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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.
Woz, Kottke, Hertzfeld discuss the 'Jobs' movie
John Vink, who was an Apple engineer between 1996 and 2012, managed to grab three of the people portrayed in the 2013 movie Jobs for a long discussion about the movie and Steve Jobs. It's an episode of John Wants Answers with Daniel Kottke, Andy Hertzfeld and Steve Wozniak. Kottke was a friend of Jobs from Reed College who traveled to India with the Apple co-founder, and later became an early Apple employee and Macintosh team member. Hertzfeld wrote much of the original Macintosh operating system software and later went on to co-found three companies, and Wozniak needs no introduction. The team tells some fascinating stories about Apple and Jobs, and it's well worth your time to watch the video for an Apple history lesson. [via The Mac Observer]
Former Apple CEO John Sculley: Tim Cook doing a terrific job
Former Apple CEO John Sculley recently told CNBC Asia that he thinks Tim Cook is doing a fine job. "I think Cook is doing a terrific job. He's not trying to be Steve Jobs; only one person could be Steve Jobs and that was Steve," he said. Sculley was the CEO of Apple from 1983-1993 and Jobs' initial successor, once Jobs was ousted from the company. Many believe that Sculley fired Jobs in 1983, which he denies. "I was never the person who fired Jobs, that was a myth," he said. Today, Sculley has praise for Cook and Apple's current lineup of products: "Steve could make the big creative leaps. What Tim is doing is continuing the Apple philosophy of no compromise and quality of their products and great styling. I think people are giving Apple a bum rap on what is still a great company with great products," he said.
Original iPhone team recalls its stressful development
The New York Times last week provided a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at what it was like working on the original iPhone development team. Much of the article is sourced from Andy Grignon, a former Apple engineer who helped work on the wireless components for the iPhone. Needless to say, working on the first iteration of the iPhone was an exhilarating and harrowing experience. Grignon recalls working seven days a week and relays that he gained about 50 pounds during the two or so years the original iPhone was in development. What's particularly interesting is that the iPhone was still a wonky beta product at the time Steve Jobs introduced it during Macworld 2007. The iPhone could play a section of a song or a video, but it couldn't play an entire clip reliably without crashing. It worked fine if you sent an email and then surfed the web. If you did those things in reverse, however, it might not. Hours of trial and error had helped the iPhone team develop what engineers called "the golden path," a specific set of tasks, performed in a specific way and order, that made the phone look as if it worked. But even when Jobs stayed on the golden path, all manner of last-minute workarounds were required to make the iPhone functional. On announcement day, the software that ran Grignon's radios still had bugs. So, too, did the software that managed the iPhone's memory. And no one knew whether the extra electronics Jobs demanded the demo phones include would make these problems worse. Of course, the iPhone introduction went off without a hitch, and was arguably Jobs' finest product introduction. One piece of previously undisclosed information revealed by Grignon is that the iPhone demoed by Jobs on stage was configured to always display five bars. Then, with Jobs' approval, they preprogrammed the phone's display to always show five bars of signal strength regardless of its true strength. The chances of the radio's crashing during the few minutes that Jobs would use it to make a call were small, but the chances of its crashing at some point during the 90-minute presentation were high. "If the radio crashed and restarted, as we suspected it might, we didn't want people in the audience to see that," Grignon says. "So we just hard-coded it to always show five bars." Overall, the article provides amazing behind-the-scenes tidbits detailing the tremendous amount of work that went into getting the iPhone to market. What's more, the article reminds us that Apple working on a phone in the first place was itself a risky undertaking that was only made possible by teams of engineers working upwards of 80 hours a week, often in compartmentalized and secretive teams. Even then, there was no guarantee that the device would go onto become the iconic and successful device that it did. The full article is rather lengthy, but well worth reading in its entirety for anyone with even a passing interest in Apple history. For a trip down memory lane, check out Jobs' full iPhone introduction below.
