This Day in Apple History

In the early days of the Mac, things that seem positively cheap today were prohibitively expensive. Scanners, to cite but one example. Luckily for Mac users, a clever company managed to provide a low-cost scanning solution for the Mac.The product was called Thunderscan ("High Resolution Digitizer for Macintosh")…

The PowerBook 180c wasn't the first Mac laptop with a color screen. That dubious honor goes to the 165c, but it was the first PowerBook that had a color screen worth looking at.The PowerBook 180c featured an active matrix 640 x 480, 256-color screen which mirrored Apple's 14-inch…

There are a ton of big names in the computer industry but one of the biggest is Larry Ellison. Like Gates and Jobs, the founder of Oracle is a billionaire many times over but has his problems with public perception. In Ellison's case, he is considered just a little bit…

The Apple I was an interesting toy for hobbyists but far too technical for the masses. The founders of Apple felt that a more approachable machine could be a big seller. That machine, designed by Steve Wozniak, was the Apple II.It featured a 1 MHz processor, an audio…

When Apple introduced the G4 powered Sunflower iMac people were impressed, at least until they saw the $1,299 price tag. Those who couldn't stomach the high price were forced to make do with the lower cost CRT iMacs and the less than top of the line G3 chips inside.

When Steve Wozniak went to college the first time, he opted for the University of Colorado in Boulder. His chosen course of study? Electrical engineering (naturally). Unfortunately, college didn’t work out the way Woz had hoped. In fact, things got so bad he was forced to hire a lawyer.

The Apple II+ was Apple Computer's first blockbuster product. While the original Apple II sold reasonably well, the Apple II+ sold like crazy. Looking at the specs it is hard to say what the attraction was over the original incarnation of the Apple II. Sure, the graphics were a little…

After Steve Jobs' failed coup, Jobs had an odd suggestion for Sculley. Jobs proposed, with a straight face, that he be appointed President and Chief Executive while Sculley could be Chairman of the Board of Directors. Sculley didn't want any part of the "Trading Places" scenario as outlined…

There had been a longstanding problem for Macs in the retail environment known as Sears and that problem was neglect. With the vast majority of Sears associates being Windows literate if they were computer literate at all, the daily comings and goings of customers who poked and prodded the Macs…

When OS X was first launched the focus wasn't on getting Windows users to come over to the Mac or even on getting more people to buy Macs. Instead the focus was on getting current Mac users to adopt the operating system. That part of the OS X…

Apple went public in December 1980. If you were an employee with founder shares it was quite likely you were a millionaire after the initial public offering. Unfortunately, for most Apple employees, the instant millionaires amounted to slightly more than three dozen early hires.Among the people who gave…

When Apple first introduced the iPod it was an extension of their "digital hub" strategy whereby a Mac would act as the center of all the digital media a consumer owned. It was a nice idea but when Apple added Windows support and geared up the iTunes Music Store, the…

The first Mac was a hand wired prototype made by Burrell Smith out of items he found lying around the Apple facility. The design worked, so others began making copies of the prototype so that the architects behind the Mac would have something to work with. Hand wiring…

Then President John Sculley had received the okay from the Board of Directors to strip Steve Jobs of any real power inside Apple but hadn't gotten around to doing so. In the interim, Jobs had been approaching high level Apple execs about ousting Sculley while he was visiting…

Little "i" was a well-known part of the overall Apple product paradigm. Everything from Steve Jobs' title after Amelio had been ousted (iCEO) to the iPod started with the letter that first supposedly stood for "interim," later stood for "internet," and finally just meant "designed by Apple."Rumors had…