In the last of our stories from owners of original and classic era Macs, we talk to Nigel Curson. His Mac Plus has seen action as a desktop publishing workhorse, early internet client, and now toy for kids. And it’s still going strong.
If smartphones were judged on component pricing, Apple’s iPhone would best RIM’s BlackBerry Storm. The iPhone 3G costs $174 to make, versus $203 for the Storm offered from Verizon Wireless, according to a new report.
The data from iSuppli suggests carrier Verizon Wireless is greatly subsidizing the $200 touch-screen BlackBerry. AT&T, the exclusive U.S. AT&T has indicated subsidizing the iPhone 3G cost it $450 million in the fourth quarter.
The manufacturing cost difference appears to hinge on component choices, including transmission technology.
Here’s an early Mac movie product placement. In the opening minutes of 1989’s “Back to the Future II,” Marty McFly lands in 2015, where hover cars loom, “Jaws 19” in 3D plays in movie theaters and folks sport layered outfits that only a daltonic could love.
In an antiques store, Michael J. Fox does a double-take over a “vintage” Mac sitting next to other 80s relics like a Dust Buster and a bottle of Perrier.
Found on the excellent Starring the Computer, where James Carter has compiled a few other early Mac movie sightings including “Manhattan Project” and “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home,” both from 1986.
Anyone remember Mac movie appearances before 1986?
As Apple’s App Store grows and more publishers seek recognition, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company is set to highlight ‘premium’ games priced at $19.99, reports said Thursday.
The action is viewed as yet more confirmation traditional game publishers see the Apps Store and the iPhone and iPod touch as new vehicles to reach customers.
Athough the move would allow big-name games to stand-out from the $0.99 apps, the move is being criticized for a form of red-lining. The new ‘premium’ games section would be limited to large publishers, such as Electronic Arts.
Apple faces another lawsuit over iPhone 3G performance. The latest, a class-action lawsuit filed in Northern California, asks a court to award more than $5 million to iPhone 3G buyers.
In the 14-page lawsuit, California resident Jason Medway alleges Apple knew the “iPhone 3G cannot maintain consistent service” and has only offered buyers replacement phones.
The legal action claims iPhone 3G purchasers “have experienced broken promises regarding the phone’s transmission speeds.”
AT&T, after using the iPhone to salvage its fourth-quarter revenue, is in talks with Apple to team up for a 3G data service aimed at MacBook owners, reports said Thursday.
At the heart of the speculation is a brief comment to Fortune by the carrier’s Emerging Devices group president Glenn Lurie. Lurie said he’s talked recently with interim Apple CEO Tim Cook.
“I would very much like to do more business with Apple, and I hope that we do,” Lurie said Wednesday. Although the AT&T executive said he was having similar conversations with other companies, Apple has been an especially profitable partner.
The BBC’s coverage of the Mac’s 25th has in some cases left something to be desired, the nadir being a bizarre video showing a Microsoft employee battling with an original Mac and comparing it against her Windows laptop. Ex-Macworld UK head honcho Simon Jary rightly pulled said video apart on his PC Advisor blog, although he didn’t note how, amusingly, the Mac boots much faster than the PC, despite MSN tech editor Jane Douglas cunningly refraining from giving the Mac its system disk until the PC’s been whirring away for a good few seconds.
Presumably wanting to avoid the same level of oddness, BBC Radio Five Live’s Pods and Blogs scoured the internet, looking for a Mac expert to chat to. Failing that, they ended up with me (Oho! You self-deprecating Brit, you!–Ed.), and I spent a happy 20 minutes talking to the extremely personable Jamillah Knowles about all things Mac.
As is always the case, the interview itself was knifed somewhat (due to it being nearly as long as the entire podcast was supposed to be), but there’s still a reasonable chunk left. Importantly, the Mac doesn’t come off looking too bad, although I do wonder what Jamillah’s co-presenter is going on about regarding how rubbish Macs used to be for getting online. (I’ve never had such a problem.)
Anyway, the podcast is at https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/pods/, and the Mac bit’s at the 14-minute mark.
Although Mark Papermaster begins working for Apple in April, his ties with former employer IBM will continue. The former IBM executive is required to legally declare he hasn’t used insider information as part of his new job heading Apple’s iPhone and iPod design team, reports said Wednesday.
Papermaster, who battled IBM in court to join Apple, must submit declarations that he has not disclosed information he obtained while at IBM. Apple said Tuesday Papermaster will start as the senior vice president of devices hardware engineering April 24.
He must submit the declarations in July and October.
Apple has expanded the refurbished products offered at discounted prices from its online store. The Apple Store now includes newer iPods, as well as refurbished aluminum unibody MacBooks and MacBook Pros.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based company now sells its latest 1GB iPod shuffle for $39. Available colors include silver, green, blue and pink.
The latest 8GB and 16GB iPod nano is being sold refurbished for $129 and $169, respectively.