Jean-Louis Gassée: Doomsayers will save Apple
Former Apple executive -- and the man who took over Steve Jobs' position of head of Macintosh development when Jobs was forced out of Apple -- Jean-Louis Gassée has written an enlightening op-ed for The Guardian today lamenting over all the "Apple is doomed" commentary from internet and tech pundits we see all the time. In the op-ed, Gassée points out a number of common "Apple is doomed" arguments and then refutes them with quotes pulled from John Gruber and Philip Ellmer-DeWitt, among others. While those bits are entertaining to read, it's the central theme of Gassée's piece that is enlightening about the "Apple is doomed" narrative: "This is something I heard 33 years ago when I signed up to start Apple France in 1980, and I've heard it constantly since then... I recently experienced a small epiphany: I think the never-ending worry about Apple's future is a good thing for the company. Look at what happened to those who were on top and became comfortable with their place under the sun: Palm, BlackBerry, Nokia ... In ancient Rome, victorious generals marched in triumph to the Capitol. Lest the occasion go to the army commander's head, a slave would march behind the victor, murmuring in his ear, memento mori, "remember you're mortal." With that in mind, one can almost appreciate the doomsayers -- well, some of them. They might very well save Apple from becoming inebriated with their prestige and, instead, force the company to remember, two years later and counting, how they won it." Gassée is currently a venture partner at Allegis Capital.
Tim Cook emails Apple employees about anniversary of Jobs' death
Tomorrow, October 5, will be the second anniversary of Steve Jobs' passing. To mark the event, Apple CEO Tim Cook sent a heartfelt email to the company's employees. It reads, in part: "I think of him often and find enormous strength in memories of his friendship, vision and leadership. He left behind a company that only he could have built and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple." The company held a private ceremony to remember the late co-founder two weeks after his passing. In reading Cook's email, it's clear that Steve's memory is still very much alive in Cupertino. 9to5 has published Tim Cook's entire message if you'd like to read it.
Siri's voice, Susan Bennett
Atlanta's Susan Bennett has announced that hers is the original voice of Siri (though Apple won't confirm it). She has been doing voice work since the '70s and can be heard on GPS devices, automated phone systems and even the Delta airport terminals. But it was her gig as Siri's female voice that's added a bit of notoriety. Bennett notes that she first heard her voice coming from an Apple iPhone when a friend contacted her and asked, "Isn't this you?" She didn't have a Siri-capable iPhone at the time, so she visited Apple.com to get her first listen. She also notes that she and the recording team spent four hours a day recording Siri's voice, every day for a month straight. Back then, she didn't know where those particular recordings would end up. Today, Susan says, "[Siri] and I are friends." Also: Happy birthday Siri!
Cupertino Planning Commission approves Apple's 'spaceship' campus
The countdown has started and the new Apple "spaceship" campus in Cupertino, Calif., is one step closer to launch. Last night, the Cupertino Planning Commission approved Apple's plans for the campus. Tuesday evening, the company provided a slick video presentation to the commission and the public featuring lead architect Norman Foster and others who have had leading roles in the design of the circular structure. On October 15, the Cupertino city council will put the new campus to a vote, with a final vote expected on November 19. The project has grown in scope since first being announced by former Apple CEO Steve Jobs in 2011, growing from initially housing 6,000 employees to the current 14,000 employees. The campus is expected to cost close to US$5 billion at completion, much of that going into premium construction materials including six square kilometers of curved glass, stone-infused floors and ceilings made of polished concrete. [via MacRumors]
Apple must pay $3 million in damages for iPod dispute in Japan
The fact that Apple is on the receiving end of more lawsuits than any other company in tech is hardly surprising. In contrast, the fact that patent disputes pertaining to the iPod are still being litigated is somewhat surprising. Kyodo News is reporting that Apple recently found itself on the losing end of a US$3 million judgment for patent infringement. Specifically, the Tokyo District Court found that the click wheel on Apple's now iconic iPod infringes upon patents owned by a man named Norihiko Saito. Engadget adds: Saito's damages come more than five years after he filed the patent lawsuit, during which time he demanded damages of ¥10 billion ($101 million), based partly on the number of iPods Apple had sold during that period. Fortunately for Apple, the final figure was substantially less than Saito's demand and it'll only have to sell a few more iPhones to cover the cost. The judgment comes after a few rounds of settlement negotiations between Saito and Apple fell through.
