[HN Gopher] Unofficial Apple Archive
___________________________________________________________________
Unofficial Apple Archive
Author : todotask
Score : 389 points
Date : 2020-01-16 16:41 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.applearchive.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.applearchive.org)
| gallamine wrote:
| This "easy pay" training video is quite the show
| https://www.applearchive.org/2006-feed/apple-internal-easy-p...
| duderific wrote:
| For some reason, the first thing I clicked was 1983, which led me
| to an ad for the Lisa computer.
|
| I remember seeing it at the local mall at a computer retailer,
| and being in awe of how cool it looked compared to other
| computers at the time, and shocked that it cost $10,000
| (equivalent to ~ $25,000 today.)
|
| Even though the Lisa never really went anywhere, it was an
| amazing achievement at the time.
| sproketboy wrote:
| Not a fan of the year based navigation.
| herodotus wrote:
| My own little moment of fame: WWDC June 8, 2009, Keynote, 21
| minutes and 22 seconds in: Bertrand Serlet says (about
| improvements to Preview): "We have added lots of little touches.
| The one I like...we have added a little bit of AI to actually
| infer the selection"
|
| My colleague and I (we co-developed the "little bit of AI") never
| saw this comment (and the applause) live: we were still lining up
| outside of Moscone West. As Apple employees we weren't allowed in
| until all the guests and paying attendees had entered. Still, we
| watched the video afterwards and got a huge kick out of the
| mention.
|
| BTW, the AI we added did not use neural nets or deep learning.
| bigiain wrote:
| > BTW, the AI we added did not use neural nets or deep
| learning.
|
| So proper old-school AI then? Perl and regexes?
| herodotus wrote:
| We took a rule-based approach, coupled with some heavy-duty
| statistics.
| jakobegger wrote:
| I remember that! It's such a great feature!
|
| Unfortunately it doesn't work correctly for the PDFs I get from
| my accountant.
|
| It's one of those features that are really obvious, but
| probably surprisingly hard to implement.
| telegrammae wrote:
| Very interesting! Also a great reminder that AI is just a
| program that solves a problem in a certain way that may not
| need the most talked-about techniques, like deep learning.
| fierarul wrote:
| Just to confirm, are you the person the changed the Preview PDF
| text selection in newer macOS versions? o_0
| herodotus wrote:
| We created a low-level framework that was used by PDFKit (and
| hence by Preview) to change the way selection of text in PDF
| documents is done. We never worked on Preview itself. Since
| the feature is part of PDFKit, it is also available to third-
| party apps that use PDFKit.
| blowski wrote:
| That must be an amazing feeling! Is this a feature that's still
| in macOS today? Can I see it in action?
| herodotus wrote:
| The feature is there. I assume our code is still used, but it
| may have been rewritten since I retired. You can use this as
| an example if you like:
| https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/FNR/FNR-269-W.pdf
|
| (which is random, but you need two columns in the PDF). Try
| select from column 1 near the bottom, across to column 2.
|
| PDFs are very diverse. Our algorithm does not always work,
| alas, but it is significantly better than what existed
| before.
|
| In fact, for some reason, it works well for this document on
| page 1 and 3 but not so well on page 2! But I no longer have
| access to the low level tools I used to use to figure out
| what went wrong.
| cfitz wrote:
| Yup, just open Preview for an image (possibly other documents
| as well e.g., PDF), go into "markup" mode, and begin to draw
| with the pen or pencil. Preview will try to "perfect" your
| drawn check mark, X, straight line, curved line, etc.
| herodotus wrote:
| That's a nice feature! But it was added after we left
| Apple. I cannot claim any credit for it.
| coldtea wrote:
| That's a different "smart" feature -- the one mentioned has
| to do with guessing where the selected text continues (when
| it goes on to a different column, text box, etc).
|
| PDFs are more "baked" layouts rather than high level
| semantic markup, so it's not easy to automatically
| determine this. The AI is probably a set of heuristics.
| Angostura wrote:
| I remember this being introduced, and thought 'that's cool'. I
| use that function in Preview most days so - thank you.
| nslocum wrote:
| Check out the employee holiday bonus from 1983:
| https://www.applearchive.org/1983-feed/apple-holiday-bonus
| reaperducer wrote:
| Was this an employee holiday bonus, or a public promotion
| called "Apple Holiday Bonus?" I don't see anything in it making
| it employee-specific. I think it might just be a play on words.
| nslocum wrote:
| It has to be for customers and this site mislabeled it as
| "employee holiday bonus". It's just too embarrassing... a
| bunch of coupons for magazines and software.
| branon wrote:
| That's the gift that keeps on giving, the whole year!
