For a recent Sotheby’s auction to benefit Bono’s Product (RED) charity, Apple’s Jony Ive and Marc Newson designed a handful of unique products, including a red Mac Pro that sold for 977K and rose gold Earpods that sold for 461k.
The winners of the auctioned items haven’t been publicly disclosed, but it appears that Tony Fadell, the creator of the original iPod and Nest thermostat, may have been the highest bidder for both the Mac Pro and Earpods.
As a great man once said, “Can’t we all just get along?”
Sadly when you’re talking about tech companies, and products worth billions of dollars, the answer is a resounding “no”.
We are marking #World AIDS Day by turning Apple’s logo red. Together we can achieve an AIDS free generation. pic.twitter.com/3kdx9UZr9f
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) December 1, 2013
December 1st is World AIDS Day, a movement that raises awareness for the fight against HIV. Apple is honoring the cause by tinting Apple store logos around the world red.
“We are marking #World AIDS Day by turning Apple’s logo red,” tweeted Apple CEO Tim Cook. “Together we can achieve an AIDS free generation.”
Rather than slogging through a lake of reviews to find something you’re just going to put down after 30 minutes, Cult of Mac has once again waded through the iTunes store to compile a list of the best new movies, albums and books to come out this week.
Enjoy!
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost reteam with director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) in this entertaining thrill ride that pits a band of misfits against some sort of cosmic interstellar powers hellbent of global domination. Twenty years after their first epic pub crawl attempt, the “five musketeers” reunite in their hometown to complete the ultimate challenge – one night, five friends, twelve bars – a boozy quest on which only the strongest will survive.
After Simon Pegg’s character cons his Musketeers friends into coming to the pub crawl a bizarre series of encounters with the out-of-this-world locals, they realize their inebriated battle to reach the final pub, The World’s End, may be the least of the troubles. They’ve having the time of their lives, ready to take on the world… but tonight they may have to save it
In the year 2159, the world is divided in two. There are the wealthy folks who reside on a pristine man-made space station called Elysium, and the rest of us, crammed into a giant favela known as Earth. Jodie Foster plays yet another hardass woman in killer suits – Secretary Delacourt – who will stop at nothing to make sure the happy, luxurious lifestyles of the citizens of Elysium stay happy and luxurious. That of course riles the peasants of Earth who are trying to get in to this extra-terrestrial paradise by any means possible. Matt Damon jumps into the lead role of Max who agrees to on a life-threatening mission that will hopefully bring equality to everyone. Viva La DAMON!
Super villain Felonious Gru is back, this time as an adoring father to his adopted girls in the 3D-sequel to the worldwide blockbuster. Here, partnered with secret agent Lucy Wilde (voiced by SNL veteran Kristen Wiig), Gru, along with the wildly unpredictable Minions (surprise: also up for their own film, expected to debut in 2015), must figure out how to keep his cover while also dealing with the everyday duties of a doting father. The film ends with a world made safe and wedding bells.
“Anything That Moves: Renegade Chefs, Fearless Eaters, and the Making of a New American Food Culture”
by Dana Goodyear
A new American cuisine is forming where animals never before considered (or long since forgotten) are emerging as delicacies. What used to scrap is now the centerpiece of a meal.
Dana Goodyear’s anticipated debut, “Anything That Moves,” is a rollicking, fork-fuelled adventure and behind-the-scenes look at the way we eat. Goodyear breaks bread with insect-eaters and blood drinkers as well as chefs who make food out of roadside leaves and wood, and others who serve endangered species and Schedule I drugs—a cast of characters, in other words, who flirt with danger, taboo, and disgust in pursuit of the sublime. Behind them is an intricate network of scavengers, dealers, and pitchmen responsible for introducing the rare and exotic into the marketplace. “Anything That Moves” is a revelatory look into the raucous, strange, fascinatingly complex world of contemporary American food culture, and the places where the extreme is bleeding into the mainstream.
“Dallas 1963”
by Bill Minutaglio & Steven L. Davis
Not a year goes by without 50 new books on John F. Kennedy hitting bookshelves, but following the recent 50th anniversary of his assassination, it’s worthwhile to take a closer look at the socio-political climate around Dallas during the months and weeks leading up to Kennedy’s fateful drive through the city on November 22nd, 1963.
Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis explore the dark forces at work that led many people to warn President Kennedy to avoid Dallas on his fateful trip to Texas. “Dallas 1963” presents a clear, cinematic and revelatory look at the tragedy that transformed America. Countless authors have attempted to explain the assassination, but this is the first book that tries to explain Dallas.
Minutaglio and Davis lead us through intimate glimpses of the Kennedy family and the political workings of the Kennedy White House, to the obsessed men in Dallas responsible for climate of hatred that led many to blame the city for the president’s death. The authors provide an accurate understanding of what happened in the weeks and months leading to John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
“A Reader’s Book of Days: True Tales from the Lives and Works of Writers for Every Day of the Year”
by Tom Nissley
“A Reader’s Book of Days” features bite-size accounts of events in the lives of great authors for every day of the year. One day features Marcel Proust starting on his monumental “In Search of Lost Time” and another has Virginia Woolf scribbling in the margin of her own writing, “Is it nonsense, or is it brilliance?” Fictional events that take place within beloved books are also included, from the birth of Harry Potter’s enemy Draco Malfoy to the date of the infamous blood-soaked prom in Stephen King’s “Carrie.”
It includes the more usual compilations of the days on which famous authors were born and died; plus lists of recommended reading for every month of the year as well as snippets from book reviews as they appeared across literary history; and throughout there are wry illustrations by acclaimed artist Joanna Neborsky.
“A Reader’s Book of Days” is filled with memorable and surprising tales from the lives and works of Martin Amis, Jane Austen, James Baldwin, Roberto Bolaño, the Brontë sisters, Junot Díaz, Philip K. Dick, Charles Dickens, Joan Didion, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Keats, Hilary Mantel, Haruki Murakami, Flannery O’Connor, Orhan Pamuk, George Plimpton, Marilynne Robinson, W. G. Sebald, Dr. Seuss, Zadie Smith, Susan Sontag, Hunter S. Thompson, Leo Tolstoy, David Foster Wallace, and many more with nearly 2,000 stories total.
Various Artists
Music picks this week aren’t all that hot, thanks, but for those looking for some old music in a new form, Universal Music has rounded up some of its hottest artists for a compilation album to help those in the Philippines affected by the recent typhoon.
All proceeds from each sale of “Song for the Philippines” will be donated to the Philippine Red Cross. As the Philippines recovers and rebuilds in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan’s devastation, some of music’s biggest names are brought together on this benefit album. Including songs from The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Beyoncé, Adele, U2, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Lorde, and Imagine Dragons. If you’re looking for a new grip of great singles – minus Linkn Park – and do a little bit of good at the same time, here’s your digital product of the week to purchase.
Various Artists
Jony Ive just wrapped up his big RED auction with Marc Newson and Bono this week that raised over $46 million for Project RED to fight AIDS and Tuberculosis. If you’re like me and couldn’t afford to drop $1,805,000 on Jony’s fancy Leica M8 but need another excuse to contribute to the cause you could pick up the new Dance (RED) Save Lives album.
All proceeds from the sale of the album and singles featured in it are donated to the Global Fund. The sequel to the 2012 compilation of high-energy dance anthems follows the same brilliant model as the first album, bringing together the biggest names in EDM, hip-hop, and pop to build awareness about the global fight against AIDS. Once again, the roster of talent is stunning – everyone from megaclub acts like Calvin Harris, deadmau5, and Major Lazer to up-and-coming artists like Munich electro quintet Claire and sultry L.A. thumping remake of Bob Marley’s “Sun Is Shining.” Exuberant production, big hooks, and anthemic choruses make this an exhilarating ride.
Midnight Memories
Normally I wouldn’t be one to promote teenie bopper girl bands, but the holidays put me in mind of the things I’m grateful for. One of those things is that we’re NOT still part of the U.K., so it seems only fitting to celebrate their latest musical plague export that has enthralled girls across the home of the brave – One Direction.
With the brilliant transition from individual X Factor contestants to charismatic arena-filling heartthrobs, One Direction has emerged as the boy band of the millennium next two or three years. The band’s deliriously catchy mix of glossy pop hocks, classic rock guitar riffs, and pulsing electronic beats made 2012’s “Take Me Home” a global sensation. The quintet of Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, and Louis Tomlinson offered a first taste of the highly anticipated follow album “Midnight Memories” with the aptly titled single, “Best Song Ever” and deliriously catchy, sing-along singles like “Story of My Life.”
