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Gaston Bastiaens leaves Apple: Today in Apple history

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April 19 April 19, 1994: Gaston Bastiaens, the executive in charge of Apple’s revolutionary new Newton MessagePad product line, parts ways with the company.

“We can’t say whether he fell or was pushed,” says an Apple spokesman. Reports suggest that the departing Bastiaens, general manager of Apple’s personal interactive electronics division, is leaving due to his failure to make the Newton a financial success.

This post contains affiliate links. Cult of Mac may earn a commission when you use our links to buy items.

Apple Newton: The next Macintosh?

The Newton MessagePad was intended as Apple’s next insanely great product in the early 1990s. Many people, both internally and externally, regarded it as Apple CEO John Sculley‘s answer to the Mac. The personal data assistant, or PDA, became his first attempt to launch a game-changing new product line during his tenure as chief executive.

“It was Sculley’s Macintosh,” is how Frank O’Mahoney, one of the Apple marketing managers who worked on the Newton, told me when I interviewed him for my book The Apple Revolution. “It was Sculley’s opportunity to do what Steve had done, but in his own category of product.”

The Newton started as a research project in 1987. However, it didn’t come to market until August 1993, when Apple unveiled it at Macworld. The year before that, Apple underwent a corporate reshuffle, which moved the Newton group into the newly formed personal interactive electronics division, run by Bastiaens.

After Gaston Bastiaens left Apple …

Born in Belgium, Bastiaens joined Apple from Philips Electronics in the Netherlands. (He previously helped launch the Philips CD-Interactive player there.)

The Newton should have been a triumph for Bastiaens’ division at Apple. However, the device ran into problems. The biggest one? The Newton’s handwriting-recognition technology. Spoofed in a Doonesbury cartoon and on The Simpsons, it gave the MessagePad a bad reputation the device didn’t entirely deserve.

This Doonesbury cartoon had a negative impact on the Newton in the eyes of many
This Doonesbury cartoon’s smartly written lampoon of the Newton’s handwriting-recognition problems had a negative impact on public perception of the device.
Photo: Doonesbury

Later software and hardware updates made the Newton a very powerful tool, but the fixes didn’t come soon enough for Apple. Cupertino needed the stylus-based PDA to blow up and become an immediate hit.

Taking the fall for the Newton’s failure, Bastiaens left Apple to set up his own business. Unfortunately, his post-Apple career hit some turbulent patches.

He became CEO and president of speech-recognition company Lernout & Houspie Speech Products, which later was sued by stockholders. (They claimed the company cooked its books.) In May 2001, authorities took Bastiaens into custody. He was extradited to Belgium to face criminal charges. And, in 2010, a court sentenced him to three years in prison.

Newton MessagePad improves, but Steve Jobs pulls the plug

The Newton MessagePad, meanwhile, continued to improve as a product. Still, it never achieved enough commercial success to become a hit in its own right.

Steve Jobs canceled the product upon his return to Apple in 1997. But there’s a silver lining: The idea of an app-based mobile device with a touch interface became the basis for the iPhone and iPad.



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Macintosh 512Ke enhances the Mac |Today in Apple history

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April 14: Today in Apple history: Macintosh 512Ke launches April 14, 1986: The “low-cost” Macintosh 512Ke brings hardware upgrades — and a bit of confusion — to the low end of the Mac lineup.

The Mac 512Ke is an “enhanced” (hence the “e”) model of the Mac 512K. The upgrade addresses complaints that the original Mac lacked enough memory. The 512Ke adds a double-density 800KB floppy drive and a 128KB ROM to the Mac 512K formula.

Macintosh 512Ke: A ‘low-cost’ Mac. Sort of.

The fourth Mac model released, the Macintosh 512Ke served as a lower-cost alternative to the Macintosh Plus, which shipped three months earlier. While the Mac Plus cost $2,599 when it launched (the equivalent of more than $7,100 today), the Mac 512Ke cost $1,999 (the equivalent of a still-not-exactly-cheap $5,500 in 2023).

