Tag - Wozniak

This Week in Apple History: June 11 through 17

We've said this before on our weekly slice-by-slice delving into Apple history, but even when the products are incredibly important, it's the people who made them that are the most interesting. That's true right from the start, with Steve Jobs, Ronald Wayne, and Steve Wozniak in 1976 to Tim Cook, Jony Ive, and more in 2016. For this week of June 11 through 17 across all those years, though, it is the personal and the individual stories that leap out.

This Week in Apple History: May 29 through June 3

To appreciate Apple's four-decade history, just occasionally you need to look back a little further than these 40 years. As we slice up the firm's life week by week, we're concentrating on 1976 to 2016, but it's no exaggeration to say that Apple would not exist at all if it weren't for a computer made five years before the company officially began.

This Week in Apple History: April 30 through May 6

Previously on this week by week slicing of Apple history, we noted how Steve Wozniak had been dangerously tardy in 1976 about getting a legal release from his employer Hewlett Packard. Without that permission, the Apple I computer would've legally belonged to HP, and by the time Woz got the paperwork sorted out, he and Jobs were already deep into making their first sale. We were sorry to have teased you with how you'd have to wait until this week to see that Woz learned his lesson a little too well. Now we're very sorry to tease you that he would do something even more daft -- that we'll tell you about in November.

This week in Apple History: April 23 through 29

If you learn just one thing from slicing week by week through Apple's four decades of history, then you really haven't been paying attention. The odds, though, are that the one thing you will learn is that contracts are really important. Microsoft beat Apple over copying the Mac because the Windows maker had better lawyers, for one thing, and the sheer number of lawsuits flung everywhere rivals the number of patents involved. Consequently, if you were going to do something that crossed a contract, you would sort out the paperwork first.

This Week in Apple History: April 16 through 22

We're spending this 40th anniversary year of Apple's going through the company's rollercoaster history in one-week slices. Yet this time, let us blur that a little bit, and start with an event that isn't one you can pin to a certain hour -- but instead is a brooding problem that took place over all of April, 1985. For one thing, it's to do with the ousting of Steve Jobs from the company he co-created, and in history's telescoping of details, the usual story you hear is that CEO John Sculley fired him. It's actually not that unreasonable a summary, as he might as well have done, but strictly speaking no, he didn't -- and it didn't happen in one big board meeting.

Happy birthday Apple: the 40th anniversary by the numbers

Usually when you speak of a significant figure with Apple, you mean Steve Jobs or Tim Cook. Yet on this April 1 -- the 40th birthday of the company -- we want to examine 40 other figures. Numbers. Digits. The history of Apple as sliced up into numbers. Though speaking of slicing history, do make sure you're reading the year-long MacNN series that examines each week for what happened then across 1976 to today.

This Week in Apple History: March 26 through April 1

Not a great deal happened in this week of Apple history, except for the formation of the company and later its single-biggest financial loss ever. So it's the week of the company's birth and of its near death, that's all. As MacNN slices through the history of Apple's four decades one week at a time, this is perhaps the most striking example of its triumphs and disasters. It's also the week you can see the start of successes and troubles to come.

Rare working Apple I sells for $330,000 after auction in Germany

A previously-reported auction in Cologne, Germany of a rare working-condition Apple I computer failed to meet the minimum bid of €180,000 ($242,820) but was sold after the auction had closed, Auction Team Breker has revealed. Two potential bidders were surprised that the item had failed to sell and put in their own bids, with the larger of the two being accepted - €246,000, or US $330,000. The same company had previously sold a rare functioning Apple I for over $670,000 in a previous auction.

Three decades-old Wozniak, Wiggington Apple Pi speech found

A video from Steve Wozniak addressing the Denver "Apple Pi" computer club on October 4, 1984 has been uploaded to YouTube. In the tapes, Wozniak addresses his hack of a hotel video-on-demand box to avoid additional charges, his probation for computer abuse, and his relationship with Steve Jobs at the time he was persuaded to quit his job with Hewlett Packard and devote himself to Apple. Also on the tape is Apple employee number six, Randy Wiggington, discussing the early days of the Macintosh operating system, when the first versions of the Finder failed to copy a floppy disk.