Here’s an Apple keyboard spray painted snowy, pure white — nothing to stop your eye but if your touch typing skills are still at high-school level, you’re in trouble.
Maker Essell says:
“The design snob in me isn’t particularly happy with Apple’s recent trend of using two colors (black and silver, white and silver) on their stuff.
So. Combine my pedantic taste for minimalism with nerdy touch typing abilities and a cheap can of white spraypaint, and you end up with my keyboard – possibly the most pretentious keyboard in existence.”
What do you think?
Via NotCot
AT&T Wednesday deemed Apple’s iPhone 3G a “success,” reporting adding 1.9 million of Apple’s smart phones before the end of 2008. The news comes as the exclusive U.S. iPhone carrier appears to have sold double the Blackberry handsets of rival Verizon Wireless.
The carrier said it had activated 4.3 million iPhone 3Gs since the handset’s launch.
Despite being a $450 million drag on AT&T earnings, the carrier announced new iPhone subscribers helped it post a 2.4 percent revenue increase for the quarter, reports said.
Bruce Fox has been a Mac user since 1988. He got in touch with the Cult to tell the story behind his beloved Mac Classic.
The DC Public Library’s first-in-the-nation iPhone App giving users access to card catalog and reservation systems almost cries out for an “if they can do it in Washington” joke.
On the other hand, we’re not talking about the Library of Congress.
Still, it’s pretty cool DC residents have access to (indeed, anyone in the world can have it) vital library information, with an iPhone app providing 24 hour a day, on the go access to the Library’s card catalog and reservation systems. One might think any forward-looking City in the nation would want to have one of these in the AppStore in no time.
There’s at least a few jobs in that gig all over the world, right?
FastMac is selling t-shirts with three new retro-inspired designs for $5.25 until midday tomorrow or until supplies are exhausted. This is a Special 1-day only sale, limit 1 per customer of any 25th anniversary design @ $5.25, additional shirts will be priced @ $9.99.
The designs include an homage to Apple’s classic 1984 commercial, and two other designs formed using a “word cloud” that lists every Mac ever made. This is probably one of those “don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it” kind of deals.
CAVEAT EMPTOR: The FastMac store pretty much sucks with respect to navigation and, as of this posting, the special pricing is either not loaded or they have already sold out of the specially priced gear.
UPDATE: I just spoke with FastMac tech support and they are working on getting the pricing into the store as we speak. Check in after 3pm PST.
Via Gizmodo
Japanese photographer Isamu Sanada is no stranger to the enticing realm of Apple mockups, and the whole netbook idea just refuses to die, so it should come as no suprise to see this one, a kind of interesting tri-fold take on the idea.
What do you think? Should Apple spend bandwidth going in such a direction, or is the iPhone/iPod Touch really the end of the story when it comes to an Apple netbook?
Given a recent assessment by pro photographer Rob Galbraith that puts Apple’s MacBook Pro display behind the Lenovo Think Pad and the Dell Mini 9 in color accuracy, Apple may want to take a closer look at what’s already in the line-up before going for new product dollars.
Formerly very appreciative of Apple’s display properties from the perspective of a demanding visual artist, Galbraith says of the new high-end Apple laptop, “in ambient light environments which induce screen reflections, the late-2008 MacBook Pro 15 inch’s glossy screen moves deep into the not acceptable category.”
Via DVICE
Back in the dark mists of Time before the internet, Playboy magazine was among the more popular media vehicles serving up a stimulating cocktail of news, opinion, creative writing, gadget reviews and naked flesh. And over the years, the Playboy Interview gained quite a reputation for getting the most interesting newsmakers and personalities of the day to open up about their lives and philosophies in ways other mainstream publications could never quite match.
The Playboy interview with Steve Jobs was published in the February 1985 issue of the magazine, just a little more than a year after the debut of the Macintosh and a few short months before the Apple CEO would be ousted from the company he helped found. The long piece finds a 29 year-old Jobs at the top of his intellectual game and elicits commentary that, looking back on it now, makes Jobs appear both prescient and consistent in his views and in his dedication to Apple’s success.
Follow after the jump for a few choice comments from the interview and be sure to click through to the full piece from the Playboy archive.
Via Edible Apple
Mark Papermaster, the former IBM executive at the center of a legal battle, will begin work April 24 as Apple’s senior vice president of devices hardware engineering.
In an announcement, Apple said “the litigation between IBM and Mark Papermaster has been resolved.” The company said Papermaster would lead Apple’s iPhone and iPod development efforts.
Papermaster had sued his former employer after IBM had asked a court to halt him joining Apple. The technology company had argued the new employment would violated a prior agreement not to work for a rival.
Have Apple lawyers targeted Palm as a potential target for patent-infringment lawsuits? Concerns sent shares of the Palm Pre handset slipping Tuesday.
Palm shares were down $0.40 as of 1:22 p.m. Eastern. Apple’s stock was up $0.86.