Buyers of the Mac 512Ke could trade in their machine for a Mac Plus for a one-off payment of $799. However, that meant they would pay more than if they just bought a Mac Plus outright.

For their money, Mac 512Ke buyers got an 8MHz 68000 processor (the same as the earlier Macs), 512k of RAM and that 800KB floppy, but no hard drive. This came packaged in a beige (at first) all-in-one case, with a 9-inch monochrome display. It shipped with Mac OS System 3.0, but could be upgraded to support System 6.0.8.

Although Steve Jobs was already out of Apple, the Macintosh 512Ke retained his philosophy that Macs shouldn’t be expandable. Apple was already moving away from this stance with its higher-end computers, since the Mac Plus allowed memory expansion.

The Mac 512Ke came with no memory-expansion slots. However, it was among the first Macs (maybe even the first?) that could be used as an AppleShare server.

Mac 512Ke: What’s in a name?

As older Apple fans might remember, the company’s product line names could prove confusing. The same Macs often got different names depending on the sales outlet. As someone whose early memories of Apple come from the 1990s, I always associated this naming oddity with that decade. The 1980s enjoyed straightforward product names like the Macintosh SE and Macintosh II.

In fact, this “Today in Apple history” pick shows that Apple’s unfortunate naming convention began relatively early in the Mac’s lifespan. While regular U.S. customers bought this machine as the Macintosh 512Ke, Apple also sold the computer to the education market as the Macintosh ED. That version came with a Mac Plus extended keyboard.

That same model, complete with Mac Plus extended keyboard, also sold to non-education customers outside the United States under the name Macintosh 512K/800.

More confusion: Mac 512Ke gets a face-lift

To add one final complication for Mac completists, in 1987 Apple gave the Macintosh 512Ke an aesthetic face-lift by switching to the Platinum color scheme. That meant changing the 512Ke’s front bezel to that of the Macintosh Plus. But the internals and name remained the same.

Apple ultimately canceled the computer in September 1987.

Do you remember the Macintosh 512Ke? Leave your comments below.



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Today in Apple history: Early iPad rumor gets Apple fans buzzing

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April 13: Today in Apple history: Early iPad rumor gets Apple fans buzzing April 13, 2005: The tech world gets excited when a sketchy rumor suggests Apple is building a tablet computer.

The Chinese-language report claims Quanta will build a 15-inch touchscreen tablet PC with detachable keyboard. Apple will supposedly ship the device in the first quarter of 2006. Things don’t turn out quite like that, but the rumor offers the first hint about Apple’s secret iPad project.

The first iPad rumor?

The idea of developing a tablet fascinated Apple co-founder Steve Jobs for a long time, although he denied it when asked by journalist Walt Mossberg in May 2003.

“We have no plans to make a tablet,” Jobs said at the time.

However, a tablet appealed to Jobs’ love of minimalism, since it was basically a screen with nothing else.

The iPad: Inspired by Alan Kay’s Dynabook

Alan Kay's Dynabook concept was for a personal computer simple enough for children to use.
Alan Kay’s Dynabook concept was for a personal computer simple enough for children to use.
Photo: Alan Kay

In particular, Jobs was inspired by the Dynabook, a concept dreamed up in 1968 by Xerox PARC (and later Apple) engineer Alan Kay.

During Jobs’ absence from Apple, the company experimented with tablet-like mobile devices in the form of the Newton MessagePad (which Jobs ultimately canceled upon his return to Cupertino).

However, by the early 2000s, Apple began working on the iPad, or at least thinking a lot more about the tablet computer form factor.

In March 2004, the company surveyed select customers, claiming it was considering relaunching the Newton. In actuality, Apple was gathering data about demand for future mobile devices.

Apple patent shows iPad-like ‘electronic device’

An Apple patent from 2004 shows designs for an iPad-like device.
An Apple patent from 2004 shows designs for an iPad-like device.
Photo: USPTO/Apple

That exact same month, the company filed a design patent application for an “electronic device” that looks virtually identical to the iPad that shipped a few years later (with the exception of the smaller display, which looked more like the iPad mini). The patent application listed both Jobs and Apple design chief Jony Ive as inventors.

