October 2, 1991: As the Cold War officially comes to an end, hell freezes over a second time as Apple and IBM agree to put aside their differences.
Having been bitter rivals for the past decade, Apple and IBM host a press conference at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco to unveil their new partnership. “We want to be a major player in the computer industry,” Apple CEO John Sculley says. “The only way to do that is to work with another major player.”
September 27, 1979: Years before the Macintosh will ship, Steve Jobs and Jef Raskin clash for the first time over the direction of the Macintosh R&D project.
Raskin, the founder of the Macintosh project, wants a computer that’s going to be affordable to everyone. Jobs wants a computer that’s going to be the best, regardless of price.
Guess who won?
September 22, 2014: Apple notches a new sales record with iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, selling a massive 10 million units in the first weekend the handsets go on sale.
The eagerly anticipated phones bring a redesigned form factor that will persist for years, including larger 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch displays that lure phablet fans. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus also boast an A8 chip, improved iSight and FaceTime cameras, and — significantly — Apple Pay.
The Apple Watch has come a long way from the first model. With each update, Apple adds important missing ingredients, like GPS, a faster processor, cellular and an altimeter.
So has Apple Watch finally reached its true potential? Cupertino certainly thinks so. Apple COO Jeff Williams described Series 3 with cellular as “the ultimate expression of Apple Watch” at last week’s special event.
But three big problems still remain (not including the cellular connectivity glitch Apple is scrambling to fix ahead of this Friday’s ship date).
September 10, 1984: Apple ships the Macintosh 512K, the first upgrade to the first-gen Macintosh 128K.
Coming less than eight months after the original Macintosh, the 512K Mac makes no sweeping changes to the computer’s form factor. Instead, the big upgrade is quadrupling the RAM. This leads Apple fans to refer to the computer as the “Fat Mac.”
Apple is in the running to secure movie (and possibly TV) distribution rights for the James Bond franchise, a new report claims.
While Warner Bros., Sony, Universal and Fox are the more likely candidates, Apple and fellow tech giant Amazon have also reportedly thrown their names into the hat. Jony Ive as 007, anyone?
September 4, 1997: The writing is on the wall for Apple’s Newton product line as Steve Jobs tells executives at the newly spun-off company not to bother moving into their new offices.
It’s quite the turnaround for the Newton division. Only months earlier, it was being portrayed as large enough to become its own company.
August 30, 2010: Just two years after opening its virtual doors, the iOS App Store passes a key milestone: one-quarter of a million apps for sale.
It’s a massive demonstration of success for a service Steve Jobs didn’t even initially want to offer.
Tim Cook says Apple bears a “moral responsibility” to help grow the U.S. economy. And he harbors no current plans to run for president of the United States.
Those are two takeaways from an interview Cook gave to The New York Times as part of his trip to Austin, Texas, where he laid out plans to expand Apple’s Swift curriculum to new community colleges.
The latest rumors about the next-generation Apple Watch indicate it might come with LTE cellular data in a slick new design. But Apple Watch already offers data connectivity via iPhone, and Cupertino’s marketing tends to focus on benefits, not features. So how will Apple craft a new product story around built-in cellular?
My guess is it will all be about replacing the need for a very old technology: pockets. Apple Watch Series 3 will move all the contents of our pockets into the cloud.
