Mac History » Christoph Dernbach

Blue Box

Christoph Dernbach — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 18:04:32 +0000

Before Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs built Apple in the 1970s, they were phone phreaks.

The Blue Box was illegal, but the specifications for hacking into the telephone network were published in a telephone company journal and many youngsters with a flair for electronics built them.

So we’re sitting in the payphone trying to make a blue box call. And the operator comes back on the line. And we’re all scared and we’d try it again. … And she comes back on the line; we’re all scared so we put in money. And then a cop car pulls up. And Steve was shaking, you know, and he got the blue box back into my pocket. I got it– he got it to me because the cop turned to look in the bushes for drugs or something, you know? So I put the box in my pocket. The cop pats me down and says, “What’s this?” I said, “It’s an electronic music synthesizer.” Wasn’t too musical. Second cop says, “What’s the orange button for?” “It’s for calibration,” says Steve.

— Steve Wozniak,
lecture at Computer History Museum, 2002

Wozniak and Jobs Blue Box, ca. 1972. The Blue Box allowed electronics hobbyists to make free telephone calls.

The “Blue Box” was a simple electronic gizmo that bypassed telephone company billing computers, allowing anyone to make free telephone calls anywhere in the world.

The “two Steves” had a great deal of fun building and using them for “ethical hacking,” with Wozniak building the kits and Jobs selling them—a pattern which would emerge again and again in the lives of these two innovators. (Wozniak once telephoned the Vatican, pretended to be Henry Kissinger and asked to speak to the Pope—just to see if he could. When someone answered, Woz got scared and hung up.)

These early playful roots are what Wozniak remembers most fondly of Jobs. As columnist Mike Cassidy recalled in a San Jose Mercury News interview, what these two friends most remembered was “not bringing computers to the masses … or the many ‘aha’ moments designing computers. Instead, it’s the time the two tried to unfurl a banner depicting a middle finger salute from the roof of Homestead High School…” or their many Blue Box exploits. Walter Isaacson, Jobs’s official biographer, cites Jobs reflecting on the Blue Box:

If it hadn’t been for the Blue Boxes, there would have been no Apple. I’m 100% sure of that. Woz and I learned how to work together, and we gained the confidence that we could solve technical problems and actually put something into production.

(Isaacson, p. 30)

Tim Cook about his first year as Apple CEO

Christoph Dernbach — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 20:55:12 +0000

NBC News “Rock Center with Brian Williams,” December 6, 2012

Nobody remembers the guy who came after Thomas Edison. And nobody seems to recognize Tim Cook as we walk together across the teeming floor of Grand Central Station.

Tim Cook:

I’m a very private person, I like my being anonymous

As we walk: we’re surrounded by examples of what Apple has done to our society — both good and bad.

People now live their lives while listening to the soundtrack of their lives. Communicating with members of their own community while ignoring the actual community around them.

And in this marble monument to another time, where trains lumber to a halt, two stories beneath our feet — we go up the stairs into what we were told the future would look like. The red shirts greet us. And Tim Cook is home now — in the Apple Store — where the successor to Jobs is suddenly treated more like Jagger.

Tim Cook:

It’s pretty spectacular … who else would put a store like this in Grand Central Station?

And who else would have us believe they intend to be the one company that reverses hundreds of years of business history — by becoming the one company that never fades away into irrelevance.

Brian Williams:
You realize if you’re a company that can keep amazing us, consumers, if you’re a company that can stay fresh without an expiration date, you’ll be the first company ever to do that. There is a cycle, a circle of life, a life and death. And you’re trying to buck that trend.

Tim Cook:

Don’t bet against us, Brian. Don’t bet against us.

We started our day with Tim Cook in lower Manhattan, at another of his 250 austere Apple stores where we began the questioning with: what’s different about him.

Brian Williams:
How are you not Steve Jobs?

Tim Cook:

In many ways. One of the things he did for me — that removed a gigantic burden that would have normally existed is he told me, on a couple of occasions — before he passed away, to never question what he would have done. Never ask the question “What Steve would — do,” to just do what’s right.

Doing right has done well for Tim Cook so far. He’s had a good first year on the job – the company’s stock is up about 45% during his tenure, and think about this: he’s already presided over the rollout of 3 iPads, 2 iPhones and 3 Macs.

Brian Williams:
It’s beautiful.

Tim Cook:

Absolutely stunning. Every detail has been focused on.

Brian Williams:
So, you’ve got guys whose job it is to get this mesh right to get this curve right …

Tim Cook:

To get it precisely right.

In fairness, however — this past year, they haven’t gotten everything precisely right.

Starting with Siri … the small woman who lives in your iPhone. The service amazed all of us at first — but then came under criticism for not being … perfect … or as consistently amazing as Steve Jobs wanted it to be.