Apple ultimately opted to develop a touch interface smartphone, the iPhone, before revisiting the iPad concept. It’s not clear whether there was any truth to the Quanta rumor about a possible tablet computer. Perhaps Apple was sourcing components it was unable to put together in its Industrial Design lab back in Cupertino.

Still, this rumor got a lot of people buzzing about a possible Apple tablet back in 2005. Another five years passed before Apple introduced the iPad. However, this rumor revealed definite excitement about what Apple might do with a tablet.

What was the first report you heard about the iPad? Leave your comments below.



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Apple-1 starts a computing revolution: Today in Apple history

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April 11: Today in Apple history: Apple-1 launches. It's the First Apple computer. April 11, 1976: Apple releases its first computer, the Apple-1.

Designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak, the computers are sold wholesale by “Steven” Jobs. To finance their manufacturing, Wozniak sells his HP-65 calculator for $500, while Jobs sells his Volkswagen van. Years later, in 2014, a working Apple-1 will sell at auction for $905,000.

Apple-1: The first Apple computer

In terms of specs, the first Apple computer was incredibly primitive. It came with an 8-bit MOS 6502 microprocessor running at 1 MHz. It boasted 4KB of memory as standard, although expansion cards could boost this to 8KB or 48KB. Users had to add their own keyboard and monitor, although the latter could be a regular TV set, which made the Apple-1 innovative for its day. (And also, arguably, makes the Apple-1 the company’s first set-top box.)

Wozniak started working on the computer as a hobby, with no goal beyond showing it off to the people at the local Homebrew Computer Club, a hobbyist group whose meetings he attended in Menlo Park, California.

A proof of concept for the Homebrew Computer Club

“I did this computer … to show the people at Homebrew that it was possible to build a very affordable computer — a real computer you could program for the price of the Altair — with just a few chips,” Wozniak recalled in his autobiography, iWoz.

Jobs convinced Woz they would do better building and selling the Apple-1 rather than giving away the designs. Then Jobs approached Paul Terrell, who owned The Byte Shop in nearby Mountain View, California, one of the first personal computer stores.

Terrell rejected Jobs’ first suggestion that the Apple-1 should come in kit form. He told Jobs that, with computers becoming more mainstream, people wanted to buy fully assembled machines.

Apple-1 launch price: $666.66

Jobs listened and agreed. So, Terrell said he would buy 50 Apple-1 computers for $500 each, although cash would only be paid upon delivery. Terrell then marked up the computers to $666.66, or the equivalent of more than $3,500 today.

Ultimately, the Apple-1 didn’t hang around too long. Apple only built 200 or so of its first computers. The number of surviving units is significantly smaller today, due to both the computers’ age and the fact that Apple offered a trade-in deal when it launched the significantly upgraded Apple II the following year.



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Boot Camp lets Mac users run Windows: Today in Apple history

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April 5: Today in Apple history: Mac users can run Windows with Boot Camp April 5, 2006: Apple introduces the public beta of Boot Camp, software that allows users with an Intel-based Mac to run Windows XP on their machines.

Boot Camp will officially arrive in Mac OS X Leopard, which debuts at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference a few months later.

Apple’s Boot Camp lets Windows run on Macs

As noted in yesterday’s “Today in Apple history,” the legal battles between Microsoft and Apple over similarities between the Windows and Mac operating systems ran throughout the late 1980s and 1990s.

Ultimately, Microsoft did not wipe out Apple as many expected early on. However, it became pretty clear to everyone that Microsoft emerged as the victor in terms of mainstream operating systems. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs said so himself in Fortune magazine in 1996, around the time he returned to Cupertino.

“The PC wars are over,” Jobs said. “Done. Microsoft won a long time ago.”

By 2006, however, things were changing, and Boot Camp illustrated Apple’s — and the Mac’s — growing popularity. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates had stopped running the company half a decade earlier. Microsoft got stuck in a relative slump after hitting its peak valuation at the height of the dot-com bubble.

