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Copland, screenshots, history, nostalgia. Enough said.

Posted on Apr. 30, ’08, 11:14 AM PT by Aayush Arya
Category | Apple

Copland search screenshotOver at Macworld, head honcho Jason Snell, has laid out a veritable feast for the Mac geek and lover in all of us. Helping out with an article for sister site PC World, he dug up archived content from the mid-nineties, primary among which were several screenshots of Copland, Apple’s much-hyped replacement to Mac OS 7 that never even made it to the market.

The screenshots, which can be viewed in all their washed out, almost grayscale glory over at the mothership, reveal some interesting insights into what sort of plans Apple had, even as early as in the previous decade.

There was supposed to be a Macintosh Guide which would help you do several tasks on your machine, the most notable of which was Computer Custodian, which allowed you to backup your files and “check for computer viruses.” Also of note is the systemwide search utility that was planned for Copland, the great grandfather of the Spotlight feature we all enjoy and adore today.

I know you’re probably jumping in excitement over there, waiting for me to shut up so that you can proceed to the screenshots. Go ahead and check them out and weigh in with your opinions. Any guesses as to what that forever inactive “Huh?” button does?

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speculation

Apple to create Second Life-inspired 3D virtual store?

Posted on Apr. 22, ’08, 12:14 PM PT by Cyrus Farivar
Category | Speculation

18-patent-3.jpgSpeaking of patent fillings, there seem to be indications afoot that Apple may open up a a Second Life-esque virtual store, or perhaps a store within Second Life. Cupertino filed a patent with the USPTO in late 2006 for “Enhancing Online Shopping Atmosphere.”

MacNN wonders if this isn’t a renaissance of the early 1990s Apple online world, eWorld? Infoworld, meanwhile, seems more convinced that it will be more akin to Second Life.

Despite the filling, I think the most interesting element is the potential downsides of such a setup. In Apple’s patent lawyers’ words: “one drawback of online shopping is that the experience can feel sterile and isolating. Customers in such an environment may be less likely to have positive feelings about the online shopping experience, may be less inclined to engage in the online equivalent of window shopping (e.g., will not linger in front of a display), and may ultimately spend less money than their counterparts who shop in physical stores.”

Either way, I’m pretty happy downloading tracks in iTunes—I’m not sure what I’ll gain by being able to walk around a giant album cover.

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apple

The 7 greatest innovations from Apple

Posted on Apr. 15, ’08, 7:14 AM PT by Derik DeLong
Category | Apple

Forbes For your daily dose of mainstream media Apple love, Forbes has a piece about Apple’s seven greatest innovations. In pictures. Pictures are worth a thousand words. I’ll discount their value by reducing it to a quick list of 7.

  1. OS X: Unix For The Masses
  2. iLife: Lifestyle Computing
  3. iTunes: Digital Media Made Easy
  4. Mac OS: The Graphical User Interface Goes Big Time
  5. Newton: A Computer In Your Pocket
  6. iPhone: The Web In Your Pocket
  7. iPod: Music (and Movies) In Your Pocket

Allow me to say the whole automated slideshow presentation: annoying. Seriously. Of course, you’ll get their explanation text. That is of course if you can read it before it before the page decides to change on you. Reading at your own pace? Feh. Overrated.

On the other hand, each of those devices made an impact, though I would say that Newton was a too early version of the iPhone.

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Apple announces clothing line available in stores

Posted on Apr. 1, ’08, 7:20 AM PT by Derik DeLong
Category | Apple

Steve Jobs The day I’ve personally been anticipating has come. Apple is going to start selling clothing in all their many Apple stores. The selection will be limited in the beginning, with just turtlenecks and jeans. Also, in order to eliminate the complexity of many combinations, only medium and 32-32 sized jeans will be available in the stores themselves physically. You’ll have to place a BTO order in the online store to get anything else.

You may be wondering where they’ll be putting this as it requires a store redesign. They’ve decided to stop selling all Mac games. That whole section is gone and replaced with fine garments. There is one option available in stores. The turtlenecks are available in white and black. White will cost a mere $10, but black will cost $100. Somehow I don’t doubt that black will sell better.

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Apple puts the brakes on Beatles on iTunes rumors

Posted on Mar. 11, ’08, 2:00 PM PT by Cyrus Farivar
Category | Apple

I’m not going to rehash the barrage of Beatles references that we’ve used before in our previous coverage, but I will say that Reuters is reporting that the UK press speculation of the imminent release of the Fab Four’s discography on iTunes may be a bit premature.

McCartney says that the catalog will be released this year. Of course, that’s what he said last year, too.

Reuters:

Reports on Friday suggested that unnamed sources “close to Sir Paul McCartney” had confirmed that the Beatles catalog would be available online though iTunes and other legal services “within months.” However, the claim has been met with a string of “no comments” from the Beatles’ own label Apple Corps, and EMI. “This is not news nor is it a scoop,” says an Apple Inc. spokesman, declining further comment.