Worries were renewed earlier today on word Apple had been granted a patent covering a “touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics,” according to the Wall Street Journal’s AllThingsD.
Turns out, while the iPhone and iPod Touch are just about the awesomest fart-generating devices ever, the considerable power of Apple’s mobile devices can also be marshaled to more productive uses, such as processing credit card sales.
ProcessAway, a Tustin, CA-based company has submitted to Apple software that will allow busiiness owners to process credit card transactions over any available network connection. The app is designed for use in places such as conventions, street fairs, antique shows, and by business owners performing mobile detailing, on-site consultation or construction, but certainly the list of scenarios is virtually endless where on-the-spot transaction processing could be useful.
ProcessAway software utilizes the Authorize.net gateway (one of the very first Internet payment gateways) with one of the largest customer bases in the card processing industry. “The Authorize.net API fueled development of ProcessAway,” according to spokesman Randy Palermo, allowing “millions of iPhone (and iTouch) users to turn their device into a credit card terminal.”
Authorize.net merchant accounts used with ProcessAway include an option to download transactions into Quickbooks and also a comprehensive Virtual Terminal. This will give business owners the benefit of processing transactions out of the office with ProcessAway as well as in the office through the web-based Virtual Terminal, all with a single account. Even though the Virtual Terminal is available, ProcessAway was designed as a stand-alone comprehensive processing solution that can be used effectively in any environment.
ProcessAway software will be sold through the iTunes AppStore for $19.99. A fully functional free version, called ProcessLite, will also be available, identical to ProcessAway except the charge amount is limited.
The apps were submitted to Apple on January 26 and the developer offers a notification sign-up page should you want to hop on this one as soon as it’s available.
Apple was granted a key patent covering many aspects of the iPhone interface as well as potentially other “multi-touch” handsets. CEO Steve Jobs was listed among the inventors in a 358-page filing awarded last week.
The patent covers the iPhone, gestures and the handset’s OS X operating software.
U.S. Patent No. 7479949 comes saber-rattling between Apple and other touch-screen handset makers. Last week, interim Apple CEO Tim Cook warned unnamed competitors that the Cupertino, Calif.-based company would protect its intellectual property.
Meet Rob Baca. He’s a serious vintage Mac collector, with a total of 75 machines in his possession. He’s also the man who co-directed the documentary Welcome to Macintosh, which counts among its interviewees our very own Leander Kahney.
One of Rob’s computers – bought from a friend on the condition that Rob would give it a loving home – is this original 128k Mac.
What can you tell us about it, Rob?
Here are two iPhone home screens. On the left, my iPhone home screen from a few months ago. Everything normal.
On the right, my iPhone home screen from yesterday. And something weird has happened.
An additional line has been added to the status bar at the top, pushing all the app icons closer together. It displays only the characters “O2” – the name of my British network provider. Which is already displayed, of course, in the main part of the status bar. What, as they say, the frak?
The Apple Mactintosh Division, 1984
The Macintosh Division, 2009
Apple’s Macintosh Division had a 25th Anniversary reunion at the home of Alain Rossman (software evangelist) and Joanna Hoffman (the division’s conscience and first marketing person) to celebrate the unveiling of the Macintosh on January 24, 1984 – and Guy Kawasaki has a bunch of pics up from the event, complete with interesting tidbits and backstory info on the people and events that drove the evolution of Apple’s groundbreaking invention.
He’s also got a couple of interesting videos up, one of which we’ve posted here, showing Steve Jobs unveiling the Mac for the first time.
Time flies when you’re having fun, eh?
MacHEADS – The Movie, the recently-released documentary on the interesting, outspoken community of people who believe Mac is the Holy Grail of personal computing, went up on Amazon VOD Monday, where you can “rent” the film for a week for $2.99 or buy it outright for $9.99.
MacHEADS debuted at Macworld Expo 2009 with over 1000 people attending the premiere. In an interview for BBC director Kobi Shely added, “The movie explores everything from the early days to the current days. Central to the success of the Mac has been the community that has supported Apple through the good times and the bad. That included the years when the company was written off as having lost its way and the ink on one of its many obituaries was all but dry.”
The film also features footage and commentary from multiple Mac evangelists, including Apple Chief Evangelist and savior Guy Kawasaki; the first official employee of Apple inc., Daniel Kottke; publisher of the first Apple newsletter Adam Engst; Chicago Sun-Times tech columnist Andy Ihantko; and a special guest appearance by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
MacHEADS is due to be available on the iTunes store next week.
Delays in shipping Apple’s new iMacs are due mostly to “business reasons,” Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu told clients Monday.
Chief among the reasons are decisions on which chip to use in the iMacs and the timing of Apple’s release of its upcoming Snow Leopard operating system.
“Apple is in the midst of figuring out whether to power the new iMac line with Intel quad-core processors or more high-powered dual-core processors with larger caches,” Wu wrote in his report.