Apple, on the other hand, found a way to rebound. Just a few years after releasing the iPod in 2001, the MP3 player made up the bulk of Apple’s revenue, moving the Mac to second place. The “halo effect” of the iPod, however, helped bring Macs to a whole new audience. (A series of innovative Mac hardware designs didn’t hurt, either.)

Macs switch from PowerPC to Intel

Apple viewed Boot Camp as a way to appeal to people who might make the jump from PC to Mac. Apple’s switch from PowerPC processors to Intel CPUs, which Jobs announced in 2005, made the feature possible.

“Apple has no desire or plan to sell or support Windows, but many customers have expressed their interest to run Windows on Apple’s superior hardware now that we use Intel processors,” Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, said at the time. “We think Boot Camp makes the Mac even more appealing to Windows users considering making the switch.”

Boot Camp simplified Windows installation on an Intel-based Mac by providing a simple, step-by-step graphical assistant application. It made it easy to create a second partition on the hard drive for Windows, burn a CD with all necessary Windows drivers, and install Microsoft’s operating system from a Windows XP installation CD.

After installing the software, users could choose to run either Mac OS X or Windows when they restarted their computers.

Boot Camp did not mark the end of hostilities between Apple and Microsoft, though. Anyone who thought this was Apple acknowledging that Windows also had something valuable to offer would soon be disabused of that notion — when Apple debuted its “Get a Mac” ads talking trash about Windows PCs.

Apple silicon signals twilight for Boot Camp

In 2020, Apple began switching the Mac lineup from Intel processors to its own custom chips. One side effect is that Boot Camp does not run on Apple silicon. Users with Macs powered by Apple’s M1, M2 and M3 chips must rely on virtualization software like Parallels or VMWare Fusion if they want to run Windows.



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How to watch A Brief History of the Future online from anywhere

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How to watch A Brief History of the Future

From Drake’s DreamCrew production company, A Brief History of the Future looks to challenge the oft depicted dystopian view of the future and aims to use lessons from history and groundbreaking modern science to help viewers work toward a hopeful tomorrow. So keep reading, as we explain how to watch A Brief History of the Future online and from wherever you are in the world.

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Hosted by renowned futurist Ari Wallach, A Brief History of the Future will tour the globe, meeting with those who are already working toward securing a hopeful future and discuss the changes we can make today to lead us into a better tomorrow. This series will explore how economics, art, philosophy and politics can all play a part in how we approach the years to come and create a sustainable Earth for the generations ahead.   

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First iPad makes ‘magical’ debut in stores: Today in Apple history

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April 3, 2010: Today in Apple history: ‘Magical’ first iPad debuts in stores April 3, 2010: The first iPad hits store shelves after months of anticipation. The tablet Apple CEO Steve Jobs called “magical and revolutionary” at its unveiling earlier in the year quickly becomes a major success.

Jobs initially showed off Apple’s first tablet on January 27, 2010. And there had been rumors long before then. But the wait for the iPad is finally over … at least for people in the United States. (The iPad’s international debut won’t happen until May.)

First iPad release date: April 3, 2010

Arriving nearly three years after the original iPhone launch, the iPad boasted a supersized touchscreen that made it perfect for consuming content. It seemed purpose-built for watching movies, reading long-form content like books and magazines, and listening to music. Plus, iPad owners could handle email and browse the web, just like on iPhone, only with a much larger canvas.

That very first iPad boasted a 9.7-inch multitouch display and a 1GHz Apple A4 processor. Storage options ranged from 16GB to 64GB of flash memory. It didn’t come with a camera. The first iPad with 3G cellular connectivity came out a few weeks later.

Apple’s first tablet benefited from a lot of prerelease excitement, but it faced a certain amount of skepticism, too. After Jobs announced the device, Dan Lyons at Newsweek wrote, “Jobs and his team kept using words like ‘breakthrough’ and ‘magical,’ but the iPad is neither, at least not right now.”