And then there are the maps … iPhones used to come with Google maps until they set out on their own — but Apple’s version wasn’t quite ready for launch. It lacked some critical street smarts. And in those early days — God help you if you went anywhere near the Brooklyn Bridge or the Hoover Dam. It was a rare and public embarrassment and Cook fired two top executives in charge.

Brian Williams:
How big of a setback was Maps?

Tim Cook:

It didn’t meet our customers’ expectation, and our expectations of ourselves are even higher than our customers’. However, I can tell ya — so we screwed up.

Brian Williams:
And you said goodbye to some executives.

Tim Cook:

Well, we screwed up. And we are putting the weight of the company behind correcting it.

As for the iPhone 5 itself … they have flown off those perfect Apple store shelves. Apple sold 5-million of them in the first weekend alone, breaking all previous sales records. But buyers of the iPhone 5 soon discovered they had to buy something else – none of the old power cords work on the new equipment.

Brian Williams:
Why did we have to buy new cords for this?

Tim Cook:

As it turns out, we had a connector, a 30-pin connector that we used for a decade or more-

Brian Williams:
I’ve got 500 of ‘em at home-

Tim Cook:

You have a few of those -

Brian Williams:
If you need any. Yeah.

Tim Cook:

On iPod. But, Brian, it was one of those things where we couldn’t make this product with that connector — but let me tell you; the product is so worth it.

And that’s the thing about Apple. Sleek isn’t cheap. Those white ear buds announce to the worldyou’ve got a of couple hundred dollars to spend. Your investment will buy you a staggeringly beautiful product that works unlike any other … and in a lot of workplaces, including our own, the Apple products you’ll see are the ones people bring in from home … they’re usually right there on the desk, next to the computers we have to use for work.

Apple prides itself on being equal parts computer-company and religion. Apple fans get whipped up into a stampeding froth with every new product release … customers famously camp outdoors and then emerge triumphant, emotionally spent. Journalists flock to those dramatic product rollouts — as if the CEO is going to reveal stone tablets instead of the kind with scratch-proof glass. And the legendary Apple culture of secrecy is designed to keep it that way.

Brian Williams:
Why are you institutionally so secretive? How is it that you know how many times I’ve listened to Bob Dylan or Kendrick Lamar or “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and yet we never get to know anything about you guys?

Tim Cook:

We think that holding our product plans secret is very important because people love surprises.

This was one surprise Apple may not have loved. The new Samsung ad campaign — its blistering, bold, damaging. It portrays Apple products and the people who love them … as somehow passé and uncool and even desperate. It’s a blunt instrument disguised as satire, and it’s a frontal attack on a giant that would have been unthinkable not too long ago.

(Samsung ad:)

Woman: Hey what’d you just do?
Man: I just sent him a playlist
Man: By touching phones?
Man: Yep, simple as that
Woman: It’s the Galaxy S3
Man: I’ll see you at the studio later
Woman: When do you think we’re going to be able to do that thing?
Mom: Hey
Son: Hey mom dad
Mom: Thanks for holding our spot
Son: You guys have fun — home by midnight you two
Announce: The next big thing is already here Samsung Galaxy S3
Mom: But honey this is the line for apps, I stand

The unmistakable message right there? Apple products are for your parents. Samsung makes the really cool stuff and they’re much more casual about it.

Brian Williams:
They came along and tried to paint those with white earbuds, Apple users, as losers. They’re trying to paint their product as cool and yours as not cool. Is this thermonuclear war?

Tim Cook:

We love our customers. And we’ll fight to defend them with anyone. Is it thermonuclear war? The reality is, is that we love competition, at Apple. We think it makes us all better. But we want people to invent their own stuff.

He’s talking about the legal fight between Apple and Samsung — they have sued each other in courts around the world over patent infringements. Apple won the last round in the U.S. when a jury ruled Samsung owed them a billion dollars for stealing ideas. Samsung was back in court just today appealing the judgment. Sometimes the business of making pretty things … can get ugly.

Brian Williams:
How tough is your business, how surprised would we civilians be at how rough it gets? Spying, skullduggery?

Tim Cook:

It’s tough. It’s very tough. You have people tryin’ to hack into systems on a constant basis. You have people trying to elicit confidential information — about future product plans. All of these things are things that we constantly fight.

And then there’s Tim Cook’s larger challenge: the man who rhapsodizes about the perfectly rounded edges of his products … vows to always keep Apple cutting edge.

Brian Williams:
It sounded to me that you and I grew up the same American life, kind of grindingly simple and normal American middle class household — when you and I as kids would go to a neighbor’s house and see, under their new TV, Sony Trinitron, that would tell us something instantly. And you’re smiling. And that brand lasted up until — Walkman, Discman. But then, fast-forward to today, it’s less meaningful. How do you not become Sony, with all apologies to Sony?

