August 3, 2009: Google CEO Eric Schmidt resigns from Apple’s board of directors amidst increasing competition between the two companies.
The root of the problem? The growing feud over Android’s encroachment on iOS.
August 2, 1993: Apple debuts the MessagePad, the first product in its Newton line of handheld personal digital assistants.
The most unfairly maligned product in Apple history, the Newton is a revolutionary device. It predates Apple’s push toward app-based mobile devices 14 years later. Often dismissed as a failure, the Newton ranks near the top of the list of Apple’s most influential creations.
August 1, 1989: Apple gives the Macintosh SE a storage bump, courtesy of the new SuperDrive. The high-density floppy disks offer an astonishing 1.4MB of storage.
In terms of portable storage, it’s a big step up for most Mac owners. The HD floppy disks compare very favorably to the 400KB Single Side Double Density (SSDD) disks and 800KB Double Side Double Density (DDSD) disks in use at the time.
July 31, 2012: The Daily, the world’s first iPad-only newspaper, lays off almost a third of its staff, signaling the demise of a bold publishing experiment.
The deep cuts — The Daily fired 50 of its 170 employees — affect mainly sports and editorial page staffers, although some production and design employees get the ax, too. The ominous move comes as News Corp places the iPad app “on watch” due to disappointing readership numbers.
July 30, 1979: Apple engineers begin work on the Lisa computer, the company’s first to come with a graphical user interface and mouse.
Incorporating technology Steve Jobs saw at Xerox PARC, the Lisa looks like a surefire hit for Apple. Things don’t turn out exactly like that, however.
July 29, 1993: Apple releases the Macintosh Centris 660av, a computer packed with innovative audiovisual features. These include an AppleVision monitor with microphone and speakers, and a port that can work as a modem with a telecom adapter. It also comes with the first Apple software to recognize and synthesize speech.
At the relatively low price of $2,489, this was one of the first great affordable multimedia Macs.
July 28, 2012: Apple buys biometrics company AuthenTec, acquiring the technology that will power future authentication and secure payments initiatives.
With a price tag of $356 million, the deal gives Apple the right to use AuthenTec hardware, software and patents. In the short term, Apple engineers start working to build Touch ID sensors into the iPhone 5s. Longer-term, AuthenTec’s mobile wallet tech paves the way for Apple Pay.
July 27, 1955: Joanna Hoffman, who will join the original Macintosh and NeXT teams and become Steve Jobs’ first right-hand woman, is born in Poland.
Six months younger than Jobs, the marketing executive is one of the few people willing and able to stand up to the oftentimes-fierce Apple co-founder during the first part of his career.
July 26, 2005: Apple debuts the opaque white iBook G4, the last of its laptops to launch under the iBook name.
The portable computer adds Apple’s scrolling trackpad for the first time. It also incorporates Bluetooth 2.0 as a standard feature, and becomes the last Apple laptop with a PowerPC chip.
July 25, 1989: Apple suffers a major setback in its copyright-infringement lawsuit against Microsoft for allegedly stealing the Mac’s “look and feel” to create Windows.
Apple sued Microsoft on 189 counts of copyright infringement relating to Windows 2.0.3. The judge overseeing the case throws out 179 of them. This paves the way for Microsoft’s dominance over Apple in the coming decade.
