August 17, 1944: Larry Ellison, billionaire co-founder and former CEO of Oracle, and Steve Jobs’ best friend, is born.
A later member of the Apple board of directors and the closest thing Jobs had to a confidante, in the 1990s Ellison even considered staging a hostile takeover of Apple to reinstall Jobs as CEO during his time away from the company.
Jobs’ son, Reed, reportedly referred to Ellison as, “our rich friend.”
August 16, 2013: JOBS, the Steve Jobs biopic starring Ashton Kutcher, lands in theaters.
The first of two competing Jobs movies (the second one was the Aaron Sorkin version, based on Walter Isaacson’s best-selling biography), the movie receives polarizing reviews from critics, but fails to make an impact at the box office — where it earns just $6.7 million in its first weekend.
The Apple Watch is known for having one of the best heart-rate sensors among smart watches, but according to former Apple platform architect Bob Messerschmidt, getting a super accurate reading wasn’t an easy task.
Messerschmidt joined Apple in 2010 after Steve Jobs acquired his company and set him to work on the Apple Watch team. In a new interview that reveals some of the design process that went into Apple Watch, Messerschmidt says he originally wanted to put the heart rate sensor in the Apple Watch bands.
Due to Apple’s secrecy, and the company’s marketing-driven need to stay “on message,” interviews with senior execs can often be frustratingly free of revelations. That’s not the case with the recent in-depth interview the Washington Post did with CEO Tim Cook, however.
Here are the 10 most interesting tidbits we learned from Cook’s most revealing chat yet.
In a new wide ranging interview, Apple’s senior VP of internet software and services, Eddy Cue, revealed how the company fixed a lot of mistakes it made with the launch of Apple Maps in 2012 by utilizing data from the hundreds of millions of iPhones around the globe.
Cue and Apple software chief Craig Federighi sat down to talk about the troubles with Apple Maps, the difference between working for Tim Cook and Steve Jobs, Apple’s competition with Facebook and Amazon and learning from failure.
Bob Mansfield has been chosen to head up Apple’s “secret” electric car project three years after stepping down from his executive role, according to a new report.
Mansfield was previously in charge of Mac hardware at Apple and led development of products like the MacBook Air, iMac and iPad.
Apple’s product portfolio has expanded quickly since Tim Cook replaced Steve Jobs as CEO, what with the launch of larger iPhones, Apple Watch and the 12-inch Retina MacBook. But are things getting out of hand?
Some fans might argue Apple has too much on its plate, and that other products — particularly its software — are suffering as a result. Others might argue that Apple needs everything in its current lineup — and more! — to keep up with the competition.
So, who’s right? Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight as we exchange insults and virtual blows over whether Apple desperately needs to streamline its product lineup.
An incredibly rare and unique Apple I computer is set to hit the auction block next week, and it could break the record for the most money ever paid for one of Jobs and Woz’s first computers.
CharityBuzz revealed today that it will auction off an original Apple 1, with 10 percent of the proceeds going to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Because the circuit board on the item up for auction is rare even among the 60 or so surviving Apple 1 computers left in existence, it could pull in more than $1 million.
July 19, 2000: Apple launches its futuristic-looking Power Mac G4 Cube. The clear computer is one of the company’s most jaw-droppingly gorgeous machines, but ultimately becomes one of its biggest disappointments.
Technologically, the G4 Cube was a game-changer. Financially, it was one of Steve Jobs‘ most notable failures.
July 12, 2004: Apple boasts that the iTunes Music Store has sold its 100,000,000th song, and marks the occasion with a generous gift for the lucky downloader.
The song in question is Zero 7’s “Somersault (Dangermouse remix),” purchased by Kevin Britten from Hays, Kansas. The 20-year-old receives a personal phone call from Apple CEO Steve Jobs congratulating him. Britten also gets a 17-inch PowerBook, a 40GB iPod and a gift certificate for a massive 10,000 (!) iTunes songs.
July 7, 1997: Apple CEO Gil Amelio officially steps down from his role, turning the company over to the returning Steve Jobs, who immediately begins making his presence felt.
If you’re looking to pinpoint a turning point when Apple began the transition from the ailing company it was in the first half of the 1990s to the powerhouse it is today, this is it!
July 1, 1976: The Apple 1 goes on sale, becoming the first computer ever sold by the Apple Computer Company.
Arriving the same month Jimmy Carter was nominated for U.S. president, Family Feud debuted on TV, and the United States celebrated the 200th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence, the Apple 1 is only produced in small numbers, and sells for the unusual price of $666.66.
June 27, 1997: The worst financial year in Apple history comes to an end. During the quarter, Apple lost $56 million — effectively bringing an end to then-CEO Gil Amelio‘s 500 days running the company.
The $56 million loss contributes to an overall Apple loss of $1.6 billion during Amelio’s reign. It effectively wipes out every cent of profit Cupertino had earned since fiscal 1991. In other words — ouch!