Wozniak: jOBS clip 'not close' to relationship with Jobs

The widely-publicized first scene released from Ashton Kutcher's jOBS biographical feature on Steve Jobs is said to be "not close" to the actual relationship between Jobs and Stephen Wozniak, according to Wozniak himself. The film will be shown at the Sundance Film Festival, with Kutcher and co-star Josh Gad appearing at the Macworld conference next week to promote the picture.

Now AAPL Stock: 113.09 ( + 0.21 )

Cirrus creates Lightning-headphone dev kit

Apple supplier Cirrus Logic has introduced a MFi-compliant new development kit for companies interested in using Cirrus' chips to create Lightning-based headphones, which -- regardless of whether rumors about Apple dropping the analog headphone jack in its iPhone this fall -- can offer advantages to music-loving iOS device users. The kit mentions some of the advantages of an all-digital headset or headphone connector, including higher-bitrate support, a more customizable experience, and support for power and data transfer into headphone hardware. Several companies already make Lightning headphones, and Apple has supported the concept since June 2014. http://bit.ly/29giiZj

Developer  90d

Apple Store app offers Procreate Pocket

The Apple Store app for iPhone, which periodically rewards users with free app gifts, is now offering the iPhone "Pocket" version of drawing app Procreate for those who have the free Apple Store app until July 28. Users who have redeemed the offer by navigating to the "Stores" tab of the app and swiping past the "iPhone Upgrade Program" banner to the "Procreate" banner have noted that only the limited Pocket (iPhone) version of the app is available free, even if the Apple Store app is installed and the offer redeemed on an iPad. The Pocket version currently sells for $3 on the iOS App Store. [32.4MB]

 90d

Porsche adds CarPlay to 2017 Panamera

Porsche has added a fifth model of vehicle to its CarPlay-supported lineup, announcing that the 2017 Panamera -- which will arrive in the US in January -- will include Apple's infotainment technology, and be seen on a giant 12.3-inch touchscreen as part of an all-new Porsche Communication Management system. The luxury sedan starts at $99,900 for the 4S model, and scales up to the Panamera Turbo, which sells for $146,900. Other vehicles that currently support CarPlay include the 2016 911 and the 2017 models of Macan, 718 Boxster, and 718 Cayman. The company did not mention support for Google's corresponding Android Auto in its announcement. http://bit.ly/295ZQ94

Industry  90d

Apple employees testing wheelchair features

New features included in the forthcoming watchOS 3 are being tested by Apple retail store employees, including a new activity-tracking feature that has been designed with wheelchair users in mind. The move is slightly unusual in that, while retail employees have previously been used to test pre-release versions of OS X and iOS, this marks the first time they've been included in the otherwise developer-only watchOS betas. The company is said to have gone to great lengths to modify the activity tracker for wheelchair users, including changing the "time to stand" notification to "time to roll" and including two wheelchair-centric workout apps. http://bit.ly/2955JDa

Troubleshooting  90d

SanDisk reveals two 256GB microSDXC cards

SanDisk has introduced two 256GB microSDXC cards. Arriving in August for $150, the Ultra microSDXC UHS-I Premium Edition card offers transfer speeds of up to 95MB/s for reading data. The Extreme microSDXC UHS-I card can read at a fast 100MB/s and write at up to 90MB/s, and will be shipping sometime in the fourth quarter for $200. http://bit.ly/294Q1If

Upgrades/storage  90d

Apple's third-quarter results due July 26

Apple has advised it will be issuing its third-quarter results on July 26, with a conference call to answer investor and analyst queries about the earnings set to take place later that day. The stream of the call will go live at 2pm PT (5pm ET) via Apple's investor site, with the results themselves expected to be released roughly 30 minutes before the call commences. Apple's guidance for the quarter put revenue at between $41 billion and $43 billion. http://apple.co/1oi1Pbm

Investor  91d

Twitter stickers slowly roll out to users

Twitter has introduced "stickers," allowing users to add extra graphical elements to their photos before uploading them to the micro-blogging service. A library of hundreds of accessories, props, and emoji will be available to use as stickers, which can be resized, rotated, and placed anywhere on the photograph. Images with stickers will also become searchable with viewers able to select a sticker to see how others use the same graphic in their own posts. Twitter advises stickers will be rolling out to users over the next few weeks, and will work on both the mobile apps and through the browser. http://bit.ly/29bbwUE

IPhone apps  92d