Macintosh - page 3

As a pioneer of personal computing, Apple’s first machines changed the way we looked at computers. In the years that followed, the company broke new ground with incredible innovations that its rivals couldn’t have dreamed of.

Things have been a little different over the past decade or so. Apple’s innovations haven’t been quite as forthcoming, and while some would say its rivals are catching up, others would argue that the PC industry as a whole has become somewhat boring.

So, why has personal computing gone stagnant? Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight as we battle it out!

Kitting out your dream geek-room, but don’t know what to put on the walls? Well, have no fear because Retro Patents are here — and they’ve got some unique Apple posters to sell you.

Giving a new lease of life to the original patent illustrations for devices like the iPhone and Macintosh 128K (both of which celebrated their birthdays this month), each $25 print includes the names of its inventors, U.S. Patent & Trademark Office reference number, product name, and the date of the original patent filing.

The iPhone celebrated its tenth anniversary this week, and it’s hard to imagine where Apple would be today without it. It is by far the company’s most successful product, but is it also its most significant to date?

Apple revolutionized a number of product industries with the Mac, iPod, iTunes, and iPad — all of which have been incredibly successful at some point. It also pioneered new concepts with products like the Newton. Were any of these things more important to Apple than iPhone?

Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight as we relive our first experiences with iPhone and discuss Apple’s most significant product releases.

Apple’s Mac team has “lost clout” with the company’s industrial design group and software team, claims a new report, arguing that Cupertino has “alienated Mac loyalists.”

The picture painted by the article is of a division with a lack of clear direction from senior management, departures of key employees, and technical challenges — all conspiring to make the Mac one of Apple’s forgotten divisions.

Whether it was Slack’s CEO last week or SNL this past weekend, it seems the world can’t go more than a few days without paying homage to an iconic piece of Apple marketing.

In a new sketch for Saturday Night Live, none other than Benedict Cumberbatch stepped up to the plate bowl to offer a take on a futuristic toilet ad, which looks suspiciously like Ridley Scott’s “1984” ad for the original Macintosh.

Check it out below.

Now that all the excitement we had for WWDC has died down, it’s probably time we took a break from iOS 10, macOS Sierra, and all the other things you haven’t been able to avoid over the past couple of weeks. So for this week’s Friday Night Fight, we’re looking at Apple’s history.

We’re focusing on which product has been Apple’s most important throughout the years. Was it the Macintosh that changed personal computing? The iPod that put thousands of songs in your pocket? The iPhone that revolutionized mobile devices?

Join us as we battle it out over Apple’s best ever releases — and which one was most significant!

Starting a collection of Apple’s past is relatively easy and often affordable. But once you get started and a pricey, rare object presents itself, will you be able to control yourself?

Here’s a list that will test whether you have the fever and an intense desire to hold personal computing history in your hands. It may also test your fiscal fitness.

Apple’s VP of Marketing Phil Schiller has revealed that pretty much everyone pronounces Apple’s product names completely wrong — and they don’t even know it.

Saying the plural form of “iPhone” seems like a fairly straightforward deal. It’s “iPhones,” right?

Not so, says Schiller, who unleashed a tweetstorm lecture on the official way to tell your friends that you own lots of Apple smartphones.

I’m a sucker for hearing ex-Apple employees talk about the company’s early days. In particular, it’s fascinating to find out more about the development of innovations like MacPaint and the Mac graphical interface, as well as speculate over who was really responsible for the Macintosh’s creation.

On this week’s episode of the Triangulation podcast, tech broadcaster Leo Laporte interviews Bill Atkinson about his 1978 to 1990 stint at Apple.

Check it out below:

In case you didn’t know, Apple turns 40 today. To celebrate, the company is giving a wink to longtime fans with a cheeky nod to its past.

A pirate flag flying outside Apple’s campus at 1 Infinite Loop is a reference to the “Jolly Roger” pirate flag flown by the original Macintosh team when it was developing Apple’s (arguably) most iconic computer back in the heady days of the early ’80s.

Talking to your iPhone is commonplace these days, but getting Siri on your MacBook or iMac might seem like something out of a near-future like the one shown in Her by Spike Jones.

Siri on the desktop might not be as far out as it seems, though, if a new partnership between speech recognition company Sensory and Intel works out.

I’ve gotten so used to the sidebar in OS X that I’m at a loss when it disappears on me when using my Mac.

If you’re the same way, here’s how to find it again, in both the Finder and in any Open or Save dialog boxes.

Everyone associates the Mac’s creation with Steve Jobs (with very good reason), but there is another person without whom we wouldn’t have Apple’s iconic home computers: user interface guru Jef Raskin, who passed away on February 26, 2005 — exactly 11 years ago today.

Raskin not only named the Macintosh — after his favorite type of apple, the McIntosh (even though that spelling was already being used by an audio company) — he also gave the lovable computer some of its lasting personality traits.

Your next MacBook will get more than just a speed bump, with Intel’s powerful new Skylake chips bringing intense performance (and maybe better battery life) to the new laptops we’ll all be drooling over soon.

Find out exactly how these new processors will make new MacBooks rock, plus what you need to know about iOS’ brick-inducing “Error 53,” how to make Siri work even harder for you on your Apple TV, and which are the best ergonomic accessories for your Mac in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine.

Here are the week’s top stories.

Only a handful of products Steve Jobs introduced to the world became flops, but three years after he was kicked out of Apple, the tech visionary unveiled his biggest failure ever: the NeXT computer.

Video footage of Jobs’ first major public appearance since he left Apple in 1985 was lost to the world until researchers for Aaron Sorkin’s movie came across two videotapes of the NeXT’s gala unveiling at San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall in 1988.

