Macenstein

Steve Jobs is delusional

Steve Jobs made a pretty bold claim when he responded to Bryan Webster’s eloquently written question abut the upcoming WWDC: Wow. Them’s fightin’ words to be sure, and they certainly gave ME a chill when I first read them. I immediately had visions of a super-charged, video game playing Apple TV/DVR, fully open to developers, and an iPhone 4 with video chat and... Read More

Redefining “awkward”

A lot is being made of this video from 2007 of Bill Gates purportedly “predicting the iPad” in 2007 while sitting next to Steve Jobs at the All Things Digital conference. Personally I don’t think Bill is saying anything that someone who grew up watching bad sci-fi movies from the 80’s hasn’t envisioned for the last 30 years (guilty) – plus odds are... Read More

Steve jobs calls the kettle “black”

“It’s just common sense not to use another company’s trademarks in your app name.” Those are the words of Steve Jobs in response to an e-mail from app developer Chris Ostmo whose journalPad app was just forced to undergo an expensive re-branding or risk being pulled from the app store for including the word “Pad” in the title. The problem of... Read More

Attention Time Travelers: Your iPhone may not work in 1990

I knew there was a reason I didn’t throw out my Motorola MicroTAC 9800X! Faithful Macenstein reader Colin writes: I was bored and trying to find something to watch on Hulu when I saw this: I thought you’d get a kick out of it, apparently going back in time 17 years totally screws with the iPhone. Wow Colin. You know, I’ve been bored before, but I guess I’ve... Read More

Mosspuppet’s thoughts on the tablet

As so often happens with humorous videos, this 5 minute iSlate review by the Walt Mossberg puppet is about 3 minutes too long, but still probably not too far off from what we’ll read in Walt’s column tomorrow. [via 9 to 5]  Read More

Apple’s iPhone makes an audio cameo in Minority Report 5 years before it’s released

You know that little sound your iPhone makes when you plug it in to charge? If you’re like me, odds are you never really thought much about it. Frankly I just assumed it was some low level sound wired into the guts of the iPhone. But as faithful Macenstein reader Greg discovered, that sound has been around for some time, and has in fact had a brush with none other than the... Read More

This is why virgins shouldn’t write sex apps

And just how the hell am I supposed to do that? Purely for research purposes I decided to check out “A Sexy Party Game for Lovers 1.5“, one of the 40,000 “sex game-themed” apps on the iTunes store. And I hate to admit it, but apparently I am doing EVERYTHING wrong. Hopefully the next tip says “Make up some excuse for your creepy behavior, like... Read More

How we got the “Command” symbol

I was in need of the ⌘ symbol for a top secret project today, and not knowing the proper Unicode combo by heart, I fired up the old character palette to copy it. While there, I noticed that while all the other symbols had the expected names (“Erase to the Left”, “Upwards White Arrow”, etc.) that for some reason, Apple was calling our beloved “Command... Read More

Video: The Macintosh Software Dating Game with Bill Gates (1983)

I once told a friend that I got “douche chills” watching a comedian bomb on stage. He had never heard the term before, and asked me what I meant. I wish I had had this clip then… “Apples are Red, IBM’s blue, if Macs gonna be the 3rd milestone, I need all of you!” Yes, douche chills are that odd, physically “chilling” sensation that... Read More

Apple History: Interview with Apple co-founder Ronald Wayne

You know Woz, and Jobs, and Prancer and Vixen, but do your recall Ronald Wayne? Well, Dutch news show One More Thing did, and they managed to track down the elusive 3rd co-founder of Apple, and conducted a pretty interesting interview (well, interesting if you are obsessed with Apple minutia, like me). If you’ve ever wondered “Heeft u ooit spijt gehad van uw vertrek?”... Read More