| reaperducer wrote:
| I love the early 2000's Apple aesthetic. I'm not sure if it was
| actually really good, or I just associate it with a happy time in
| my life.
|
| I still have an iTunes playlist with all of the music from the
| dancing silhouette iPod commercials, and I get the warm and
| fuzzies when I listen to it.
|
| I wish there was a high-quality archive of these commercials
| online to relive some of those memories. Unfortunately, every
| time I look for them on YouTube, they're incomplete copies of
| over-compressed copies of watermarked copies of cropped copies of
| altered copies of something someone recorded off what looks like
| low-grade Betamax.
| pndy wrote:
| > the music from the dancing silhouette iPod commercials
|
| I always enjoyed the iPod Shuffle with Jerk It Out by Caesars
| from 2005; the white headphones become a symbol status thanks
| to how they exposed these in cm's
| nwsm wrote:
| >I still have an iTunes playlist with all of the music from the
| dancing silhouette iPod commercials
|
| Me too! They had awesome song choices.
| lostgame wrote:
| >> I'm not sure if it was actually really good, or I just
| associate it with a happy time in my life.
|
| I am a collector of Macs from around this time. I just picked
| up an orange G3 Clamshell iBook, and I absolutely adore my
| 'pixar lamp' iMac G4.
|
| I'm considering internal hardware mod projects to get these two
| up to a reasonable speed.
| reaperducer wrote:
| The monitor on my iLamp went black last week for no reason
| that I can determine. The machine still works, and I can VNC
| into it to use it, but that's not so much fun.
|
| I have the tools to fix it, but no longer possess the manual
| dexterity. Sadly, it will probably end up in the garbage
| because my local Apple Store won't take it back for
| recycling.
| electricviolet wrote:
| There may be other local electronics recyclers who will
| take it.
| lostgame wrote:
| That's unfortunate. The LCD displays on these units are
| stunning. I still use mine for small Photoshop work and
| drawing in Flash. It's just beautiful and inviting for
| work.
|
| If you were anywhere near Toronto I'd take it off your
| hands. I specifically want broken units for my hardware
| mods as I feel bad intentionally destroying a functioning
| unit. It's just kinda shitty to collectors.
| reaperducer wrote:
| I've love to let you have it, but I'm over 2,000 miles
| from Toronto.
| rusk wrote:
| I got one of these lamps a while ago, and even used it for a
| while, but there were one too many painful moments (its crazy
| how far our expectations have come in terms of what we can
| put up with in terms of stability; or just even being able to
| watch YouTube) for the joyful novelty of its use to overcome
| ... I do want to bring it out again some day, but for now its
| in the attic ...
|
| Any thoughts on what you might do with yours? I did some
| research and there seems to be a few options at various
| levels of the stack but all with efforts levels that far
| exceed my current resources. Some guys say they have NetBSD
| running on it ... there's another guy who figured out the
| idiosyncratic video interface so you can gut it if you want
| and reppace the innards with something more modern (it
| doesn't _feel_ right to me).
|
| I thought it might see some use as a sexy remote terminal for
| my main computer but nope - it couldn't even do VNC without
| vertically flipping the right hand half of the image.
| Something to do with the screy nvidia drivers I presume ...
| incidentally the reason why there's not much in the way of
| interesting Linux support. I might use it as an emacs
| terminal maybe now that I think of it. It sure is pretty
| though!
| pell wrote:
| Just watched the iMac G4 introduction on the site. That is
| still the most beautiful computer ever built.
| lozaning wrote:
| If we're willing to be liberal with our usage of the word
| computer, I'd like to nominate the Xserve RAID. I still
| consider buying one to put in my home rack from time to time
| because they're just so damn pretty.
| xvector wrote:
| Wow, these look pretty. Image for the curious:
| https://www.flickr.com/photos/generated/99991779
| xvector wrote:
| Interesting! I'd have to say it's one of the ugliest
| computers I've ever seen personally :)
|
| If we're giving awards for looks I'd have to say that the
| current MacBook Pros take the cake for me.
| noizejoy wrote:
| >> I wish there was a high-quality archive of these commercials
| online to relive some of those memories.
|
| Even original quality might disappoint, because video quality -
| especially resolution/ppi has improved so dramatically since
| those days. I have some high quality digital tape video
| (transferred to disk) from around that time, which was better
| resolution than CRT based TV's in North America. Only computer
| monitors could replay the full resolution of my videos back
| then. -- Fast forward to now - and even uncompressed, my
| recordings look like crap on a 4k TV. :-(
| jdofaz wrote:
| >I love the early 2000's Apple aesthetic. I'm not sure if it
| was actually really good, or I just associate it with a happy
| time in my life.
