, 2013, report reaffirms Apple's patents on a wide range of multitouch technology found in devices like the popular iPhone and iPad. You can read the complete report over at Foss Patents. Enjoy.
Cupertino City Council unanimously approves Apple's new campus
Fret not, devotees: the mothership is coming home. Yes, in a vote that shocked no one, the Cupertino City Council unanimously approved Apple's Campus 2 -- otherwise known as the spaceship campus. The vote was held last night after the council opened up the floor to hear arguments for and against the building of Apple's new HQ. As MacRumors notes, this vote of approval isn't quite the last step to getting it built. There's always a chance that someone could petition the council to reconsider its decision, but that would need to be done within the next 10 days. If that doesn't happen, Apple can begin demolishing existing structures on the site. Then on November 19, there will be one final public reading of the agreement between Apple and the City of Cupertino. If there are no last-minute, dramatic oppositions, Apple's full building permits will go into effect the next day.