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apple

No Tuesday announcement, no panic please

Posted on Mar. 4, ’08, 4:54 PM PT by Thomas Gagnon-van Leeuwen
Category | Apple

If you’ve been keeping an eye on Apple news since Steve’s Macworld keynote, and we assume you have seeing as you’re reading this blog, you’ve probably noticed that Apple has made some kind of announcement every Tuesday since then. This, of course, is in line with Steve’s hint that we could look forward to many more announcements in 2008 (“50 weeks to go”, as shown here). And, again if you follow this kind of news, you know new Apple products almost always come on Tuesdays.

But today, nothing happened. I even woke up to find my Twitter buddies desperately waiting for the Apple Store to go down. It never did, so Apple must be doomed!

Ha, but there’s a simple explanation: as you probably know, the iPhone SDK and Entreprise event is this Thursday, so this week is covered. Steve never said there were 50 Tuesdays to go, he said 50 weeks. (That said, I wonder why the event isn’t on a Tuesday. Any ideas?)

Fear not, the streak is still alive.

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Brooklyn thieves only want Apple products?

Posted on Feb. 26, ’08, 10:00 AM PT by Cyrus Farivar
Category | Apple

ipodclassic.jpgI suppose at least one Brooklyn thief has discriminating taste, according to Gawker:

True story. My apartment in ‘prime Williamsburg’ was broken into. The thieves searched out my [Apple] iPod and [Mac] PowerBook, but the [sic] didn’t touch my roommate’s Dell that was sitting out in plain sight on our kitchen table.

Not surprisingly, this isn’t the first time that we’ve heard about Apple products being targeted for theft.

[via Cult of Mac]

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apple

We just need a poster

Posted on Jan. 29, ’08, 7:20 AM PT by Derik DeLong
Category | Apple

Hang in there It’s becoming infamous. Ok, it’s a rumor, but it’s just such a meaningless one! Steve Jobs has supposedly sent out a memo now known as the “Hang in there” memo. While the title of Apple Insider’s piece seems to indicate that Steve was reassuring investors, the article itself says that the memo was sent to employees. That’s exactly why it’s not terribly ground breaking.

“Wow… what a remarkable last few days,” he wrote in an email to employees, a copy of which was obtained by AppleInsider. “Our stock is being buffeted around by factors a lot larger than ourselves.”

The Apple co-founder expressed sadness for many of the company’s investors who may have seen their investments fall under water, but encouraged those with positions to put the matter into perspective by examining the performance of Apple shares over the past 24 months.

Survey says… Jobs wasn’t expressing sadness for many of the company’s investors. Let’s be honest, he’s depressed that the swing in stock price has virtually robbed him of millions of dollars in stock. He’s sad for the one investor that matters, him.

He goes on to explain that the company is actually doing well (true) and that the swing is more of a general market thing (also true, Randy Newman was right on the mark when he called daytraders gamblers). This type of memo is typical of most corporations. Most leadership in major companies do send out emails to address the concerns of their workforce. So let’s move along. And buy one of those posters. Can someone Photoshop Jobs head onto the cat?

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apple

Apple expands to Russian Federation

Posted on Jan. 24, ’08, 11:00 AM PT by Cyrus Farivar
Category | Apple

Russia MapAn English-language Russian newspaper, The Moscow Times, reports that Apple is finally setting up shop in Putin’s backyard:

But Apple, which set up a representative office here only last year, has localized the user interface of most of the devices to put them within reach of many Russian consumers.

The firm is touting its newly upgraded iPod Touch as a must-have, top-notch product to make headway into the country’s highly lucrative computer and music-player market.

It has also localized the music-playing, web-surfing device to make it accessible to more Russian users. The model demonstrated on Wednesday includes Google Maps for Russia, which makes getting directions around Moscow a snap.

Apple’s newly launched iTunes Movie Rentals, which allows iPod owners to buy and download movies directly from the Internet, is currently only available in the United States.

Russian consumers would need to shell out 12,590 rubles ($510) for an 8-gigabyte iPod Touch and 17,670 rubles ($710) for a 16-gigabyte model. The device is expected to ship Wednesday.

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rivals

Netflix now offers unlimited streaming

Posted on Jan. 15, ’08, 1:00 PM PT by Cyrus Farivar
Category | Rivals

In all of the crazyness of Expo this week, we seemed to have missed the announcement yesterday by Netflix that it would be allowing its customers — that is everyone who rents more than two movies at a time — to stream an unlimited number of TV shows and movies.

Or as Netflix itself put it: “Now, subscribers on unlimited plans get unlimited DVD rental, with access to a library of over 90,000 DVD titles — plus, for no additional cost, the ability to stream as many movies and TV episodes as they want from the smaller instant watching library, unconstrained by any hourly limits.”

This appears to be a pre-emptive move against Apple, which has released a similar online rental service at this years Expo.

[via CNET]

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