Tim Cook:

We’re very simple people at Apple. We focus on making the world’s best products and enriching people’s lives. I think some companies — maybe even the one that you mention, maybe they decided that they could do everything. We have to make sure, at Apple, that we stay true to focus, laser focus — we know we can only do great things a few times, only on a few products.

The Legend of Steve Jobs – His Life and Career

Christoph Dernbach — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 21:54:12 +0000

Steve Jobs combined his visions with art and technology in order to bring products to the market that have changed the lives of millions of people. He founded Apple and the computer industry, was fired, and twelve years later saved the company from bankruptcy. Afterwards, he pushed through a series of innovations that were really enough for seven lives. After his early death, not only his fans are wondering how Apple will deal with Steve Jobs’ legacy.

By Christoph Dernbach

Steve Jobs (March 2011) - Photo: Monica M. Davey

Steve Jobs' highschool photo

Steve Jobs must already have been charismatic as a twelve year old school boy. Or was it just cockiness with which he would later take his business partners by surprise time and again? As an eighth grade student, he wanted to build a frequency counter for his school project and needed some parts. He contacted non other than Bill Hewlett, who was the legendary co-founder of computer group Hewlett-Packard (HP).

In the 60s, the Silicon-Valley pioneer’s contact information could still be found in the phone book. The lanky boy did not just coax the needed parts free of charge from the group boss. “He answered and chatted with me for twenty minutes. He got me the parts, but he also got me a job in the plant where they made frequency counters,” Jobs told book author Walter Isaacson for his biography.

Steve Jobs worked there the summer after his freshman year at Homestead High. obs worked there the summer after his freshman year at Homestead High. “My dad would drive me in the morning and pick me up in the evening.” He found himself at the right place at the right time. Still, Steve Jobs’ fate as the most successful entrepreneur of America was not handed to him at birth.

“He was a boy who had no money,” recalls his friend and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. “He had nothing except his intellect. But he brought us things that became a challenge for all of us.” Paul Otellini, CEO of chip giant Intel, said: “True genius is measured by the ability to touch every person on the planet. Steve did that, not just once, but many, many times over his amazing life.” In contrast to industry titans like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs came not from a wealthy home, but from a lower-class background.

Steve Jobs with his father Paul Jobs (1958)

His biological parents, the Syrian student Abdulfattah John Jandali and his American girlfriend Joanne Simpson, gave him up for adoption after his birth. In 1955, the still unmarried couple, both 23, was studying at the University of Wisconsin and found themselves unable to care for the child without a proper income. Actually, his parents insisted on giving him away to an academic family, which could guarantee that he could one day attend university. But the desired family got cold feet and cancelled the adoption in the last minute.

Finally, the child ended up in the house of Paul and Clara Jobs. Steve’s adoptive parents were simple people. His father worked as a car mechanic and his mother as an office employee. When Steve was five years old, his parents moved with him from San Francisco to Mountain View, in the middle of booming Silicon Valley. Author Walter Isaacson relates in his biography of Steve Jobs that in the new neighborhood Jobs told a girl that he was an adopted child. “So does that mean your real parents didn’t want you?” the girl asked. “Lightning bolts went off in my head,” according to Jobs. “I remember running into the house, crying. And my parents said, ‘No, you have to understand. We specifically picked you out.” This key scene described the tension between the terms “abandoned”, “chosen”, and “special” at a very early age for Steve Jobs.

Steve gets it

Who knows where Steve Jobs’ journey through life would have brought him if he had not met electronics enthusiast Steve Wozniak, who was four classes above him in school. Despite the age difference, the two Steves got along very well. “It seemed as if we had a lot in common,” recalled Woz later in his autobiography. “Typically, it was really hard for me to explain to people the kind of design stuff worked on, but Steve got it right away. And I liked him. He was kind of skinny and wiry and full of energy.”

Steve Jobs (circled) at Homestead High School Electronics Club (1969)

Jobs, like Wozniak before him, attended Homestead High School in Cupertino, California, a solidly middle-class school in the suburbs of Silicon Valley. Homestead was progressive, with an innovative electronics program that shaped Wozniak’s life. Jobs and Wozniak had been friends for some time. They met in 1971 when their mutual friend, Bill Fernandez, introduced then 21-year-old Wozniak to 16-year-old Jobs. After hours, the two Steves would often meet at Hewlett-Packard lectures in Palo Alto.

Apple remembers Steve Jobs on anniversary of his passing

Christoph Dernbach — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 02:54:50 +0000

Tim Cook remembers Steve Jobs

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook remembered the company’s late cofounder, Steve Jobs on the one-year anniversary of Jobs’ passing. The letter with a video montage appeared on Apple’s website to remember his life and death. The nearly two-minute video presents a slideshow of Jobs throughout his career and it softly ends with “Remembering Steve”.

