Apple
History of the IBM PC: 42 Years Ago – Why It Was So Important
HISTORY OF THE IBM PC: 42 YEARS AGO Forty-two years ago, the IBM PC was released. On August 12, 1981, IBM announced its first “personal computer,” though it had previously been famous for its IBM System/370 mainframe computer. I operated one of these mainframes in a raised-floor data center in the early ’80s.
Read MoreHistory of Apple Lisa, part 2: Meet Its Creators
HISTORY OF APPLE LISA, PART 2: MEET ITS CREATORS This week at the Computer History Museum’s “Happy 40th Birthday Lisa” event, Katie Hafner, former Computerworld writer, interviewed several of the creators of the Apple Lisa. Many more of the original development team were in the audience. This article follows my previous article on the History…
Read MoreHistory of Apple Lisa at 40: The Flop that Influenced Macintosh
HISTORY OF APPLE LISA AT 40: THE FLOP THAT INFLUENCED MACINTOSH Forty years ago, on January 19, 1983, Apple Computer introduced Lisa. It has well been called Apple’s biggest flop, but it’s accurate to say that without the Lisa computer, there would have been no Macintosh, and it is likely Microsoft Windows would not look…
Read MoreHistory of Macintosh: a 39-Year Love Affair
HISTORY OF MACINTOSH: A 39-YEAR LOVE AFFAIR The now-famous Macintosh computer turns 39. When Apple President Steve Jobs launched this computer at the Flint Center on the De Anza College campus on January 24, 1984, to the theme from the movie Chariots of Fire, he called it “insanely great!” Macintosh Launch The $1.5M “1984”…
Read MoreHistory of the Internet: Over 50 Years Ago
HISTORY OF THE INTERNET: OVER 50 YEARS AGO On October 29, 1969, at 10:30 PM, a computer grad student at U.C.L.A. named Charley Kline sent a message to S.R.I. (Stanford Research Institute.) It was the first connection between computer networks. The Internet began! We set up a telephone connection between us and the guys…
Read MoreApple Watch: First Impressions and Pictures
Apple Watch: First Impressions and Pictures Apple Watch went on sale Friday morning at midnight Pacific Time. I’ve written previously about Apple Watch at length previously here. To say its launch was popular would be an understatement: it sold out in 6 hours. I’m hearing ship dates now of June and August. The gold Apple…
Read MoreApple’s New Ecosystem: the Implications of Apple Pay
APPLE’S NEW ECOSYSTEM: THE IMPLICATIONS OF APPLE PAY Today, October 20, Apple launched Apple Pay with the release of their iPhone iOS 8.1 version of the device operating system. This new payment system is scheduled to go live with 220,000 merchants today for users with iPhone 6 or 6 Plus. I wrote…
Read MoreApple Watch: a New Category for Apple
APPLE WATCH: A NEW CATEGORY FOR APPLE On initial impression, some might say this seems like less of a watch and more an iPhone nano. While the iPhone 6 is an evolutionary change and larger than before, as I discussed in my last article here, the Apple Watch is a new product category for Apple with…
Read MoreApple’s New iPhone 6: Why you care
iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, about which many leaks had already informed us
Apple Watch, the previously rumored iWatch saw the light of day, though not orderable until next year
Two new ecosystems — which are the truly revolutionary part of the announcement — Apple Pay and HealthKit. I’ll tell you why these will be huge.
iPhone 3G: 2 months on, post-hype
iPHONE 3.0: 2 MONTHS ON, POST-HYPE I recently bought my son a new iPhone 3G, a month after they first went on sale, and buying it then was a bit less painful than buying it the first day. The first day was like attending the premier of Batman: The Dark Knight. And as the Dark…
Read MoreiPhone 3G Launch: a Tale of Two Cities and Two Vendors
iPHONE 3G LAUNCH: A TALE OF TWO CITIES AND TWO VENDORS Remember the old Far Side cartoon that shows a couple thinking about each other — with the commentary “Same planet, two different worlds”? That was the sense of the first day the iPhone 3G went on sale in the US.
Read MoreiPhone 2.0 premiers
Christmas came a day early for iPhone Phans. They were expecting the iPhone 2.0 firmware update on July 11, but it became available for download (if you knew where) along with the new MobileMe software (ditto) and early adopters were updating their iTunes software to version 7.7 and examining the new AppStore (discussed below), which…
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