Jeremy A. Kaplan at Fox News unleashed an even more scathing evaluation. “Call it the iPad or the iPlod, but the message seems clear: Apple may have lost its mojo,” he wrote. And John C. Dvorak at MarketWatch dismissed the original iPad as “a giant iPod Touch.”

To use it is to love it: Apple tablet becomes an instant success

But those comments came from people who had never actually used the device. After Apple sent out review units, Walt Mossberg at All Things D called the iPad a “pleasure to use,” and said it made him less interested in using his laptop. And David Pogue at The New York Times said anybody interested in a tablet would “love the machine.”

Cult of Mac’s in-depth review by publisher Leander Kahney called the first Apple tablet “perfect for relaxing at home or on a plane.”

Consumers knew what they wanted. Apple sold 300,000 iPads on launch day and a million units in less than a month. By the end of the breakthrough tablet’s first year, Apple sold around 25 million of them. That made the iPad the most successful new product category launch in Apple history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Fk1V5NqoD4



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Z80 SoftCard is Microsoft’s first hardware: Today in Apple history

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April 2: Today in Apple history: Microsoft Z80 SoftCard, the company's first hardware, debuts on Apple II April 2, 1980: Microsoft releases its first hardware product, the Z80 SoftCard. A microprocessor card that plugs into the Apple II, it allows the computer to run programs designed for the CP/M operating system, a popular OS for business software.

Arriving several years before the first version of Windows, the Z80 SoftCard quickly becomes a big hit for Microsoft.

Microsoft, the hardware company?

A straightforward plug-and-play peripheral for the Apple II, the Z80 SoftCard contained a Zilog Z80 CPU and the necessary “decoding circuitry” to read the signals on the Apple computer’s bus.

It allowed the Apple II to run much more business software, most notably the popular word processor WordStar, which required a Z80 CPU.

At the time of its introduction, InfoWorld magazine referred to the Z80 SoftCard as a “fascinating piece of hardware.”

“If you need a lightweight, portable Z80 computer, the Apple/SoftCard combination is a perfect pair,” the publication concluded.

Microsoft Z80 SoftCard becomes a hit

The $349 card (the equivalent of nearly $1,400 today) was, in some ways, a surprise hit for Microsoft. Coming packaged with Microsoft BASIC, it debuted at the West Coast Computer Faire in March 1980 and went on sale the following month. In its first three months, Microsoft sold 5,000 units — considered a big success at the time.

In fact, the Z80 SoftCard quickly became Microsoft’s No. 1 revenue source. And it remained the company’s most successful hardware product until it introduced a mouse in 1983.

Microsoft continued its involvement with Apple for the next few years — albeit increasingly in software. By the mid-1980s, Microsoft became one of Apple’s most valuable developers. So much so that Apple CEO John Sculley signed a damaging contract to keep Bill Gates and Co. hanging around.

First came the Z80 SoftCard, then Windows …

By the end of the 1980s, Microsoft achieved great success with Windows. The PC operating system proved so popular that Microsoft challenged Apple in the marketplace.

Over the next 20 years, Microsoft’s software-based business model dominated the tech industry, eclipsing Apple’s own-everything-we-make approach.

In recent years, Microsoft accelerated its hardware push with its Surface lineup, producing tabletop computers, laptops, hybrid tablets, dual-screen Android devices and even touchscreen whiteboards. The company’s recent focus on artificial intelligence once again vaulted it to the top of the market capitalization heap.



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Apple founded to sell Apple-1 computer: Today in Apple history

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April 1: Today in Apple history: Apple founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ron Wayne April 1, 1976: The Apple Computer Company is founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. The trio sets out to sell the $666 Apple-1 computer.

Apple will not officially become a corporation until January 3 the following year. By that time, Wayne is no longer a part of the business.

This post contains affiliate links. Cult of Mac may earn a commission when you use our links to buy items.