While there are plenty of revelations about how Jony Ive’s aesthetic developed in Leander Kahney’s NYT bestselling biography, Apple fans got a unique glimpse into an informative childhood inspiration for Ive this past week thanks to a television appearance on the Charlie Rose show.
Ive and industrial design pal Marc Newson have been making the media rounds recently to promote a charity auction featuring special items customized by the pair.
However, one item in the auction was neither designed nor modified by the pair: a Star Wars Stormtrooper helmet signed by none other than George Lucas.
This week in Cult of Mac Magazine: how some collectors are making serious money with old Macs.
Well, that and how some are discovering that it may be sentimental value that keeps the old machines humming – as it turns out for our publisher, Leander Kahney, who reminisces on the antiquated machines in his life.
And if you dream of finding an Apple 1 or coming across a Twiggy Mac and making a pretty penny, we’ll tell you what happens when those machines roar back to life and come up at auctions.
We’ll also help you figure out what to keep – and toss! – in your collection and showcase some of the coolest ways Apple lovers have repurposed those aging computer carcasses to give them new life.
Our Apple Genius dishes on how to keep your privates protected when you bring your machine in (it’s not as hard as you think) and the best way to let your technician know you’re not a total moron – so you can get your device fixed and get out as soon as possible.
Have you ever looked around your garage or spare bedroom and thought: “There’s enough Apple stuff here to start a museum?”
That’s pretty much what happened to Adam Rosen, who runs the Vintage Mac Museum, a private collection of all working machines, out of his Boston-area home. (Take a peek at his prized pieces in the gallery in this edition.)
The certified Apple consultant and Cult of Mac contributor on all things vintage gave us the skinny on what to do with your burgeoning collection: what to toss, what to hunt for on eBay and what to beg your significant other to let you keep.
Cult of Mac: Since 2009 when the Apple 1s started resurfacing the prices have gone from under $20,000 between private collectors to over $300,000 at Christie’s – any thoughts on whether this is having any effects on the general market for Apple collectibles?
Adam Rosen: Apple 1 prices have been unreal, they’ve sold as high as $670k! This has definitely had an effect on the size of the market for Apple collectibles, expanding it significantly. The effect on value is more variable.
For rare items and prototypes, value has definitely gone up. If you have a prototype clear case Macintosh SE, yeah, that’s gonna interest people. But there were a lot of Apple IIs and Macs manufactured. With so many more people aware of the prices of rare Apple systems the market gets flooded with common models. A Mac Plus today is only worth about $100, even if it’s been in the attic for 20 years.
CoM: A few years back, you said the size of a collection depends on what the person you live with will tolerate – does that still stand? Is there stuff you’ve decided to sell or give away that you were previously holding on to?
AR: That definitely still stands. I’ve been contacted more than once by fellow collectors whose significant other has decided that it is Time for Things to Go, and they are willing to offer me a good deal!
I’m currently single – which lessens pressure from others to shed possessions – but it’s still necessary to purge occasionally in order to reclaim living space.
CoM: You have also said that the original 128K Macintosh is always desirable, does that still stand?
AR: That is still true, and the value has increased. A working 128k Mac is currently worth $750-1,000, one with an original box and packaging can command double that. Vintage Mac prices spiked after Steve Jobs passed away, they’ve come down since but the first model will always be desirable.
CoM: If taking up space with old computers is a problem – what smaller collectibles are worth having?
AR: Funny you should ask that, as my collection has expanded I’ve become more interested in smaller promotional and marketing items. They cost less and look nice next to other equipment. Few are investment worthy yet, but collectively they have some value.
Original Apple marketing schwag is always desirable – posters, pins, buttons. Store display banners are prized, though these can be large. “Think Different” posters are nice but still fairly common – buy a set and hold on to those. Items signed by Steve Jobs are highly valuable; things by Woz not as much, since he has signed so much. Apple clothing, manuals and stationary don’t really command much value.
CoM: What’s the most prized piece in your collection and why? How has that changed over the years?
AR: This has definitely changed over the years. I have a Mac Plus where the back and one side have been replaced with plexiglass to show off an internal hard drive upgrade. This isn’t a translucent prototype, more like a working “cutaway drawing” of the Macintosh. It’s a very unique piece.
I recently bought a 128k Mac with original packaging, I’ve wanted one of those for some time. It’s a must-have for any serious Mac collector.