|
| I feel similar about the platinum theme that started on MacOS 8
| Zelphyr wrote:
| I think it was good. It had a playfulness to it that their
| modern hardware doesn't have. That's not to say the current
| design language is bad either. It has a beautiful purity to it
| that I like but still, I wouldn't mind if they got back some of
| that playfulness.
|
| I think they're trying. I'm thinking about the new option of
| having emoji engraved to AirPods cases.
| Izmaki wrote:
| To think they went from that to The Cheese Grinder, eh? :D
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I've been using OS X since 2010, but in that time I never used
| the Dashboard. I didn't see any point.
|
| A couple weeks ago, I watched the keynote of Steve Jobs
| introducing Tiger, and when he demo'd the Dashboard, I had this
| moment of dawning realization:
|
| "Oh, so _that 's_ what you're supposed to use that for. That
| is... actually completely brilliant. Yes. I want that. Now."
|
| I'm now using the Dashboard quite heavily. It's great.
|
| It got even better a few days later when I watched the Leopard
| keynote and discovered how you're supposed to use Web Clips.
| par wrote:
| what's it for? i never used it when it was around.
| Angostura wrote:
| There were several widgets I used a lot - a fab BBC radio
| widget rage let me listen to radio channels (bring up the UI
| instantly and then dismiss) same for a widget that controlled
| my MAMP servers and a web clipping of a page showing the
| status of various systems I monitored
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| So, worth noting, I'm sure I saw plenty of these explanations
| over the years, and it still took watching Steve Jobs's demo
| before I "got" it.
|
| But: it's a workspace for quick glances that don't take you
| out of the flow of what you're working on. If you've ever
| kept a paper notepad, or a calculator, or a small tablet on
| your desk for reference while using your computer, Launchpad
| is that, but even better because it can be activated and
| deactivated more quickly than physically looking down at your
| desk.
|
| (Make sure the Dashboard is set "As Overlay" if you're ever
| on a system that has it. Modern-ish macOS defaults to "As
| Space", which reeks of a setting created by people who didn't
| actually use the Dashboard.)
| mikestew wrote:
| Too bad you came to use Dashboard so late in the game, it's
| gone in Catalina:
|
| https://9to5mac.com/2019/06/04/dashboard-in-macos-10-15-cata...
| russellbeattie wrote:
| What's interesting about this is how design and presentation has
| been a part of Apple's DNA since basically day one.
|
| When they launched the Apple II in 1977 at the West Coast
| Computer Faire, there were dozens of other micro-computer
| startups there as well. But Steve had the foresight to hire a
| professional product designer to create the foam molded case, and
| professional graphic artists and marketing people to design their
| logo, brochures, booth, etc. In addition to the technical genius
| under the hood provided by Woz, the visual components clearly
| separated Apple from the pack and put them in the same league as
| multinational corporations Commodore and Tandy when Apple was
| still essentially two twenty somethings in a rented office in
| Cupertino.
|
| Corporate DNA is an interesting phenomenon. Throughout the years,
| under various different leaders, Apple has somehow been able to
| consistently produce quality technology that people want to own
| because it looks good and is marketed well. One has to wonder how
| it becomes so ingrained in a company like that.
| nyjah wrote:
| To this day these are some of my favorite coding posters. You
| have to hit the little arrow to find them, I missed them the
| first time searching, so I wanted to post it because they are
| awesome. https://www.applearchive.org/2006-feed/apple-computer-
| scienc...
| Ohn0 wrote:
| My favorite
|
| https://www.applearchive.org/1992-feed/whats-on-your-powerbo...
| leerob wrote:
| The amount of content here is incredible. Did Apple create this,
| or fans?
| alias_neo wrote:
| It's unofficial, there was a discussion on Reddit yesterday
| with people asking if the author would provide access the
| content to archive it in case Apple DMCAs it, to which he gave
| some childish strop in response about how he deserves the
| in(fame)y. You'll find it on /r/DataHoarders if you care to
| look.
| blowski wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/ep27pk/probabl.
| ..