Apple founded to turn Apple-1 from hobby to ‘real computer’

Apple’s initial ambitions were quite modest. Wozniak started working on the Apple-1 as a hobby, with no goal beyond showing it off to peers at the Homebrew Computer Club in Menlo Park, California.

“I did this computer … to show the people at Homebrew that it was possible to build a very affordable computer — a real computer you could program for the price of the Altair — with just a few chips,” Wozniak recalled in his autobiography, iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It.

Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne found Apple Computer Co.

Jobs convinced Woz that they would find more success building and selling the Apple-1 rather than giving away the designs. This led to Jobs, Woz and the older Wayne — who the Steves met at pioneering video game and computer company Atari — going into business together. And thus Apple was founded on April Fools’ Day in 1976.

Jobs and Wozniak were the main drivers behind Apple. They each received a 45% stake in the new company, while Wayne held the remaining 10%.

Less than two weeks after the company’s founding, Wayne cashed in his Apple shares for $800. He eventually received an additional $1,500 to seal the deal.

The original contract that founded Apple.
The original contract by which Apple was founded.
Photo: Apple

Apple II computer becomes a breakthrough

By early 1977, Apple was ready to release its breakthrough Apple II. And the company lined up venture funding to fuel expansion far beyond its humble origins.

When Apple went public in 1980, both Woz and Jobs became instant multimillionaires. (Despite missing out on that windfall, Wayne remains remarkably upbeat about stepping away from Apple.)

Today, Apple is a company valued at more than $2.6 trillion. That’s quite the success story! Now if only we’d invested in Apple way back when it was founded …



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First iPad reviews hail game-changing tablet: Today in Apple history

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March 31: Today in Apple history: First iPad reviews hail a true game-changer March 31, 2010: The world gets its first sense of how Apple’s tablet measures up, as the first iPad reviews hit the internet.

The consensus? That there’s no Flash, no USB, no multitasking — but Apple’s tablet offers an exciting new computing experience all the same. As USA Today writes, “The first iPad is a winner.”

Original iPad wows reviewers

The iPad was Steve Jobs’ final major new product category at Apple. He previously shepherded the launch of hits like the iPod, iTunes Music Store and the iPhone during his second tenure with the company.

Jobs unveiled the iPad on January 27, 2010. But with the exception of a few rare (and carefully selected) public appearances, the world did not get much information about how well the tablet performed until the first reviews began to trickle out on this day in 2010.

As remains the case today, Apple carefully controlled which outlets got an early iPad. Big names like Walt Mossberg for All Things D and David Pogue for The New York Times received demo units. So did newspapers like USA Today and the Chicago Sun-Times.

The verdicts from these precious few early iPad reviewers proved as positive as most potential owners hoped. Pogue said anybody intrigued by the tablet form factor would “love the machine.” The tablet’s ability to play movies continuously for more than 12 hours particularly impressed him.

Mossberg called the iPad “a whole new type of computer.” He referred to it as a “pleasure to use” — and said it made him less interested in using his laptop.

The Chicago Sun-Times’ Andy Inhatko got it right when he wrote that the iPad fills “a gap that’s existed for quite some time” — pitched halfway between an iPhone and a MacBook.

First iPad reviews: Better for content consumption than creation

Interestingly, the first iPad reviews acknowledge a challenge that Apple continues to face with subsequent iterations of its tablet. The critics noted that the device does not replace a laptop — and works better for consuming content than creating it.

Pogue wrote that a laptop will do more for less money. Mossberg confessed that — as much as he loved the iPad — he still turned to his laptop for writing and editing larger documents.

Edward Baig from USA Today wrote that Apple “pretty much nailed it with this first iPad, though there’s certainly room for improvement.”

Original iPad goes on sale

The first-gen iPad went on sale on April 3, 2010, with a 3G version following on April 30. The tablet became a big hit for Apple at launch. It took less than a month to sell 1 million units. (That’s half the time it took to sell that many iPhones.)

In its first year, the iPad sold around 25 million units. That made it the most successful new product category launch in Apple history.

Did you own a first-gen iPad? Leave your comments below.



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