It’s commonly believed that Apple wouldn’t have nearly gone out of business if it had only licensed the Mac operting system to other computer makers, like Microsoft did. But John Sculley explains why that was impossible:
With the invention of the Macintosh in 1984, Steve Jobs commercialized modern graphical computing. But he oversaw another invention from that era that was just as brilliant but no one mentions these days.
There’s a great scene at the end of Bridge on the River Kwai when Alec Guinness’ character assess his career in the British Army and admits it’s been a disappointment. Ex-Apple CEO John Sculley takes a similar look at his stint at the top of Apple, and says the company made a big mistake when it hired him as CEO. It’s the most surprisingly frank admission I’ve ever heard anyone make about their career.
Here’s what he said:
One of the first things Steve Jobs did on his return to Apple was kill the Newton, the brick-sized messagepad that some blame for dragging the company towards bankruptcy. But John Sculley argues that the Newton actually prevented Apple from going out of business.
Here’s why:
When Steve Jobs went to visit Dr. Edwin Land, inventor of the Polaroid camera, the two inventors agreed that products aren’t invented — they are discovered.
Back in the 80s, Apple was modeled not on other PC companies, but Italina auto makers.
John Sculley:
Engineers are far more important than managers at Apple — and designers are at the top of the hierarchy. Even when you look at software, the best designers like Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld, Steve Capps, were called software designers, not software engineers because they were designing in software. It wasn’t just that their code worked. It had to be beautiful code. People would go in and admire it. It’s like a writer. People would look at someone’s style. They would look at their code writing style and they were considered just beautiful geniuses at the way they wrote code or the way they designed hardware.
Apple has a reputation for sweating the details. Even its packaging is beautiful and carefully designed. This all came from Japan, says John Sculley.
We’ve posted before about Karas Kustom’s line of iPhone 4 cases, which are sort of metallic girder structures to reinforce your iPhone 4’s fragile front and back plates while keeping your skin from directly contacting the antenna.
We liked them, but some of you gagpuked in the comments about their look, in which case… maybe Karas Kustom’s new range of colors will help sway you? Their iPhone 4 cases now come in silver, black, nlue, red, green, violet, orange, gold and pink anodize… and if you’re willing to pay a little more (well, more than twice as much, really) you can get your Karas case in copper, brass and phenolic, which Karas brags is “three times heavier than the original aluminum cases and will form a natural patina from normal use.”
“Heavier” and “patina” are two words I never thought a company making iPhone cases would be using braggingly in their press release, but there you go. The aluminum cases are the same price as they ever were at $39, but if you want one of the copper or brass cases, expect to pay $89 for your trouble.
Valve Software is a company which has been heaping much love on Mac gamers over the last few months, and whose much anticipated physics-based first person puzzler Portal 2 will be debuting early next year on both PC and Mac simultaneously. It’s about to get even better: they’ve just announced their next game, Dawn of the Ancients 2, coming sometime in 2011. Even better? It’s coming to the Mac.
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wP-t_XZ5As
If you ever had an Amiga, prepare to squeal: the Bitmap Brothers have just announced that, in association with Tower Studios and Vivid Games, they will be bringing their famous Amiga game Speedball 2 to iOS.
JBL continues to solidly plug away at the take of making affordable, decent sounding iPhone and iPod portable speaker docks with their latest, the On Stage Micro IV and On Stage Micro III, both boasting a new and eyebrow arching design the company affectionately refers to as “the Weave.”
Compact and easily slung about, the new OnStage units feature aluminum-domed transducers to deliver accurate high-frequency response, as well as a slipstream port design that is meant to optimize bass output while doing away with distortion. The On Stage IV comes with four Odyssey transducers, which will pump out vibrant, deep and limpid sound perfect for most environments, while the On Stage Micro III only comes with two.
If you’re on a Mac, you’ve probably noticed that the connectors needed to hook up an external monitor have changed quite a bit in the last couple of years… especially if you’ve got an older Mac and are trying to hook it up to a new monitor.
Kanex to the rescue, who have just released three new adapters to make it easier to hook any Mac you please up to your sexy new display.
Tuesday’s news that San Francisco-based iPhone game creator ngmoco had been snatched up for a rumored $400 million by Japanese game developer DeNA raised eyebrows for the sheer massiveness of the sum involved, but Stuart Dredge of Mobile Entertainment has broken down the numbers.
As it turns out, the rumors were true, to a point: The actual payment for ngmoco is $303 million, a payment made up of $146 million in common stocks, $27 million in DeNA investments and $128 million cash, which is actually a third of DeNA’s total savings. They’re betting hard on this being a good deal.
Additionally, a $100 million bonus will be paid to ngmoco if they keep their sales numbers up to a certain standard, and as part of his analysis, Dredge has given us a look at the App Store numbers of one of the biggest app publishers out there: ngmoco has seen 50 million downloads on the App Store and has twelve million users on their Plus+ gaming network across 119 games.
Ultimately, though, is this a smart acquisition? DeNA seems to think so based on the amount they were willing to spend, but ngmoco only brought in $3.16MM last year against a $10.89MM loss, and their 2008 numbers were even worse. Either ngmoco’s doing gangbusters this year or DeNA’s gambling hard on this deal.
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g73GfmTtUM
Speaking of jailbreaks, check out this trailer for Unlocked, a mock biopic in the style of The Social Network incorporating footage from his various media appearances as well as a movie starring The Wire’s Ziggy that I’d be pleased if you guys would identify for me in the comments.
Brilliant, though I can’t tell if it’s been done by geohot’s fans or people pissed off at his jailbreaking queue-hopping on Sunday.
