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This commercial replaces the drones in Apple’s ‘1984’ Macintosh ad with Wall Street men in suits

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 19, 2018

Apple ran its famous ‘1984’ Macintosh ad during the Super Bowl XVIII 30 years ago this month and advertising legend Lee Clow earlier this week hinted the company may be looking to advertise the Mac’s 30th anniversary during the Super Bowl XLVIII.

The $900,000 ad was also aired only one other time on television, on December 31, 1983 right before the 12:00 midnight sign-off on KMVT in Twin Falls, Idaho.

There have been countless attempts to copy the concept of Apple's award-winning commercial. Back in 2011, Motorola’s Xoom tablet ad played on the Big Brother theme, for example.

And now, financial services company Aspiration Partners LLC has created a take on '1984' which replaces the drones in Apple’s ad with Wall Street men in suits, watch it embedded right after the break...

Poll: will Apple launch Retina MacBook Air in 2014?

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

After transitioning its MacBook Pros to high-resolution Retina screens, the ultra-portable MacBook Air - my favorite Apple notebook of all time - has remained hopelessly stuck in the past with that normal-resolution display. I don't want to trade portability for power, but non-Retina computing just doesn't cut it for me anymore, simple as that.

I guess you could say I'm ready to upgrade to a Retina MacBook Pro, unless - unless Apple brings out a Retina Air at some point this year. Of course, it's always easy to argue that a Retina-fied MacBook Air is going to remain wishful thinking until all the technological pieces have fallen in place. After all, aren't Retina screens known as power and GPU hogs?

Yes, but fourth-generation Intel Core processors have made some great strides in power efficiency and graphics performances, as evidenced by the mid-2013 MacBook Air refresh: these systems now rock up to twelve-hour battery on the 13.3-inch model, or nine hours for the 11.6-inch version.

The bigger problem: Retina needs a powerful backlighting to push more light between those densely-packed pixels, in turn requiring a larger battery inside the Air's already ultra-thin enclosure.

Me, I'm willing to sacrifice battery performance and be back at six hours of runtime in exchange for that ultra-sharp Retina screen. Which brings me to my question of the day: is Apple going to give the MacBook Air a Retina treatment this year, do you think?

Video of Steve Jobs’ first public Mac demonstration surfaces

Cody Lee ∙ January 26, 2014

On January 24, 1984, Steve Jobs demonstrated the original Macintosh for the first time at an Apple shareholders meeting in Cupertino. You've probably seen a video of the presentation; it's the one where Jobs is introduced by a joke-telling Mac.

But what many people don't know is that the Apple co-founder gave another presentation for the computer less than a week later at a meeting of the Boston Computer Society. And that presentation has remained largely unseen until this weekend...

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...

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...

Tomb Raider reboot hits the Mac App Store

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 12, 2018

Feral Interactive today released a Mac version of last year's Tomb Raider reboot for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game is available exclusively on the Mac App Store starting today and will be coming to Steam on January 30.

A young Lara Croft gets shipwrecked on an uncharted island and... Well, you know the drill. You'll be scavenging the island's vital resources, upgrade Lara’s gear, improving her exploration, combat and survival skills and what not.

In terms of game mechanics, expect a lot of jumping and climbing through dense forests, mountains and WWII bunkers "to discover how an ordinary young woman became Lara Croft"...

Apple celebrates 30 years of Mac innovation with gorgeous timeline, video and interactive poll

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 19, 2018

On this day thirty years ago, Steve Jobs presented the new Macintosh to a roomful of Apple investors.

Apple's computer would go on to put the power of technology in everyone's hands, all the while changing the face of personal computing for decades to come, upending whole industries, challenging the status quo and eventually leading to the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

Today, the company has taken over its own homepage with a gorgeous visual timeline of the thirty years of Macintosh innovations, paying tribute to the computer with a nicely done video, an interactive poll and other goodies...

Good deal: name your own price on this Mac software bundle

Cody Lee ∙ January 23, 2014

Good news Mac owners, Stack Social is running another one of its popular "name your own price" software promotions. There are 11 apps in the bundle, worth some $400, and like the name suggests you can literally pay whatever you want.

Is there a catch? A small one. The deal site keeps a running average of what people are paying for the package, which is currently at $8.95. Pay below the average, and you'll only get 4 of the apps; you must pay $8.96 or higher to get all 11...

ABC interview with Tim Cook for Mac’s 30th anniversary to air tomorrow

Cody Lee ∙ January 23, 2014

Continuing with the festivities for the Macintosh's 30th anniversary, ABC News is set to air an interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook on its World News program with Diane Sawyer tomorrow evening.

Few details are known, except that the interview will be between ABC's David Muir and Cook, and will air tomorrow at 6:30PM EST. And a preview of the interview will air on Good Morning America...

Apple execs talk Mac’s 30th anniversary, future of OS X and iOS, and more

Cody Lee ∙ January 23, 2014

In honor of the 30th anniversary of the unveiling of the original Macintosh, which happens to be tomorrow, Macworld has published a lengthy interview with three Apple executives to discuss a wide range of topics regarding the popular computer.

In the discussion, Apple's SVP of Marketing Phil Schiller, SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi, and VP of Software Technology Bud Tribble talk about where the Mac has been, and where it's going. And as usual, we've posted some highlights...

New features added to Keynote, Pages and Numbers for iOS/OS X, iMovie gets bug fixes

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 23, 2014

Apple is on a roll today in terms of software updates. The company has just seeded the third OS X 10.9.2 beta to its registered Mac developers and revamped Pages, Keynote and Numbers on the web (excuse me, iCloud) with a slew of new capabilities, including - finally! - password protection for your iWork documents. Earlier in the day, Apple has managed to post a minor Podcasts app refresh and a bug fix focused update to iMovie for Mac.

And now, new versions of Pages and Numbers for iOS and OS X have arrived plus an enhanced version of Apple's presentation software Keynote with new transitions, improved presenter display options, better Microsoft PowerPoint and iCloud compatibility and more.

These software updates allow for a nice feature parity across Apple's iWork suite of apps on the web, iOS and OS X platforms...