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| Yeah, he had a Google Drive link in June that got taken down.
| Hopefully someone archived that (I sadly didn't) so
| r/DataHoarders can help keep it in circulation.
| lostgame wrote:
| >> to which he gave some childish strop in response about how
| he deserves the in(fame)y
|
| I dunno, he kinda does to an extent? No reason for him to be
| an asshole about it, but this is an excellent resource and
| very well-put-together.
| sjroot wrote:
| It says it is unofficial. Must have taken a ton of effort to
| get this stuff together. Very cool!
| starlig-ht wrote:
| Don't know why I expected granny smiths and red delicious stored
| in case of apocalypse.
| gatherhunterer wrote:
| It is surprising to see that Steve Jobs is the most-featured
| person on a site that says it is dedicated to "unsung heroes". It
| looks like it's just about Apple in general.
|
| Going from "all about Jobs" to "look at our cutting-edge emoji
| designs" is a nice encapsulation of Apple history. I know that
| many people hope the period from Jobs' death to Ives' departure
| was just a phase. But it feels like we're down to the wire
| product-wise. The new MBP is a nice start but before long the
| iPhone SE will reach end-of-life and I just don't want a flat
| brick with three cameras and no audio port.
| [deleted]
| microtherion wrote:
| My first contribution to a feature:
| https://www.applearchive.org/1999-feed/apple-special-event-o...
| at 13:24
|
| A rather one-off thing, never ported to Mac OS X, but we had fun
| developing it.
| rahuldottech wrote:
| Whoa, really cool!
| golem14 wrote:
| Ahh, now I understand this Futurama jab:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSt04IPqFfM
|
| Compare: https://www.applearchive.org/1984-feed/macintosh-tv-
| ad-1984
| pstuart wrote:
| Futurama was written with us old folks in mind. My kids love it
| (as do I), but it's rich with mockery you can't appreciate
| without having been there when it was happening.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| I love the way the thumbnails for each year change with Apple's
| brand typography from the era. The one thing I would change is
| pre-1984: Apple started using Garamond with the introduction of
| the Macintosh; I would use either Motter Tektura (from the old
| logo) or Univers condensed (used in Apple II print materials) for
| 1977-1983.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Am I crazy or is right-clicking totally broken on this website?
| Is this intentional? Maybe a joke about the old iMac hockey puck
| mice?
| saagarjha wrote:
| It is. One of the articles mentioned that they are trying to
| prevent piracy (rolls eyes) so maybe that's what it is.
| pxtail wrote:
| It always mildly amuses me when people are doing this on
| their websites, it's like watching someone clumsily doing
| something pointless but you don't say anything and just
| watch.
| nottorp wrote:
| It is. Dare I ask about middle clicking, which should directly
| open the link in a new tab? :)
|
| Please follow the old Apple, that was about usability, not the
| new Apple, that is only about flashy design...
| briandear wrote:
| The old Apple mouse only had one button.
| TekMol wrote:
| I cannot see any of the videos.
|
| For all the videos, I get this on a black background:
| Sorry Because of its privacy settings,
| this video cannot be played here.
|
| What is that? Anybody else seeing this?
| staffordrj wrote:
| I'm seeing the same thing. All the embedded vimeo videos were
| either deleted or made private.
| telegrammae wrote:
| Apple's design of 10-15 years ago looks excellent even today.
| Truly - good design does not lose its attractiveness as styles
| and standards change. Most icons, fonts, panels, colors of most
| of their old software and promotional materials look very
| pleasant, even in low resolution.
| jdofaz wrote:
| It comes down to your taste, I thought aqua and the lickable
| interface was ugly then, and now.
| throwaway2048 wrote:
| the original osx pinstripe look is pretty hideous, and the faux
| glossy emboss look hasn't aged well either
|
| https://images.techhive.com/images/article/2016/01/mac-os-x-...
| aspectmin wrote:
| We have gained so much along the way (I.e. fast computing),
| but we've lost a lot as well - computers are nowhere near as
| friendly/stylish.
| trilinearnz wrote:
| Great point. I think part of this is that computers are now
| so ubiquitous, there is less call for making them
| approachable to people who are not using them.
|
| Personally I like the friendly stylings of old which were
| empathetic to users' needs. Computers these days seem to
| take themselves too seriously, and we've lost a bit of the
| fun as a result.
| aspectmin wrote:
| Is there a good design book, or program that would teach
| design principles/philosophy like this?
|
| To me, a lot of these modern interfaces (eg Unity) feel like
| staring at a dark concrete city. I'd love to see some more of
| this come back.
| hokumguru wrote:
| I don't know what you're talking about. Maybe the text
| shadows on the window title there are overdone but otherwise
| I think that looks great!
| galad87 wrote:
| Fortunately they were toned down in 10.2.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I've never used them, but from what I've read 10.0-10.2 were
| pretty bad across the board, and 10.3 (Panther) was when OS X
| became a truly viable product.
