Apple is holding its iPad wrong. The company designs its tablets as if the best way to hold one is in a portrait orientation. But landscape is actually more common, and Apple should make changes to the iPad’s design to reflect that.
March 29, 2012: Apple settles its “Antennagate” controversy by giving affected iPhone 4 owners the chance to claim a whopping $15 payout.
The settlement covers customers who experienced problems with the phone dropping calls due to its cutting-edge design, but were not able to return their handsets (or didn’t want a free bumper from Apple to mitigate against the problem).
March 20, 1997: Apple launches its Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh, a futuristic, special-edition Mac that’s ahead of its time in every way.
Not part of any established Mac line, it brings a look (and a price!) unlike anything else available. And yet the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh promptly bombs. Today, it’s a collector’s piece.
March 19, 1990: The ultra-fast Macintosh IIfx makes its debut, sporting a hefty price tag appropriate for such a speedy machine.
The fastest Macintosh of its day, it boasts a CPU running at a “wicked fast” 40 MHz. It gains an additional speed bump from a pair of Apple-designed, application-specific integrated circuits. Prices start at $9,870 and run up to $12,000 — the equivalent of $19,000 to $22,000 in 2019 terms!
The iMac Pro was sleek and fast and capable and ultimately … uninspired.
That’s Cult of Mac writer Luke Dormehl’s take on Apple’s recently expired pro all-in-one. He serves up a compelling “Dear John” letter to a weird period in Mac history. And it doubles as a lovingly hopeful look at what the future holds.
If you want to peer even deeper into the Cupertino crystal ball, we’ve got a hot mess of new rumors and leaks this week as we speed toward a probable Apple event on March 23. Catch up with this week’s free issue of Cult of Mac Magazine. Download it to enjoy on iPhone or iPad, or get the stories below in your browser.
The iMac Pro is seemingly nearing the end of its natural lifespan — and good riddance to it.
In fairness, the iMac Pro was not a bad computer. It was even, technically, a pretty great one. But it epitomized an era of Mac design that may have been the most uninspired and directionless in Apple history.
Something weird is brewing in Apple land. The company, which for years wasn’t big on embracing its past, has gone retro.
While the innovations — ranging from the first 5G iPhones to the exciting new Macs powered by Apple’s proprietary processors — keep coming, Cupertino is reportedly revisiting some of its past designs for its next generation of products.
And you know what? I like it.
February 22, 2001: The iMac Special Edition, sporting custom Flower Power and Blue Dalmatian designs, puts a wacky face on the computer that saved Apple’s bacon at the turn of the century.
A far cry from the super-serious, aluminum-heavy industrial design that will come to define Apple, these colorfully patterned iMacs are some of the most irreverent computers Cupertino ever dreamed up. (C’mon, when was a real Dalmatian blue?)
Under the consciously tacky exterior hummed a pretty darn great iMac G3, though.
February 20, 2004: Music goes small as the iPod mini arrives in Apple stores.
Released with 4GB of storage and in five colors, the diminutive iPod mini features a new “click wheel” that integrates control buttons into a solid-state, touch-sensitive scroll wheel. Despite its small size, the new music player’s market potential looms large. In fact, the iPod mini soon becomes the fastest-selling iPod yet.
January 27, 2010: After months of rumors and speculation, Steve Jobs publicly shows off the iPad for the first time.
Aside from the name, which some people joke sounds like a female sanitary product, the iPad immediately earns critical acclaim. “The last time there was this much excitement over a tablet, it had some commandments written on it,” The Wall Street Journal quips.
When it goes on sale, the iPad quickly becomes Apple’s fastest-selling new product ever.