The Cleveland Cavaliers pulled off one of the most improbable comebacks in NBA history on Sunday when they came back to beat the Golden State Warriors — Apple’s favorite team — in the NBA Finals and Steve Jobs was part of the reason why.
LeBron James had to dig deep for inspiration when the Cavs lost the first two games of the NBA Finals. After spending the weekend watching old Muhammad Ali fight, James reportedly realized his team needed something they could connect to to make them believe the series wasn’t over. So before Game 3, James gathered his teammates and played a portion of Steve Jobs’ infamous Stanford Univeristy commencement address from 2005.
iOS 4 was not only the last version of Apple’s mobile operating system released during Steve Jobs’ life, it was also a significant step up in terms of the software’s productivity features.
Watch Jobs introduce it in the video below, which was recorded on June 21, 2010.
From opera to tattoos, Apple founder Steve Jobs is a subject for artists cross many mediums – even coffee.
Kohei Matsuno, a rising star in the latte art world (yes, that is a thing), added a dollop of foam to Jobs’ legend when he created a portrait of him using espresso, milk and a fine-pointed tool made especially for the most creative baristas.
There was, to put it mildly, a lot that was insanely great about Steve Jobs’ return to Apple. But one thing that always struck me as less than good from an Apple fan’s perspective was that he stopped giving revealing in-depth interviews.
As his ability to command the narrative increased, Apple’s CEO understandably shifted away from playing the media hound he’d been for the first part of his career, where he’d speak with often painful honesty to seemingly any magazine that would have him. One of his last such interviews? The one that appeared in the June 16, 1994, edition of Rolling Stone.
June 13, 1989: Canon Inc. invests $100 million in NeXT Inc., the computer company founded by Steve Jobs after he left Apple.
The massive cash infusion gives Canon a 16.67% stake in NeXT. It also helps the money-losing company find a direction that ultimately leads Jobs back to Cupertino.
Television and cinema have mostly failed in presenting a Steve Jobs story that earns the approval of knowledgeable Apple fans.
Now it’s opera’s turn to make something compelling.
Steve Jobs may not have been holding the reigns at Apple when the company started working on its first car, but the co-founder and former CEO certainly had an interest in futuristic vehicles.
In fact, back in May 2010, Jobs met with the creators of the secret V-Vehicle prototype — a small, lightweight car powered by gas that was designed to sell for just $14,000.
In the music industry, they talk about the “difficult second album.” Fortunately that didn’t hold true when it came to Apple releasing its highly successful second-gen iPhone, which it unveiled for the first time on June 9, 2008.
Adding GPS, 3G data and a higher-quality build than its predecessor, the iPhone 3G was arguably just as revolutionary for what it did on the software side. iOS 2 arrived at the same time, and introduced push email, turn-by-turn navigation and, most significantly of all, an App Store — something Steve Jobs had previously been adamant Apple would’t allow.
Check out the debut of the iPhone 3G below.
SAN FRANCISCO — The iconic glass staircase is gone. The interior is being gutted. The Apple logos have been covered up.
Rest in peace, Apple’s original flagship store in San Francisco, which opened to great fanfare just a dozen years ago. Apple recently opened a crazily detailed store just two blocks away on Union Square, and the old one is being rapidly dismantled.
Cult of Mac cub reporter Lyle Kahney rode his bike downtown to snap a few photos of the old San Francisco Apple Store before it’s completely gone.
June 7, 2010: Steve Jobs introduces the iPhone 4 at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.
“For 2010, we’re going to take the biggest leap since the original iPhone,” Jobs says, addressing a crowd inside Moscone Center. “So today, we’re introducing iPhone 4. Fourth-generation iPhone. Now, this is really hot.”
He then touted the device’s all-new design — and cracked a joke about the sensational leak that revealed the iPhone 4’s look in the preceding months.
“Now, stop me if you’ve already seen this,” Jobs said, to raucous applause, before cannily reclaiming the narrative. “Well, believe me, you ain’t seen it. You’ve gotta see this thing in person. It is one of the most beautiful designs you’ve ever seen.”
When people look back on Steve Jobs’ most audacious moves during his 1997-2011 stint as CEO, launching the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone and iPad are most frequently singled out as rightfully big achievements — as is his decision to open Apple-branded retail outlets and the iTunes Stores.
Back on June 6, 2005, Jobs made another major announcement, however, when he revealed that Macs were switching their CPUs over from PowerPC processors to Intel ones.
Here’s why it mattered.
Former Apple marketing guru Ken Segall helped launched Apple’s string of i-devices, but now he says that the company has lost its way from simplicity lately and there’s no clearer sign than the confusing naming scheme of the iPhone.
In a recent op-ed claiming Apple’s days of simplicity may have died with his buddy Steve Jobs, Segall takes Apple’s product names to tasks for being far too complex for customers to keep track, saying Tim Cook has created products that he finds bewildering.