Childhood home of Steve Jobs may become historical landmark
CNN reported earlier today that Steve Jobs' childhood home in Palo Alto, Calif., may soon become a historical site. Jobs' childhood home, if you recall, houses the garage where he and Woz worked to put together the first Apple I computers. The family home where a young Steve Jobs built the first Apple computer may soon become a protected historical site. The seven-member Los Altos Historical Commission has scheduled a "historic property evaluation" for the single-story, ranch-style house on Monday. If the designation is ultimately approved, then the house on 2066 Crist Drive in Los Altos, California, will have to be preserved. Driving the push for the evaluation, commission member Sapna Marfatia explained the historical significance of the house. Steve Jobs is considered a genius who blended technology and creativity to invent and market a product which dramatically changed six industries -- personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing and digital publishing. His influence is expected to be felt by multiple generations forthcoming. It's hard to argue with that, and we'll certainly keep you posted as to how the attempt to mark the house as a historical landmark proceeds. On a related note, SFBay.ca reports that Jobs' stepmom -- Marilyn Jobs -- still lives in the three-bedroom home. She told the online publication that hundreds of Apple fans stop by the house every week to take their picture by the historic house.
Siri finally says goodbye to the 'Beta' tag
When Siri first launched alongside the iPhone 4S back in October of 2011, the software came draped with an unusual characteristic -- a "Beta" tag. For a company that avoids discussing pre-release hardware and software like the plague, it was highly unusual for Apple to release a piece of software that may simply not have been ready for prime time. Of course, the flip side of that argument is that the very nature of how Siri operates necessitates that it "learn on the go." Put differently, a natural language-based app like Siri demands real-world usage to improve. The training wheels are now coming off. Apple has added a plethora of functionality (not to mention language support) to Siri over the past two years and it's now being promoted to the big leagues. Writing for 9to5Mac, Mark Gurman reports that Apple late last week updated its Siri page and removed all "beta" references in the process. Whereas the old informational page for Siri indicated that the feature was "available in beta" for a number of iOS devices, the new informational page reads as follows: Siri is available on iPhone 4s or later, iPad with Retina display, iPad mini and iPod touch (fifth generation) and requires internet access. Siri may not be available in all languages or in all areas, and features may vary by area. Cellular data charges may apply. Not a mention of "beta" in sight. With iOS 7 set for release on September 18, iOS users can expect a more refined Siri experience. Some new features include a revamped interface, a more natural sound to the Siri voice and, for the first time, an option to choose between a male and female voice.
Conspicuously absent from Apple's media event -- new iPods
Apple's media event on Tuesday was chock-full of important announcements; new iPhone designs, enhanced camera functionality, a fingerprint-authorization sensor and more. What we didn't hear was any mention of Apple's revered iPod. Indeed, this marks just the second time in eight years that Apple hasn't used a special media event in September to introduce a refreshed iPod of any kind. The last time we went through a September without a new iPod to speak of was in 2011, and before that, 2004. That's not to say that Apple didn't make any changes to its iPod lineup this year. On the contrary, Apple introduced a "Space Gray" color option for the iPod touch, nano and shuffle. A minor, if not insignificant change for what was once an extremely profitable and significant anchor for Apple's bottom line. These days, Apple continues to rake in money hand over fist, but it's on the strength of jaw-dropping iPhone and iPad sales. With each passing quarter, iPod sales continue their slow and steady decline, comprising an increasingly marginal percentage of Apple's quarterly revenue. I took a look at Apple's December quarter over the past few years to track the decline of iPod sales during Apple's busiest quarter. Here's what the data looks like. Q4 2012 - 12.7 million units Q4 2011 - 15.4 million units Q4 2010 - 19.45 million units Q4 2009 - 21 million units Q4 2008 - 22.7 million units Driving the point home, iPod related revenue accounted for just 2.2 percent of Apple's quarterly revenue during the March quarter of 2013. Apple's media event yesterday is simply more proof (not that much is needed) that when it comes to the iPod, the writing is on the wall. The once-proud iPod is fast becoming a relic, not even worthy of a mention during a September media event that, in previous years, was laser-focused on all things iPod.