|
| I think Apple knew this, too. If you look at the timeline of
| macOS releases, 10.0-10.2 were released in the span of just
| over a year, and 10.3 had barely a year of life before
| Panther replaced it (incremental annual releases are the norm
| now, but they weren't then). And of course, Apple was still
| supporting OS 9 at the time.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| The 10.4 version and especially the 10.9 version of Aqua was
| basically perfect in my eyes... they had dimension and
| contrast without being overbearing and were bright and cheery
| without being blinding. I know people are fond of the 10.5
| and 10.6 Aqua but I found its darker grey window chrome a bit
| too dreary looking.
| xvector wrote:
| I love the vaporwave aesthetic of this photo! Thanks for
| sharing.
| pyridines wrote:
| When this design came out, I thought it was bold and
| futuristic. The "juicy" look is dated now, but to hear it
| described as "vaporwave" makes me feel old.
| anthk wrote:
| This. When I say OSX Tiger after sufffering Windows 98
| (and having KDE3 in parallel) I was amazed, that doesn't
| look vaporwave at all. If anything, Amiga OS 3.1 and
| before is vaporwave. OSX Tiger was "UI done right".
| ryanSrich wrote:
| As a designer, I couldn't disagree more. The screenshot you
| linked is far better than 99% of design today. It took time
| and effort to create such engaging and aesthetically pleasing
| design. Today's designers don't care -- the profession is
| overrun by MBAs calling themselves UXers.
| ukyrgf wrote:
| Meanwhile I'd go out of my way to use system themers and
| programs that supported skins just to get that aqua aesthetic
| in Windows.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| We'll say the same about flat buttons-that-don't-look-like-
| buttons too.
| reaperducer wrote:
| The good thing about Material Design is that we don't have
| to wait for it to go out of fashion among developers.
| People have been saying it's butt ugly from day one.
| throwaway2048 wrote:
| sure, but the discussion is about "timeless" design
| ericzawo wrote:
| Thank you very much for this.
| DanCarvajal wrote:
| Had to watch the iPod Nano reveal again. That was the first thing
| I ever live steamed on Quicktime as a teen and it blew my mind.
|
| Edit: also it's weird but I totally had a crush on the faceless
| dancer in the miniskirt in this iPod Shuffle commercial.
| https://www.applearchive.org/2005-feed/ipod-shuffle-tv-ad-li...
| wcfields wrote:
| Now all I can see is someone is being choked by a spaghetti of
| white wires.
| dewey wrote:
| Some more backstory and an interview with the guy who compiled it
| for those interested:
|
| https://ww.9to5mac.com/2020/01/15/the-unofficial-apple-archi...
| saagarjha wrote:
| Im very curious to know how they got access to _recent_ internal
| and unreleased material.
| pxtail wrote:
| Even more interestingly - why this site with _this_ domain name
| and that much apple-related content still does exist?
|
| [0] https://techcrunch.com/2010/01/07/apple-domain-names/
| mcculley wrote:
| Mildly ironic: The first video I went to is
| https://www.applearchive.org/1990-feed/steve-jobs-on-the-lib...
| which has the caption, "We shouldn't build too many more
| libraries, instead we should connect towns to the internet to
| provide access to the Library of Congress". 30 years later and
| copyright has us not much closer to unlocking the Library of
| Congress.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I didn't see any Mac vs PC ads.
| duncans wrote:
| Several in 2006 at least https://www.applearchive.org/2006
| malkia wrote:
| Also notable is https://www.folklore.org/ - thatnks for this
| site!
| overlyLogical wrote:
| Aesthetics are pretty objective despite some people refusing to
| acknowledge beauty in favor of their own ugly idea.
|
| I don't even like Apple and I can say people like stainless steel
| more than plastic.
|
| That said, if you bought a product because of the color, I got
| bad news for you.
| telegrammae wrote:
| I wasn't even talking about the hardware, that's a separate
| story. Apple's old hardware also looks and feels wonderful.
| tolmasky wrote:
| As best as I can tell, this is missing my favorite video, "Jaguar
| on the Loose". Really reminds me how things felt back then. I'm
| on mobile though where the experience isn't fantastic so maybe I
| just missed it on the site. Provided below:
|
| https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2zfnka
| andrekandre wrote:
| wow good times, for me it was this video
|
| https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2zfnja
|
| the whole thing was rendered in quartz2d afaicr
| tolmasky wrote:
| That is a great one too! I love the fact that the QuickTime
| video at the end is actually a PDF.
| rvz wrote:
| For anyone curious about the intricacy of the guidelines of the
| Apple logo: check this out here:
| https://www.applearchive.org/1987-feed/apple-logo-standards-...
|
| It goes into absolute depth into the do's and don'ts of their
| logo, which I find quite frankly interesting to see from a
| designer's perspective.
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