We’ve only had the iOS 4.1 jailbreak for a few days, but the most publicly vocal (and, let’s face it, beefcakiest) member of the Dev Team, MuscleNerd, has just hit his Twitter feed, letting people know that a new version of the Limera1n and greenp0ison jailbreaks will be coming on Sunday and support iOS 4.2.
Ever since the iPhone was first released, there’s been at least one mouth-breathing dweeb nasally whining that the lack of physical controls completely castrates the device as a serious gaming console. Well, dweeb, three years later and the iPhone’s only the biggest handheld gaming platform ever, but you do raise an interesting point: why hasn’t someone managed to graft a D-Pad onto an iPhone after all this time?
It’s not like people aren’t working on it, of course: the guys doing the iControlPad have been plugging away at the project for years, only to be set back on the eve of release by fears of Apple’s legal team. That appears to have been the last straw for Benjamin Morisse, who has just launched the Controller or Bust project to try to quickly crowdsource the design, production, funding and manufacturing of an iPhone controller.
Coming about one month after the much heralded first release of their client for the iPad, Applidium has just announced that they will be making their popular VLC video client universal as of the next update.
As Apple prepares to show off the next big upgrade of OS X, here’s news that its Mac hardware has cracked 10% PC market share for the first time since the early 1990s.
According to market research firm Gartner, Apple had 10.4% of U.S. PC shipments in Q3, making it the fourth largest computer maker in the U.S.
Gartner didn’t even count iPads, which are a runaway hit. But they had an effect on other PC makers’ numbers. Gartner said Q3 was weak, especially in the U.S., thanks in big part to the iPad.
“Media tablet hype around devices such as the iPad has also affected consumer notebook growth by delaying some PC purchases, especially in the U.S. consumer market. Media tablets don’t replace primary PCs, but they affect PC purchases in many ways,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, in a statement. “At this stage, hype around media tablets has led consumers and the channels to take a ‘wait and see’ approach to buying a new device.”
Gartner’s full release below:
Steve Jobs rebuffed student journalist Chelsea Kate Isaacs dogged pursuit of a comment on campus Macs with “Please leave us alone.”
But the 22-year old has now discovered that not all tech companies are so hard to cover.
Issacs sent in a 140-character statement about why she should be picked in a Microsoft contest to cover the launch of Windows Phone 7 — and won. (All speculation about what that Tweet-sized application said are welcome in the comments).
Cast your mind back to June; remember reading about an app that used the iPhone’s GPS to bulls-eye the user’s location on any map imported into it? Well, the developer, Fog Technologies, is back with Expo Tec, an app that starts with the same basic principle, but narrows its focus to convention-like events and adds some features to help the user through his chaos-laden convention visit.
The developer says it’s pretty easy for event planners to create “event packs” through a web interface designed for the app, which then shunts the pack to users of the app. Besides a GPS-enabled event map, the app provides event schedules, instant event updates, detailed vendor info and general event info.
Expo Tec is $4, and boasts that it’s a “fist-in-the-industry” solution. Yeah, sure, it was probably supposed to read “first-in-the-industry,” but we like the fist version better; “we’re angry as hell (about getting lost) and we’re not going to take (poor convention info) anymore!” Or something.
Another day, another batch of deals for your favorite Apple devices. Today we have two iPad bargains, whether you need to keep your current tablet operating or want to buy a next-to-new unit. First up is a replacement screen for your iPad or iPad 3G for $93.84. Next is a deal on a factory refurbished 16GB Wi-Fi iPad from the Apple Store – just $449. Finally, if you just bought either a 15-inch or a 17-inch MacBook Pro, add two years of warranty coverage with AppleCare.
Along the way, we’ll also check out cases for your iPhone, music devices for your iPod and software for your Mac. As always, details on these and many more items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page after the jump.
I’ve been mesmerized (along with Pope Benedict, apparently) by video feeds showing the 33 miners emerging from the mine in Chile, where they’ve been trapped for 69 days.
Given the media attention and pathos generated by the story, companies have stepped in to try to make re-adjusting to life above ground easier.
What are in these care packs? Wraparound style Oakley sunglasses (at over $250 each) to help them avoid retina damage, a high-calorie liquid diet, donated by NASA, to suppress motion sickness in the miners as they ascend.
Steve Jobs has apparently been touched by the story too: Apple has donated iPods to give to the miners after they emerge — bet they wished they’d had them with extra battery packs during the ordeal.
Other gifts from various companies for the miners and their families include food, clothing, sexy lingerie, wine, toys and children’s Halloween costumes.
Via AP
Apple is sending out invites to a special media event on October 20 to discuss the next version of OS X. Although the invite doesn’t expressly say so, the event must be about 10.7. “Back to the Mac,” the invite says, showing a lion peeking out of the Apple logo.
Surprising right? We thought it was all about iOS in Cupertino these days. But apparently the good old Mac is still alive and kicking and Steve Jobs hasn’t forgotten about it.
It won’t be the first time Apple has given a sneak peek of its operating system long before it shipped. In 2008, Apple previewed Snow Leopard at WWDC about a year before it was released.
With all due respect, this was originally intended to be a gallery post dedicated to discovering the magic of MC Escher, a 99¢ app that brings users hi-res imagery of the artwork that’s decorated millions of dorm rooms and student apartments worldwide over the years. The app incudes two mindbending games as well, and for a buck, it’s got to be good value. MC Escher on the iPhone and iPad — how could you go wrong?
However, digging around for something to say about the Escher app, iFractal surfaced. It’s a free app that allows users to play around with renderings of the Mandelbrot and Julia sets of images derived from mathematical visualization theory. There’s also Fractals, a $2.99 app that seems to offer the same thing, with perhaps a finer manipulative granularity — but in the end, these apps warrant a gallery.
