On Tuesday, it was announced that Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, will transition into a new role as an Apple Fellow. This honorary position is one that Apple recognizes for a person’s outstanding contribution to the company in some capacity.

But while many newer Apple fans may not be familiar with the role, it’s one that’s been part of Apple dating back to the 1980s — even if this is the first time in more than 20 years that Apple has inducted someone into the club.

Here’s what you need to know about the other Apple Fellows:

How do you follow a project like the Macintosh? A high-flying Apple spinoff called General Magic tried to answer that question in the early 1990s.

After revolutionizing the personal computer, a team of ambitious ex-Apple engineers set out to build a connected touchscreen mobile device that prefigured the iPhone by 25 years. Their startup, General Magic, became one of the hottest ventures in Silicon Valley — before it all came crashing down.

“That period is one of the most important in computing history,” Sarah Kerruish, co-director of new documentary General Magic, told Cult of Mac. “It’s when handhelds were first realized, and when we saw the first early stages of the internet. General Magic combines these profoundly important threads in technology.”

SAN FRANCISCO — If you want to make a truly killer app, here’s a crucial part of the creative process you shouldn’t overlook: Give your “finished” software to someone, ask them to do something with it, and then shut the hell up.

Observe their interaction with the app, and you’ll learn what you’re doing right — and what you’re doing wrong.

That priceless piece of advice comes from Bill Atkinson, an Apple veteran who coded some of the greatest Mac software of all time, including HyperCard and MacPaint.

I’m a sucker for hearing ex-Apple employees talk about the company’s early days. In particular, it’s fascinating to find out more about the development of innovations like MacPaint and the Mac graphical interface, as well as speculate over who was really responsible for the Macintosh’s creation.

On this week’s episode of the Triangulation podcast, tech broadcaster Leo Laporte interviews Bill Atkinson about his 1978 to 1990 stint at Apple.

Check it out below:

A rare Apple promotional video for the original Macintosh has surfaced online today, courtesy of one of the machine’s creators, Andy Hertzfeld. The one-minute clip, which was produced in 1983 by Chiat-Day, features members of the Macintosh team — including Hertzfeld, Bill Atkinson, Burrell Smith, and Mike Murray — who praise their product for its affordability, reliability, and more.

8-bit pixel art is so last year. These days, all the cool kids and hipsters are into 1-bit photos. That’s right, one-bit. Now there’s an app that will render all your photographs as if they were taken on an old Nintendo Game Boy camera.

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2011 — As one of the key architects of the original Macintosh, programming legend Bill Atkinson is in a good position to make sensible predictions about the future of tomorrow’s computer interfaces.

And he says the future of computers is smartphones with natural language interfaces. We won’t be tapping on our iPhone’s screens, we’ll be talking to them in natural language. And they’ll be talking back.

We’ll wear a tiny video-equipped earpiece that will see, hear and record everything we do. On the other end, in the cloud, will be a virtual personal assistant that will act as a cognitive prosthesis.