Apple designers discuss their iconic work in web series and e-book
Much has been said about Apple's attention to design. Now FastCoDesign.com has packaged an exhaustive oral history of Apple design in a series of six articles, four of which have been published as of today. The full oral history is also available in a book by Max Chafkin titled Design Crazy, available in the iTunes Store or on Amazon for US$1.99 It's a great look at some of the designers who have worked or still work at the company, and also offers more amusing / infuriating anecdotes about former Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Here are some highlights so far: Cordell Ratzlaff (manager, Mac OS human interface group; now a user experience director at Google): "We'd meet with Steve on Tuesday afternoons. He would come up with the craziest ideas. At one point, Steve wanted to do all of our error messages as haikus. He would leave, and we would all think, What is he smoking?" Don Lindsay (design director, Mac OS user experience group; now VP of user experience at BlackBerry): "Shortly before the unveiling of the iMac, Steve turned his attention to the user experience on the Mac OS X. He hauled the entire software design team into a room, and in typical Steve style, he just declared everybody in the room to be an idiot." Tim Kobe (cofounder, Eight Inc., an architecture firm that worked on display designs at Macworld conferences; now works on the design of the Apple Stores): "For the first two or three years, people didn't talk about the stores; they talked about the experience in the stores. Because the people who worked there were so different, and the way you engaged with technology was so different." Dan Walker (chief talent officer; now an HR consultant): "I'd like to tell you the iPod was because of some deep skunk works R&D operation, but it didn't happen that way. It started because Jon Rubinstein was at the Toshiba factory in Japan. They had these tiny hard drives, and Ruby saw the potential." Matt Rogers (firmware engineer, iPod division; now cofounder at Nest): "Before we launched at Macworld in January 2007, I was sitting in the bathroom using one of the devices, and I was like, this is revolution. I'm checking email in the bathroom. That was the moment when I realized this is a totally different kind of device."
Judge prevents Apple from setting prices with e-book partners (Update: Apple to appeal)
Well Apple's ongoing saga with the DOJ has finally come to an end*. Judge Denise Cote today laid out her punishment for Apple after finding that the company had indeed colluded with a number of publishing companies to collectively raise the price of e-books. Specifically, Cote issued an injunction which effectively precludes Apple from including a "most favored nation clause" in any contract it strikes with publishers for a period of five years. Previously, that "most favored nation clause" in Apple's contracts ensured that no other book retailer would be able to price e-books below Apple. While Apple can't be happy about that, it is undoubtedly breathing a sigh of relief after Cote chose not to follow the DOJ's recommendation that Apple be forced to change the manner in which it operates in-app purchases. The DOJ previously proposed that competitors like Amazon be allowed to include links within their own iOS apps that would whisk users away from the App Store in order to make purchases, thereby avoiding having to pay Apple a 30 percent cut. Indeed, Cote previously noted that she wants Apple's "injunction to rest as lightly as possible on how Apple runs its business." Returning back to Apple's punishment, Cote also ruled that Apple would have to stagger future contract negotiations with the publishers involved. Further, Apple will be subject to a court-appointed external monitor who will keep an eye on Apple's activities to ensure that they don't run afoul of antitrust laws going forward. Apple will also be subject to an annual antitrust compliance audit. *Update: Apple will appeal. Engadget also adds: The final injunction prevents Apple from setting prices with any of its partners for terms of between two and four years, with the exact term depending on which publisher it's working with and how long they originally took to settle with the DoJ -- which means Apple's relationship with Macmillan faces the harshest restriction. The full ruling from Judge Cote can be read in its entirety below: US v. Apple Injunction
