29 June 2007

Happy iPhone Day

Yes it's true that I chnage cell phones more than any person I know but I will not be getting an iPhone. There are a few reasons for this but the most important are:

  1. There's not Cingular up here and they piggyback on the towers of Uni-Suck so the coverage isn't great.
  2. I already bought a first gen. product and I do not want to go through that again.
  3. I have an awesome phone and a brand spankin' new iPod so what's the point.
  4. 8GB? Are you serious? Listen carefully--SIZE MATTERS.

Any who, in the mean time here's some Apple trivia.

  • Apple was formed on April Fool's Day in 1976. Although most of us have heard of Apple's two well-known founders - Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak - fewer have heard of the third. His name was Ron Wayne, and he wasn't as convinced of the company's success. That's why, only a few weeks later, he sold his 10 percent stake in Apple for $800. The company's market value just passed $100 billion last month, so we'll let you calculate for yourself how much money he missed out on. Go ahead, we'll wait.

  • The Apple II was a huge success in 1977, as was the Macintosh in 1984, but the period in between was difficult for the company. In 1980, the Apple III premiered to lukewarm response, which led the company to refocus its efforts on supporting and improving the Apple II line. The Apple Lisa in 1983 was a huge step forward, as the first personal computer to offer a GUI (graphical user interface) to users. The reason for its demise had to do with one particular factor: its $9,995 price tag.

  • Apple has had to face the business world with a brash sense of humor in order to maintain their chunk of market share over the years. Concerned with the use of its "brand name," Apple Records signed an agreement with Jobs and Wozniak in 1981 to allow them to use the name "Apple" as long as they steered clear of the music world. Not surprisingly, it was only five years before Apple Computer found it necessary to include music capabilities in its models, and the Apple IIgs (1986) was the first. The record company went through with its threat of litigation in 1989. Apple Computer responded in true smart-aleck geek fashion: programmers of the then-new System 7 renamed the "xylophone" sound to what they said was a Japanese word: "sosumi." The resulting settlement was reportedly in the neighborhood of $25 million.

  • There's more to the Apple Records/Apple Computer connection. In February 1968, the Beatles headed to India to study transcendental meditation under the guidance of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. That May, they officially started their own label, Apple Records. Similarly, Steve Jobs took a job at Atari in 1974 and used the money to finance a trip to India in his own search for spiritual enlightenment. When he returned to the States, Steve Wozniak invited Jobs to join the Homebrew Computer Club, forming the roots of what would become Apple. But in a twist, it was Woz who viewed personal computers as a hobby, and the "enlightened" Jobs who determined that there was money to be made in marketing them.