This Day in Apple History

When someone asks, "Who saved Apple?" the knee jerk reaction is to give all the credit to Steve Jobs. That answer leaves out a crucial part of the equation: who brought Steve back? The answer to the second question is: Dr. Gil Amelio. Dr.Amelio had taken the reins…

The iMac, since its introduction, has been Apple's flagship product. The iMac generally features Apple's pro line chip at a consumer friendly price and, to top it all off, an integrated monitor. In short, the iMac has always been Apple's most compelling computer for consumers.Unfortunately, for those who…

The Power Mac G4 Cube was widely hailed as a great computer, pundits couldn't stop gushing about the convection cooled, positively tiny tissue box design. The cube design smacked of originality in every area, whether it was the vertical slot loading media drive or the clever way the computer internals…

The original iMac brought a lot of nice things with it, increased market share, stylish looks and renewed profitability. With the good came some bad, in this case the hockey puck mouse. While some users loved the translucent puck, the vast majority found it too light, too round and too…

Apple's board of Directors had given Gil Amelio the boot and they knew whom they wanted to take the newly vacated position. A part time advisor that came along for the ride when Apple bought NeXT, a part timer named Steve Jobs.Before Dr. Amelio's seat was cold, the…

On typically hot day in July, Bill Tomerson decided to break out his digital camcorder. Video was taken of Bill's five and seven year children enjoying ice cream, watermelon and fireworks.Despite the cameras built in stabilizer Bill's continued consumption of beer left the film shaky. To compound the…

In the early nineties Apple needed a new processor and IBM wanted a new OS. Apple was working on a project called Pink, which more or less brought the Mac experience to PCs, and IBM was working on a RISC based chip.It seemed like a marriage made in…

When Jef Raskin started the Mac project he had high hopes for a low cost machine. When Steve Jobs came on board their vision clashed and Mr. Raskin left the project. While the Mac evolved in to a beast completely different from what Jef Raskin had in mind, Jef didn't…

Most computer fans have heard of Xerox PARC (Palo Alto research Center). It is the place where, in exchange for being allowed to purchase a million shares of Apple before the initial public offering, Apple employees got their first look at the graphical user interface. While that is PARC's best…

The "1984" ad is often said to have been played only once during the 1984 SuperBowl. That bit of common wisdom is in error. The ad was aired during signoff at a televison station in Idaho in 1983, played at movie theatres just because people enjoyed it, and replayed countless…

In the olden days Apple programmers were exalted with such niceities as placing their name on the mold for the original Mac or getting some credit in the "About" box of a program. Sadly, Apple programmers, even those who do something very special, get much less credit today.One…

Apple had been selling LCD monitors exclusively since 2001 but even with the all panel lineup the monitors were in need of an update. Out went translucent plastics and in came brushed aluminum. Also gone were the feet and support of the previous generation monitors. The new monitors featured an…

After Steve Wozniak completed the Apple I he immediately saw areas for improvement. His compulsion to improve the computer led directly to the Apple II. The problem was that the Apple II cost a lot more to produce than the Apple I. If the project were going to go anywhere…

Steve Capps isn't a household name among Mac fans but it probably should be. In 1981 Steve started working at Apple and began his tenure by making large contributions to the Lisa project. That wasn't enough for Steve and he moved over to the Macintosh project in 1983.Since…

If the Mac has ever had a bigger fanboy than Bill Gates it is unclear who it was. In the days before the release of the Mac, Microsoft had more people working on software for the Mac than Apple had employees. So it was both with an idea…