I’m also a big fan of the Picasso-style artwork. Last year I bought one of those lighted Macintosh logo dealer signs which Apple supplied for the Mac’s introduction. These are gorgeous, I love turning it on and looking at the light reflect inside the engraved glass.
CoM: Any thoughts or advice on finding or buying prototypes? That last Christie’s auction also had that clear cased SE, for example…
AR: eBay is probably the most likely place to find prototypes, it’s the biggest worldwide marketplace. Craigslist can also be a good place to find old tech, especially in the larger cities. Of course, knowing people who once worked at Apple never hurts!
Prototypes of products nobody cared about may not be worth anything. For example, nobody is looking for a developmental Apple III system. But if you can find an unshipped Apple tablet prototype from the 1980s or 90s, grab it.
By the time things show up at Christie’s you know you’re not going to be getting a bargain! I don’t know how much that clear SE actually sold for, I think the last bid I saw was $5,000. That’s still a lot more than a standard SE, which sells in the $100 range.
Price info from auction houses; view sources here.
The very first computer Apple ever made has all the hallmarks of a valuable collectible: scarcity, novelty and impracticality.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak cobbled together about 200 of them in a Los Altos garage in the late 70s. (That garage is now slated to become an historical destination.) The Apple 1 cost $666.66 and the pioneers of home computing who bought it had to add their own case, keyboard, video display and power supply to actually use it.
Those machines seemed to be largely forgotten on the larger resale market until 2009, when the economic squeeze made collectors realize those humble-looking relics could morph into serious cash.
The auction escalation for these machines began slowly, with a tech journalist telling the seller of the first one of the bunch to crop up on eBay that “I don’t think your computer is valuable enough to spark much general media interest,” but that a small following of avid collectors would be enough to start a “bidding war.”
Not exactly: that first machine earned its owner $18,000, about $2,000 over the top sum the journalist thought it might fetch. Not bad, but not enough to pay off your mortgage, like the ones selling for around $300,000 just a few years later.
Very few of these iconic homespun machines work – those that can still crunch the cassette interface are worth a lot more, so are those that come with the collateral, including the original box and typed letters on binder paper from a young man who signed himself Steven Jobs. (Watch Wendell Sander, Apple employee no. 16, fire up his Apple 1 for a memory dump using an iPod in our video.)
Since that first auction, media interest has soared. And so have the prices. Once the large auction houses got involved, the prices levitated to a record $671,000 for a working Apple 1 this year.
“I do feel that some of the recent auction prices attained for the Apple 1 are absurd,” Dag Spicer, senior curator of the Computer History Museum told Cult of Mac. The Mountain View, California home to calculating curios holds over 100,000 items, most of them donated, including two Apple 1s. “The death of Steve Jobs and Apple’s ascendancy as the world’s most valuable company has something to do with it.”
There are a few signs that the trend won’t keep climbing. The New York Times reported that an Apple 1 on the auction block in London failed to meet its $75,000 reserve price and another one sold for $375,000 instead of the $500,000 Christie’s expected. The most recent auction in Germany closed without a single bid — though the Apple 1 fetched about $330,000 after the last gavel sounded.
The friendly atmosphere – and the amateur collector-friendly prices – stopped when the auction houses realized that there was plenty of new money to be had with old circuits.
Still, if you want to dig into garage and estate sales seeking a mother lode in a motherboard, you might want to keep Mike Willegal’s site bookmarked. Willegal tends an online registry that has positively ID’d 48 Apple 1s and warns that reproductions are getting harder to tell from the originals. Willegal says owners may be in good faith but cautions: “If you are in the market for an original Apple 1, be extremely careful about what you are investing in.”
And it pays to watch prices, Computer History Museum’s Spicer says: “I have seen an Apple 1 selling for $75K in the last year… so to that buyer who spent 500,000 Euro on one…well, ooops! Lesson: Do your homework!”
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.
Write it off as a smokescreen to cover sliding profit and margins if you want, but Tim Cook’s belief in the culture of Apple came across loud and clear during Monday’s conference call with analysts and reporters.
Speaking about Apple as a “force for good in the world beyond our products” Cook claimed that, “Whether it’s improving working conditions or the environment, standing up for human rights, helping eliminate AIDS, or reinventing education, Apple is making substantial contributions to society.”