Some intrepid makers have put their 3D printers to work making cool, retro-themed Apple Watch stands. Specifically, they’re creating ones shaped like Apple’s early, beloved desktop computers like the 128K.

It makes sense, really. The Apple Watch shows the time in big green letters when it’s on its side in Nightstand Mode, and green was basically the only color those monitors were capable of displaying. So that’s where these creators are taking their inspiration for some sweet places to hang their Apple Watches.

The fifth beta of OS X Yosemite was released to developers a few days a go, with the operating system getting closer to a general release, in today’s video we take a look at the subtle changes Apple has made in the latest beta.

Take a look at the video to see the changes in action.

Subscribe to Cult of Mac TV on YouTube to catch all our latest videos.

Macs are solid machines, but just like their owners they have a tendency to get lethargic as they age. Launching and switching programs takes longer, simple tasks become arduous, and the dreaded beach ball of doom appears more often than it did when your machine was new. The operating system just starts to feel crufty, and can get worse over time. I see these issues in my IT consulting business regularly.

You may be asking, why does this happen? There are many reasons, but some are more common than others. Sometimes your hard disk (or solid-state drive) gets too full and interferes with normal computer operations. Crashes or misbehaving programs can corrupt the disk directory or application cache files. Remnants from old software may still be running behind the scenes, or you don’t have enough RAM to deal with your OS and workflow.

Is there some sort of tune-up you can do to sort it out? Your tech always tells you to just reboot the computer, but there’s got to be more than that. The good news: Yes, there are some things you can do. And, perhaps, adopt some more-efficient computing practices for yourself along the way.

iMacs are an investment, but when year after year newer, more powerful iMacs are released it can make you feel a little disheartened. In this quick and simple Sunday Tips video, Ste Smith will show you how upgrade your iMac’s (2009-2011) ram so it’s faster and more powerful than the day you brought it home.

Crucial Ram Scanner 

The famous Macintosh “Picasso” trademark logo was developed for the introduction of the original 128K Mac back in 1984. A minimalist line drawing reminiscent of the style of Pablo Picasso, this whimsical graphic implied the whole of a computer in a few simple strokes. It was an icon of what was inside the box, and became as famous as the computer it represented.

The logo was designed by Tom Hughes and John Casado, art directors on the Macintosh development team. Originally the logo was to be a different concept by artist Jean-Michel Folon, but before launch it was replaced by the colorful line drawing. It’s been famous ever since, and the style has endured across decades.

Casado recently attended the 30th Anniversary of the Mac celebration, and emailed Cult of Mac to shed some light on the history of this famous graphic. It turns out Picasso was not the primary inspiration for this after all – rather, it was Henri Matisse!

Thirty years ago, Apple Computer introduced Macintosh.

The computing universe was far different back then, and this groundbreaking little computer represented a major change from the status quo. Appealing to creativity and emotion, the Mac introduced the world at large to the Graphical User Interface, the mouse, and a computer that was friendly and non-intimidating. Many of those ideas became new industry paradigms and survive with us to this day.

Computers come and go, it’s a fast changing industry and the pace accelerates every year. But the Mac as a brand has survived 3 decades. This is notable for any product and unheard of for computers! Why, what’s so special? What’s the meaning of the Macintosh turning 30?

Back in 1984, Apple released the first Macintosh home computer, a magnificent piece of vintage computer design that would shape the destiny of the next 25 years of Apple’s corporate history.

What would it have been like to pull a vintage Macintosh 128K out of the box? To first separate the keyboard from its styrofoam lining? To first snap open the hard plastic floppy disc case? To first learn how to use MacWrite using an audio tape?

Over on eBay, one seller has been trying to sell a vintage Macintosh, still in box with complete documentation, equipment and even packaging. In his attempts to sell his prize, he has given us all a treat: a wonderfully thorough and loving unboxing of what it would have been like to open a vintage Macintosh up for the first time.

Since eBay items disappear when the auction ends, we’ve archived these incredible unboxing pics on our servers. Prepare to see a lot of them below.

Old computers tend to lead sedentary lives. Parked in shelves and closets, maybe touched by the occasional dusting; the lucky ones still run old games from time to time. But sometimes one becomes a sensation.

The Twiggy Macintosh is a prototype Macintosh 128k that used a 5.25-inch disk drive. Long thought lost to history, two of these primordial Macinti were recently resurrected and returned to life in full working glory. Their rebirth brought about a rare reunion of the original Macintosh design team. And one of them recently repaid the effort by fetching about $40,000 at an auction.

They are — without a doubt — the oldest working Macs in the world.

Here is the story of their amazing journey.

If you’re a Mac user on the Internet, chances are you’ve come across a few websites where embedded content isn’t displayed correctly. Instead you get an icon or an error message saying Missing Plug-In, often with few additional details about exactly what is missing.

While there’s no single installer which will solve all missing plug-in problems, there are a few common things to start with. If those don’t work you can delve deeper into non-common formats or the forgotten codecs of yesteryear.

Another Apple announcement, another de-emphasis on the Mac brand. It seems that every time Apple opens its corporate pie-hole, the venerable Macintosh brand drops down a notch in importance, and the Mac’s future demise seems more likely.

I was on a recent episode of Leo Laporte’s MacBreak Weekly, and after an hour and 45 minutes on a show with “Mac” in the name, the M-word was scarcely mentioned.

No, the Mac brand isn’t going away soon. I’m sure they’ll be upgraded and improved and sold for years to come. And they’re not failing in the market.

But it’s clear that the Mac will die. Sort of. Here’s what I’m talking about.