As a computer manufacturer, Apple gets a strangely distorted press. Its position as the only serious commercial competitor to Microsoft guarantees that every move the company makes is documented – and often distorted.
The Apple III was meant to be Apple’s bold entry into the business market; it ended as Apple’s first commercial failure and put the company into financial uncertainty. It was also responsible for sprouting both the Lisa and Macintosh projects, efforts that would save Apple.
Realizing that the Apple II would not sustain Apple forever, the Sara project began. The main idea of Sara was to create a more powerful and capable Apple II. It would include 128 KB of RAM, an integrated floppy drive, and a high resolution display – 80 columns wide instead of the Apple II’s 40.
If you think the original Macintosh was an impressive piece of design and engineering, you may find Apple’s Lisa even more innovative.
For most Mac users, Apple’s Lisa isn’t even a footnote in Mac history. The $10,000 computer is rarely remembered as the Mac’s mother – and those who do remember it also tend to recall how Apple dumped thousands upon thousands of unsold Lisas in a Utah landfill when the computer was discontinued.
Apple’s Lisa was the predecessor of the Macintosh that introduced the mouse, the graphical user interface, and the integrated all-in-one design that would characterize the earliest Macs – and later on the iMac.
I ran across images of some Apple prototypes created during the early years of Macintosh design – things like a cube-shaped Mac, a MacBook notebook, and a table-like device among them.
Although it was invented by Doug Engelbart in 1963, the computer mouse wasn’t an instant success. That had to wait for the 1980s and the introduction of computers with graphical user interfaces (GUIs).
On May 16, 2006, Apple introduced the consumer MacBook, the 13.3″ replacement for the old 12″ and 14″ iBooks. The first MacBooks had a wider 1280 x 800 display (vs. 1024 x 768 for G4 iBooks) and used Intel’s Core Duo processors. The biggest differences between the consumer MacBook and the MacBook Pro are the […]
Apple last updated the 13″ MacBook in May 2010 and discontinued it with the introduction of the Mid 2011 MacBook Air, although it was still available in the education channel for a while after that. The final model claimed up to 10 hours of wireless productivity, has a 2.4 GHz CPU, and uses Nvidia’s 320M graphics processor.
If you’re at all interested in the early history of Macs, especially the Mac OS, you owe it to yourself to bookmark Mac Floppy or put it in your RSS news feed. Billed as, “A look back at the Mac’s past when the best things in life fit on a floppy,” it’s an enjoyable reminiscence […]
There have been so many iMac models since Apple switch to Intel processor back in 2006 that we’ve found it easier to divide Intel iMac deals into two page. This page covers the more recent iMacs, which ship in 21.5″ and 27″ sizes. The other page covers older models, which came in 17″, 20″, and […]
The late 90s saw Apple take on it’s iconic range of devices beginning with i – starting a whole era of products. Has this era ended?
I took a trip to my local Apple Store ‘Chapelfield, Norwich’ to have some repair work done. How was it?
Apple has created a lot of successful products in its time, but they haven’t always hit home runs. Today we’re looking back at machines that many of you will remember, some of you won’t, and those that do would probably rather forget: the x200 series.
Remember the old days, back when Apple used names for its computers? Well I sure do, and I have a lot of fond memories of machines with names such as Performa, Centris, and Quadra. Sure the names were meaningless, but it made the machines sound that much more important.
Apple’s Performa line of computers attempted to bring the Mac experience to the consumer market. The line was launched with three rebadged Macs in 1992 and phased out in 1997 when the last two models were renamed Power Macs with their last upgrade. Performa 200 Performa 250 Performa 275 Per 400-430 Performa 450 Performa 460 […]
There have been so many different iMac models since Apple switch to Intel processors in 2006 that we’ve found it easier to divide iMac deals into two pages. This page covers older models, which came in 17″, 20″, and 24″ sizes. The other page covers more recent iMacs, which ship in 21.5″ and 27″ sizes.
The long rumored Apple iCar is just around the corner, scheduled to be announced at an Apple media conference at 2 PM PDT on April 1, 2015 in San Francisco. It is expected to be available sometime this summer as a 2016 model.
Having used an iMac with a 24″ screen (1920 x 1200) for years, I started to have more travel days, so a MacBook was needed. AppleWorks 6 is necessary to open older documents every now and then. It requires Rosetta and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard from 2009.
Finding the status of your iDevice battery couldn’t be easier, thanks to the new version of the long running Coconut Battery tool.
When the original 13.3″ MacBook Air was introduced in January 2008, it created a new category of notebooks that were neither underpowered netbooks nor overly heavy laptops. Things have only improved from that point, particularly with the introduction of the 11.6″ model in October 2010.
Apple introduced the first 13″ MacBook Pro with Retina Display in October 2012 and introduced a speed bumped version in Early 2013. All models include USB 3, which has 10x the bandwidth of USB 2.0 – and USB 3 drives tend to cost a whole lot less than Thunderbolt drives.
The 0.71″ thin 15″ MacBook Pro with Retina Display has a double-resolution 2880 x 1800 pixel Retina Display, does not have a built-in SuperDrive, and uses the same CPUs as the regular MacBook Pro. It normally ships with 8 GB of onboard memory and is upgradable to 16 GB, but you have to order it that way, […]
Apple last updated non-Retina MacBook Pro (MBP) models in June 2012, and only the 13-incher remains in production. Mid 2012 models were the first to include USB 3.0.
Apple has moved the entire MacBook Pro line to Retina Displays, except for the remaining 13″ MacBook Pro. This price tracker follows prices of the non-Retina 15″ MacBook Pro, all of which (unlike Retina models) can have their system memory upgraded.
Apple introduced its first 17″ notebook, the 1 GHz PowerBook G4, in January 2003. It introduced the first 17″ MacBook Pro, a 2.16 GHz Core Duo machine, in April 2006. And it discontinued the last 17″ MacBook Pro, a 2.4 GHz quad-core i7 powerhouse, in June 2012 in favor of the 15″ MacBook Pro with Retina […]
Apple made some interesting choices when it designed the new 12″ MacBook, which is the thinnest, lightest Retina Display Mac notebook ever. But its US$1,299 price is higher than the new 13″ MacBook Air, 13″ MacBook Pro, and new 13″ MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Where’s the best value?
As technology marches forward, old tech gets left behind. Some of us have been using Macs since the 1980s and have experienced a lot of it, but the 1998 introduction of the iMac probably takes the cake for offending the most – and the 12″ MacBook may take second place.
The big news about the Early 2015 13″ Retina MacBook Pro is its adoption of the same Force Touch trackpad introduced with the 12″ MacBook. It’s also faster than its predecessor and has improved graphics.
The Early 2015 MacBook Air (MBA) gets another speed bump, gains Thunderbolt 2, and is rated at 12 hours in the field – and if you don’t use your MBA regularly, it has 30 days of standby power.
The Early 2015 MacBook Air (MBA) uses 5th-generation Intel Core processors and finally gains Thunderbolt 2.
The Flash Player hack for PowerPC has once again been updated – this time to 16.1.
Do you want the features of a modern iPhone without the expense. I take a look at the 2010 iPhone 4 as a budget handset.
iCloud contacts are great if you have iOS6 upwards. I show you how to export your iCloud contacts for use on older iDevices or other smartphones.
