Mac History

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.

PBS talked to the people who changed the man, who changed our world. Through interviews with the people who worked closely with him or chronicled his life, PBS gaines unique insight into what made him tick. In a never before broadcast, exclusive interview, Steve Jobs expounds his own philosophy of life, and offers advice to us all on changing our own lives to achieve our ambitions, our desires, and our dreams. “Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact; that everything around you that you call life was made up by people no smarter than you…the minute you understand that, you can poke life; you can change it, you can mould it, embrace it, make you mark upon it. Once you learn that…. you’ll never be the same again.”

Apple’s 1984 spoof of ‘Ghostbusters’ goes after IBM

Christoph Dernbach — Thu, 10 May 2012 20:04:29 +0000

This is a 4-minute, uncut version of “Blue Busters”, a 1984 takeoff on ‘Ghostbusters’ that Apple produced to show at the opening of its worldwide sales staff meeting in Hawaii in October 1984. The video includes a cameo appearance by Steve Wozniak. Craig Elliott, former Apple employee now CEO and co-founder of cloud-computing startup Pertino Networks, gave access to this video.

Also shown at that meeting was another film in which Steve Jobs impersonates FDR. That film can be seen here:
http://www.mac-history.net/steve-jobs/2012-05-05/steve-jobs-acts-as-franklin-d-roosevelt-bizarre-internal-apple-promo-1984

Dieter Rams talks about design at Apple

Christoph Dernbach — Thu, 10 May 2012 06:29:16 +0000

Dieter Rams talks about being bum-rushed at a party by Philippe Starck, who exclaimed, “Apple is stealing from you!” But when it comes to Ive and Apple, Rams subscribes to the adage “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

via Our Interview With Dieter Rams, The Greatest Designer Alive [Video] | Co.Design: business + innovation + design.

Steve Jobs acts as Franklin D. Roosevelt – Bizarre internal Apple promo (1984)

Christoph Dernbach — Sat, 05 May 2012 08:36:37 +0000

Apple’s marketing history may seem like a continual streak of genius advertising, but even the mighty gadget company has suffered a few stumbles. Take this rarely seen sequel to Apple’s epic “1984″ ad spot that features Steve Jobs showing off his acting chops as Franklin Roosevelt in 1944.

The full clip, clocking in at a lengthy 9 minutes, was created for a sales associates meeting held in Hawaii in 1984. Jobs’ role as FDR leading the charge against enemy forces was meant as a rallying call to defeat IBM’s dominance.

My reader Ned Truslow wrote two years in a comment on mac-history.net about this video:

I was a props master on it and also am featured in the video. It was a black and white film that had Steve and his guys acting like generals in World War II and they had Mac soldiers who were being airdropped behind “enemy” lines and taking backpacks filled with MacIntosh’s to zombie-fied office workers whose lives were stuck in limbo with old office hardware. Once the MacIntosh’s are placed on all the office workers’ desks and switched on, the office workers come more alive and are happy. We shot the plane sequence at an airstrip in Mojave, California, and did most of the stuff with Steve and his guys, along with me taking time off from doing props on the video to act as a zombie office worker, all on a studio soundstage in Los Angeles sometime around July of 1984. Anyway, I’ve never seen this 20-minute video online anywhere. Just would love to know if you have an idea of where it might be located, if anywhere.

Okay, here we are.

The untold story of how NeXT got its name

Christoph Dernbach — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 21:13:58 +0000

According to Ken Segall’s new book about Apple, Insanely Simple, the story of how Jobs’s company “NeXT” got its name has never been told. It was inspired by Bill Gates — but Jobs never knew it.

Jobs originally wanted to call his new company “Two” because it was his second company. He called an old friend, designer Tom Suiter, who told him it was no good — everyone would ask what happened with his first company!

Shortly afterward, Tom attended a speech by Bill Gates in Seattle. He was struck by the number of times Gates used the word “next” as he described new technologies being developed by Microsoft. That word kept echoing in his head. The more he thought about it, the more right it seemed. He excitedly called Steve and said “I think I have the name for your new company. It’s ‘Next.’” There was a long pause while Steve soaked it in. And then came the enthusiastic “I love it!” It’s ironic that a speech by Bill Gates was actually the spark for the naming of NeXT. Even more amazing, neither Steve nor Bill were ever aware of it.

Segall points out that it was autobiographically perfect — it was Jobs’s next adventure after Apple — and visionary: the company was devoted to the next great computer.

Why Apple Should Take a Look Back, though Steve Jobs Didn’t

Christoph Dernbach — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 16:55:56 +0000

David Greelish, a computer historian and president of the Atlanta Historical Computing Society, proposes a public visitor‘s center, with a space that tells Apple‘s story. A gallery for Apple‘s story, where the history of the people that started it, grew it, perhaps even failed it is told. Not a big collection to be managed.

Why Apple Should Take a Look Back, though Steve Jobs Didn’t.

Walter Isaacson: The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs

Christoph Dernbach — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:37:29 +0000

Steve Jobs was a product of the two great social movements that emanated from the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1960s. The first was the counterculture of hippies and antiwar activists, which was marked by psychedelic drugs, rock music, and antiauthoritarianism. The second was the high-tech and hacker culture of Silicon Valley, filled with engineers, geeks, wireheads, phreakers, cyberpunks, hobbyists, and garage entrepreneurs. Overlying both were various paths to personal enlightenment—Zen and Hinduism, meditation and yoga, primal scream therapy and sensory deprivation, Esalen and est.

The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs – Harvard Business Review.

The 12 Lessons Guy Kawasaki Learned from Steve Jobs

Christoph Dernbach — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 10:48:41 +0000

A little while ago Guy Kawasaki made this speech at the Harker School in San Jose. In it, he explained the lessons that he learned working for Steve Jobs.

Apple Margins May Fall on Labor Costs, Analyst Gene Munster Says

Christoph Dernbach — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:53:42 +0000

Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray Cos., talks about an audit of labor practices of Foxconn Technology Group, the biggest maker of Apple Inc.’s iPads. He speaks with Emily Chang on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg West.” (Source: Bloomberg)

Tim Cook visits Foxconn

Christoph Dernbach — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:47:32 +0000

Apple Inc’s Tim Cook, on his first trip to China as the chief executive officer, has visited an iPhone production plant run by the Foxconn Technology Group, which is being accused of improper labor practices.

Tim Cook visits Foxconn - Photo: Bowen Liu/Apple Inc.

On March 28, 2012, Apple CEO Tim Cook visited the iPhone production line at the newly built manufacturing facility Foxconn ZhengzhouTechnology Park which employs 120,000 people.

Tim Cook visits Foxconn - Photo: Bowen Liu/Apple Inc.

On March 28, 2012, Apple CEO Tim Cook visited the iPhone production line at the newly built manufacturing facility Foxconn ZhengzhouTechnology Park which employs 120,000 people.

Tim Cook visits Foxconn