Category — History

Daniel Eran Dilger
Rumor sites have long been atwitter about Apple resurrecting the Newton MessagePad. While officially dead for nearly a decade, those rumors got a boost this year when Steve Jobs rolled out the iPhone as a combination “mobile phone, iPod, and breakthrough Internet device.” The iPhone first appeared to be Jobs’ version of the Newton, but after the iPod Touch revealed Apple’s long term plans for targeting a wider range of devices, the idea of a tablet assistant gained new credence as a realistic possibility. What does Apple’s past reveal about its future? Here’s a look.

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Microsoft’s rapid rise to power and its ability to hold onto control over the PC desktop throughout the 90s has long been revered by pundits as a classic example of copying an existing business model and then defeating all competition through price efficiencies, despite the fact that Microsoft’s Windows software has only ever gotten progressively more expensive with the passing of time. This copy-killing strategy, also described as “embrace, extend, and extinguish,” is now reaching a dead end. Here’s why.

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Some ideas just won’t die. Proponents of the Mac OS X Leopard Windows API Myth are so convinced that Apple desperately needs to wedge Microsoft Windows into Mac OS X that they’ll run with any hint that might suggest a plausible way for this to happen. The latest take on the subject is that Mac OS X Leopard loads PE files and requests Windows DLL files, which more than a few pundits have determined must be a new development because Tiger didn’t do this. Therefore, they’ve decided that the only sensical conclusion to jump to is that Apple is secretly implementing the Windows API so that Macs will be able to run Windows programs natively. They’re wrong, here’s why.

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One of the most anticipated applications in Office 2008 is the new Entourage. While some users can use alternatives to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, most of the users of Entourage are required to use it to access an Exchange Server for their mail and calendar. The reason for that has a lot to do with Exchange itself. Here’s a look at the new Entourage in comparison to using Apple’s built-in Mail, Address Book, and iCal.

AppleInsider | Road to Mac Office 2008: Entourage ’08 vs Mail 3.0 and iCal 3.0

Technorati Tags: Apple, History, Mac, Microsoft, Software

The planned mid-January release of Office 2008 offers a significant overhaul of the productivity suite’s look and features. The previous segment described the challenges in front of the Mac Business Unit at Microsoft: deliver a new suite of applications with the features of the Windows side, but with an appearance and behaviors attractive to Mac users. Here’s a more in-depth look at the specific new features in Word 2008, with some comparisons to Apple’s Pages 08 included with iWork.

AppleInsider | Road to Mac Office 2008: Word ’08 vs Pages 3.0

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, Microsoft, Software

It’s been four years since Microsoft last updated Office for the Mac. Is the new Office just a mild reheating of the last version, or a complete overhaul and fresh revitalization you desperately need? How Mac-like is it, and conversely, how Offlce-like is it, particularly when compared to its Windows cousin? We’ve spoke to a source testing the beta release of Office 2008 for Mac to find out. Here’s an overview of what you can expect related to installation and its new user interface.

AppleInsider | Road to Office 2008: installation and interface

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, Microsoft, Review, Software

Microsoft’s Office for Mac 2008 adds new features and a revised user interface to the standard suite of productivity applications including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage. Scheduled for release in January 2008, the upgrade will be the first new release for the Mac since 2004, back in the days of Mac OS 10.3 Panther.

Ten years ago, Steve Jobs took the stage at the summer 1997 Boston Macworld Expo to announce plans to restore confidence in Apple. Key among those plans was a deal with Microsoft to deliver the first new edition of Office for Mac since Microsoft had halted development back in 1994, prior to the release of Windows 95.
Microsoft recently announced new plans to again introduce a new version of Office for Mac after delays led to a four-year development process.

This time, however, Microsoft faces new competition from Apple itself, which has impacted Microsoft’s Office 2008 pricing and features. New competition between the two firms in the productivity application arena is great for consumers; here’s how the two companies have acted as both rivals and partners over the last three decades in productivity applications, leading up to renewed competition today.

AppleInsider | Road to Mac Office 2008: an introduction

Technorati Tags: Apple, History, Mac, Microsoft, Software, the Media

What You Expected:

Daniel Eran Dilger
What You Expected, What You Got: RoughlyDrafted Fact Checking.
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Daniel Eran Dilger
Myth 10 in the Ten Myths of Leopard.

Ten Myths of Leopard: 1 Graphics Must Be Slow!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 2 It’s Only a Service Pack!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 3 Nothing New for Developers!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 4 Java 6 Abandonment!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 5 “Back To My Mac” Security Panic!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 6 Time Machine Eats Hard Drives!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 7 Premature Death for Existing Macs!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 8 No Hidden New Features!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 9 Apple is Spying on Users!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 10 Leopard is a Vista Knockoff!

Ten Myths of Apple iPhone
Ten Myths of the Apple TV

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Myth 8 in the Ten Myths of Leopard.

Ten Myths of Leopard: 1 Graphics Must Be Slow!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 2 It’s Only a Service Pack!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 3 Nothing New for Developers!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 4 Java 6 Abandonment!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 5 “Back To My Mac” Security Panic!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 6 Time Machine Eats Hard Drives!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 7 Premature Death for Existing Macs!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 8 No Hidden New Features!
Ten Myths of Apple iPhone
Ten Myths of the Apple TV

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Myth 7 in the Ten Myths of Leopard.

Ten Myths of Leopard: 1 Graphics Must Be Slow!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 2 It’s Only a Service Pack!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 3 Nothing New for Developers!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 4 Java 6 Abandonment!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 5 “Back To My Mac” Security Panic!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 6 Time Machine Eats Hard Drives!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 7 Premature Death for Existing Macs!

Ten Myths of Apple iPhone
Ten Myths of the Apple TV

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Embarrassed over a sensationalist article he commissioned on iPhone security panic, Wired editor Kevin Poulsen pulled no punches to cover over his sloppy work by publishing an inaccurate, politically-tained smear piece that mixed in a conspiracy theory regarding presidential candidate Ron Paul into the discussion of Apple’s iPhone security. Someone with Poulsen’s tainted history in computer security issues should know better.

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Among all of the new and improved applications Apple delivers to users in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, some of the most important are those that developers can use to build applications of their own. If you’re not a hard core programmer, Leopard also offers a variety of more accessible tools: Automator for scripting, DashCode for building widgets, and Quartz Composer for creating audio and visual plugins, screen savers, image filters for iChat and music visualizations for iTunes. Here’s the trail Apple’s developer tools have followed, and how Apple nearly killed itself several times by not providing adequate tools in the past.

AppleInsider | An Introductory Mac OS X Leopard Review: Developer Tools.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Development, History, Mac, Microsoft, Software

Daniel Eran Dilger
Myth 2 in the Ten Myths of Leopard.

Ten Myths of Leopard: 1 Graphics Must Be Slow!
Ten Myths of Leopard: 2 It’s Only a Service Pack!

Ten Myths of Apple iPhone
Ten Myths of the Apple TV

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Beyond the desktop and main applications in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, its most obvious advancements are related to graphics and the underlying performance improvements that speed up everything being displayed on the screen. There are a number of aspects to why Leopard’s graphics feels faster, and some interesting notes on how the graphical user interface is changing in Leopard. Here’s a look at how everything works.

AppleInsider | An Introductory Mac OS X Leopard Review: Core Graphics and the New UI.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Development, History, Mac