Year: 2014

iFixit performs the ultimate teardown, rips apart the original 128k Macintosh

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 24, 2014

Repair wizards over at iFixit have decided to do something insanely great in honor of the 30th Macintosh anniversary - they tore apart the vintage 128K Macintosh, the original Mac system that jumpstarted the personal computer revolution.

Back then (in 1984), the Mac had an 8MHz (that's megahertz, not gigahertz like today's processors) 68000 CPU from Motorola and a nine-inch black and white CRT display sporting a very non-Retina resolution of 512-by-342 pixels, just thirteen percent more pixels than the original 2007 iPhone.

The operating system and applications purred along happily using just 128KB of DRAM. 1,024 kilobytes is one megabyte and to give you some context - 128KB is less RAM than the iDownloadBlog logo image.

Its then revolutionary Sony-made 3.5-inch floppy disk provided 400 kilobytes of total storage. Jump past the fold for a remarkable blast from the past...

QuickContacts lets you quickly access your favorite contacts from Spotlight

Sébastien Page ∙ January 24, 2014

There are many ways you can quickly access your contacts from remotely everywhere on an iOS device thanks to clever jailbreak tweaks, but to my knowledge, QuickContacts is the first to add your favorite contacts to Spotlight Search.

Developed by Joshua Lee Tucker with help from Kyler Phillips, QuickContacts makes your favorites accessible with a quick pull down gesture from the Home screen. I took the tweak for a spin and will now share my experience with you...

Tim Cook says NSA would have to “cart us out in a box” for server access

Cody Lee ∙ January 24, 2014

We're still a few hours away from ABC airing David Muir's interview with Tim Cook, but the network has been leaking tidbits of the discussion all day. Earlier we saw a clip of Cook talking about Apple's new sapphire plant in Arizona, and now this.

ABC has posted another preview of tonight's Cook interview. This time the CEO answers questions about Apple's position on the recent NSA surveillance scandal, saying the Agency would have to "cart us out in a box" to gain access to their servers...

Tony Fadell on Nest deal, relationship with Apple, Google data sharing, home automation and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 24, 2018

The iPod Godfather and Nest Labs co-founder and CEO, Tony Fadell, sat down with Bloomberg at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland to talk specifics of the recently announced $3.2 billion Google deal, why he sold to the search monster, Nest's relationship with Apple, the future of controlling household products and a few other topics of interests, here are your soundbites...

Apple hangs commemorative Mac posters listing all past and current employees

Cody Lee ∙ January 24, 2014

As part of the ongoing celebration for the 30th anniversary of the Mac, Apple has hung commemorative posters allover its Cupertino, California campus. There's supposedly more than 10 of these giant posters marked with a big '30.'

What's really cool about the posters though, is what you don't see. Apparently the 30 insignia (shown in the photo above) is made up of the names of people who either work at Apple now, or have worked with the company in the past...

Download Apple’s custom font to use these beautifully designed Mac model icons

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 24, 2014

We're still discovering the many ways Apple has celebrated the Mac’s 30th anniversary. The multi-faceted festivities include a prominent section on Apple's homepage providing a visual timeline of all Mac models since 1984, a nice ‘Happy Birthday, Mac’ section on the Mac App Store highlighting apps and games that capture the spirit of what makes the Mac a Mac, aptly-themed Apple Store window displays and commemorative posters at Apple's HQ listing all former and current Apple employees, to name a few (bonus: MacWorld and ABC interviews).

This one tidbit comes from iOS developer Greg Barbosa who discovered a charming font on Apple's servers which contains pictograms of various Mac models. I suggest installing the font ASAP as Apple could pull it at a moment's notice...

AT&T and Incipio introduce new ‘Cashwrap’ NFC iPhone case

Cody Lee ∙ January 24, 2014

Incipio announced today the launch of its new Cashwrap Mobile Wallet Case for the iPhone 4, 4S, 5, and 5s. The case features NFC tech, and works with the Isis Mobile Wallet app that lets users pay with their smartphones at participating retailers.

The accessory-maker has teamed up with AT&T to bring the Cashwrap to the masses, and it will be available in the company's stores starting this month. The goal here is to get more iPhone owners using the carrier-backed Isis for mobile payments...

Zoom launches compact iQ5 stereo mic for Lightning-enabled iDevices

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 12, 2018

Announced at the National Association of Music Merchants trade show yesterday, Zoom's new high-fidelity microphone for Lightning-enabled iOS devices - the iQ5 - not only has the looks, it brings studio-quality 16-bit audio capture at 44.1kHz audio resolution to your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

Filed as the first stereo microphone for Lightning-enabled iPad 4 or later, iPhone 5/5s/5c and the latest iPod touches, the iQ5 features an analog-type mic gain wheel for precision adjustment of input levels.

That's just scratching the surface as the mic comes with a dedicated headphone jack, three auto-gain levels, built-in timing, automatic recording and other handy features.

If you're serious about podcasting, recording interviews or capturing audio notes on the go, this nicely done, compact accessory could turn your iDevice into a professional-quality stereo recorder...

iPhone with sapphire glass display allegedly in trial production

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 24, 2014

According to a new rumor by Taiwan's Apple Daily, Apple's favorite contract manufacturer, Foxconn, has ostensibly commenced trial production of the next iPhone, using sapphire as a display glass cover. The initial production run has been pegged at 100 units.

This doesn't mean that the next iPhone will in fact ditch Corning's Gorilla Glass for sapphire-strengthened display, mind you. Apple currently uses sapphire to protect iOS device cameras and Touch ID fingerprint sensor on the iPhone 5s from scratches and dings.

Earlier today, a video excerpt from ABC's upcoming interview with CEO Tim Cook and other Apple executives brought the official confirmation of Apple's plan to exclusively produce sapphire crystal glass components at its new facility in Mesa, Arizona...

Mac App Store highlights apps and games that ‘capture what makes Mac so extraordinary’

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 27, 2019

Unless you haven't been following news today, you're by now aware that this Friday marks the Mac's 30th anniversary. Apple is celebrating the occasion by taking over its own homepage with a nice interactive timeline of all Mac models, along with a cool poll and a heartwarming video to go with it.

The company's Apple Stores are also taking part in the festivities with Mac-themed window displays.

And now, a store of another kind, the Mac App Store, has joined the celebration with a brand new 'Happy Birthday, Mac' section highlighting a cherry-picked selection of free/paid apps and games that "capture the spirit of what makes this computer so extraordinary"...

Musi lets you stream music and create playlists directly from YouTube

Lory Gil ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

Something that may not be well known to the general masses (although likely well known to iDB readers) is that you can listen to full albums for just about every popular musician if you know how to search for it on YouTube.

Musi is a streaming service that lets you listen to anything you can find on YouTube as an audio playlist. Now, you can listen to spaghetti western soundtracks all the live long day…

Tim Cook confirms sapphire Mesa plant, dodges questions on iTV, iWatch

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 20, 2016

As we told you yesterday, ABC News will broadcast a rare interview with CEO Tim Cook and other Apple executives this evening. And as Apple celebrates the Mac's 30th anniversary with a nice interactive timeline and video on Apple.com, the ABC interview is expected to offer some insight into the company's culture of secrecy, the Mac's importance to Apple's bottom line and more.

An excerpt from the interview was played Friday morning on Good Morning America, offering a taste of the full interview scheduled to be aired later today at 6:30PM EST on World News with Diane Sawyer...