Jobs died on Oct. 4, 2011. After he passed, at just 56 years old, news of his death flooded the Internet, TV, newspapers, and homes. Millions of people immediately emailed Apple, and the company subsequently created a “Remembering Steve” page to display a massive compilation of condolences that poured in from around the world.

The tribute letter from Apple’s current CEO appears upon completion of the “Remembering Steve” video. In the message, Cook describes Jobs’ death as a “sad and difficult time”. The executive hopes, however, that everyone will “reflect on [Jobs'] extraordinary life and the many ways he made the world a better place.”

A Message from Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.

What Steve Jobs really meant by saying: “Good artists copy – great artists steal”

Christoph Dernbach — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 20:37:27 +0000

You have to watch the famous quote in the full context:

Apple vs. Samsung: “Slightly different”

Christoph Dernbach — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 17:10:18 +0000

Conan aired a video short satirizing Samsung’s gimlet-eyed Apple affinity, with a faux CEO dressed much like Apple’s black-tee-and-jeans crew, and line of home appliances named and modeled after certain of Apple’s best sellers.

iPhone Prototype Designs

Christoph Dernbach — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 14:47:21 +0000

Apple’s court case against Samsung gave an inside peek at how Apple develops its new products. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company was forced to hand many documents to Samsung, a good number of which Samsung has, in turn, filed as exhibits to various motions and pleadings in the case. While Apple has been able to keep some things private, there have clearly been more things made public than the secretive company would prefer.

The filing features a host of sketches, images from computer-aided design programs, and photographs of actual models that Apple fabricated as part of its design process.

The first iPad prototype

Christoph Dernbach — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 09:05:37 +0000

First iPad prototype in comparison with an iPad 2

Except for the fact it doesn't have a home button, from the front the first iPad prototype doesn't look so different from the current iPad

Headphone jack at the first iPad prototype

The first iPad prototype is nearly an inch thick

The first iPad prototype is nearly an inch thick, which would be way more awkward to hold than the current iPad's .37-inches.

First iPad prototype in comparison with an iPad 2

The prototype is taller and wider than iPad we know, with a white plastic back that resembled the iBook at the time.

The first prototype for an Apple tablet was created between 2002 and 2004 — years before the iPad came out.

Steve Jobs told Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher during an appearance at the 2010 All Things D conference:

Apple I

Christoph Dernbach — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 17:19:56 +0000

Apple I at the Computer History Museum

Apple I

The original Apple Computer, also known retroactively as the Apple I, or Apple-1, is a personal computer released by the Apple Computer Company (now Apple Inc.) in 1976. They were designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak. Wozniak’s friend Steve Jobs had the idea of selling the computer. The Apple I was Apple’s first product, and to finance its creation, Jobs sold his only means of transportation, a VW van and Wozniak sold his HP-65 calculator for $500. It was demonstrated in July 1976 at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto, California.

The Apple I went on sale in July 1976 at a price of US$666.66, because Wozniak “liked repeating digits” and because they originally sold it to a local shop for $500 plus a one-third markup. About 200 units were produced. Unlike other hobbyist computers of its day, which were sold as kits, the Apple I was a fully assembled circuit board containing about 60+ chips. However, to make a working computer, users still had to add a case, power supply transformers, power switch, ASCII keyboard, and composite video display. An optional board providing a cassette interface for storage was later released at a cost of $75.

Introductory advertisement for the Apple I Computer

The Apple I’s built-in computer terminal circuitry was distinctive. All one needed was a keyboard and an inexpensive television set. Competing machines such as the Altair 8800 generally were programmed with front-mounted toggle switches and used indicator lights (red LEDs, most commonly) for output, and had to be extended with separate hardware to allow connection to a computer terminal or a teletypewriter machine. This made the Apple I an innovative machine for its day. In April 1977 the price was dropped to $475. It continued to be sold through August 1977, despite the introduction of the Apple II in April 1977, which began shipping in June of that year. Apple dropped the Apple I from its price list by October 1977, officially discontinuing it.

As Wozniak was the only person who could answer most customer support questions about the computer, the company offered Apple I owners discounts and trade-ins for Apple IIs to persuade them to return their computers, contributing to their scarcity. In 1976, Concord High School Junior Wai Lee assembled one of the first 12 Apple Is (no serial number), the first Apple Computer in an aluminum housing.

PBS: Steve Jobs: One Last Thing

Christoph Dernbach — Fri, 11 May 2012 20:23:21 +0000

Few men have changed our everyday world of work, leisure, and human communication in the way that Apple founder, Steve Jobs, has done. This PBS documentary looks not only at how his talent, his style and his imagination have shaped all of our lives, but also at the influences that shaped and moulded the man himself. Since his untimely death, tributes from around the world have secured Steve’s place in the pantheon of great Americans.