Apple Core

In 2003, Steve Jobs said: “Some people have a problem with open source software. We think it’s great.” It wasn’t just talk. Apple would go on to contribute LLVM and WebKit, two projects that became influential far beyond Apple’s own platforms. WebKit even served as the foundation for Google Chrome. So why doesn’t anyone think of Apple as an open source company?

That question turns out to have an intriguing answer. The ideas behind free and open source software emerged from decades of argument about who owns code, who controls it, and what developers owe each other – debates that predate personal computers entirely. Apple and Microsoft came of age during those debates and drew opposite conclusions.

In this episode, we trace that history from the earliest days of software licensing to the present. We consider how Apple's culture of secrecy often sits uneasily alongside its open source ambitions. And we explore why some Apple projects, like WebKit and LLVM, genuinely escaped the Apple ecosystem while others, like Swift and Darwin, never did. 

Special Guest: Martin Algesten, creator of the Rust libraries ureq and str0m.

LINKS

LLVM.org

Swift.org

WebKit.org

Apple’s Open Source website

The XKCD cartoon Charlie mentions

International Criminal Court Sanctions

Martin’s GitHub page

Charlie’s website

Graham’s strength training app

For more about the show, and to get stylish yet fashionable merch, visit our website.

Apple Podcasts is one of the world’s most popular podcast players, with almost 25% market share. The app launched in 2012, but Apple’s support for podcasting goes back much further. 

The term “podcast” was originally coined in 2005 as a concatenation of iPod and broadcast. Initially, Apple wasn’t pleased with this abuse of its trademark, and sent out angry cease and desist letters. But it didn’t take long for Cupertino to come around, embracing the emerging standard by adding support in iTunes. This propelled podcasting from its early niche audience to mainstream adoption.

Podcasting’s low barriers to entry have helped to democratize and decentralize broadcasting. But the RSS subscription technology on which it is based was developed with the opposite intent. In the 1990s, big media companies felt threatened by the free-for-all of the web and hoped technologies like RSS would enable them to “push” content onto users’ screens. Fortunately, RSS found a new and better purpose in podcasting.

In this episode, we explore the fascinating story of how podcasting emerged at a time when Apple embraced and promoted open standards. We consider why Apple’s focus has shifted  to proprietary technology over the years, and where this leaves Apple Podcasts today.

APPLE CORE MERCH

Check out our merch store, featuring t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, mugs, stickers, and more in retro-geek designs.

GRAHAM'S APP

Check out Graham's strength training app, Reps & Sets, designed for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. 

LINKS

Apple Hot Sauce

A Brief History of Data Syndication and Podcasting

The first known use of the term "podcasting"

With "pod" on lockdown, Apple goes after "podcast"

WWDC 2005 - Steve Jobs introduces Podcasting in iTunes

Thanks to Martin Algesten for sound engineering this episode.

In 2013, Apple launched a radical redesign of the iPhone’s user interface. iOS 7 represented more than just a fresh new look. It marked a major shift in Cupertino’s design philosophy, which arose from a bitter boardroom bust-up between two of Steve Jobs’ most trusted lieutenants.

Since the launch of the Macintosh in 1984, Jobs had pioneered the use of skeuomorphism, a design motif where apps adopt visual cues from real world objects. Jobs shared this philosophy with tech genius Scott Forstall, who worked on the Aqua interface for Mac OS X, and subsequently led the development of iOS.

In the power vacuum after Steve Jobs’ passing, Ive and Forstall became locked in a battle for the company’s future. When Ive won, he wasted no time in scrapping Forstall’s cherished skeuomorphism. In a matter of months his team had developed a radical new user interface design. iOS 7’s minimalistic style was quintessentially Jony Ive, and it established a visual language that continues to influence Apple to this day.

APPLE CORE MERCH

Check out our new merch store on Teepublic, featuring t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, mugs, stickers, and more in retro-geek designs:
 https://applecore.dashery.com

LINKS

Video of WWDC 2013, where iOS 7 was launched:
https://youtu.be/hIigp_bxUcQ?si=41rq99ofJLeaG9pl

Nicholas Carlson for Business Insider in 2014 on Steve Jobs and Quicktime’s brushed metal:
https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobss-signature-design-style-2014-10

Buster Hein for Cult of Mac on the Passbook shredder:
https://www.cultofmac.com/news/ios-7-passbook-ditches-forstalls-dumb-paper-shredder-animation

The Verge on apps that influenced the design of iOS 7:
https://www.theverge.com/2013/10/9/4817146/taskmasters-how-israeli-intelligence-officers-helped-inspire-the-look-of-ios-7

Joshua Topolsky’s hot take on iOS 7 for The Verge:
https://www.theverge.com/apple/2013/6/10/4416726/the-design-of-ios-7-simply-confusing

Jony Ive designs things:
https://www.tumblr.com/jonyiveredesignsthings

Griffin’s website:
https://www.dgriffinjones.com/

Sherlock was introduced in 1998, as a tool for finding files on Mac OS 8.5. It used advanced search technology harvested from the carcass of Apple’s failed next generation operation system, Copeland. Sherlock revolutionized search on the Mac, enabling users to search within files for the first time.

But its file searching prowess is not the reason Sherlock is remembered today. By competing with a similar third-party app called Watson, Apple was accused of putting an indie developer out of business, which coined the term “sherlocking.” 

Sherlock was a technical marvel, featuring a breakthrough user interface that continues to influence how we use the Internet to this day. But its reign was short-lived. Just seven years after its launch, Sherlock was replaced by Spotlight.

APPLE CORE MERCH

Check out our new merch store on Teepublic, featuring t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, mugs, stickers, and more in retro-geek designs:

LINKS

Original Sherlock page on Apple.com via WayBack Machine (you might need to scroll down to see it)

Phil Schiller demos Sherlock 2 at WWDC 1999 (at 59:28)

Sherlock 3 page on Appe.com, via WayBack Machine (you might need to scroll down to see it)

Steve Jobs demos Sherlock 3 at Macworld New York 2002 (25:08)

Karelia Software’s Watson website

In 2011, Steve Jobs made his final public appearance, presenting his plans for a second Apple campus to Cupertino City Council. He proposed a circular building, one mile in diameter, surrounded by beautifully landscaped grounds that concealed a subterranean parking garage. 

With a whopping $5 billion budget and a prestigious international architect attached to the project, Jobs’ ambition was to build “the best office building in the world.” Drawing on his learnings from Pixar’s headquarters, Jobs believed the “donut-shaped” design would result in to unexpected encounters that prompted innovation.

Completed in 2017, Apple Park quickly an iconic part of the brand, featured in every product launch video. But the building’s Pentagon-style “groundscraper” design epitomizes car-dependent suburban bureaucracy rather than innovation, and with the rise of post-COVID home working, large campus sites have become less relevant. So, in this episode, we explore the history of Silicon Valley office parks and consider if Jobs achieved his goal of building the world’s best office.

MERCH STORE

Check out our merch store on Teepublic for retro-geek t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, mugs, stickers, and more:
 https://www.teepublic.com/stores/apple-core-podcast

LINKS:

Video of Steve Jobs’ presentation to Cupertino City Council
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtuz5OmOh_M

The Glendenning Barn
 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/story-behind-random-century-old-162804565.html

History of the Apple Park site
 https://s3.amazonaws.com/Apple-Campus2-DEIR/Apple_Campus_2_Project_EIR_Public_Review_5e-Cultural.pdf

Hewlett Packard’s Garage on Apple Maps
 https://maps.apple.com/?address=367%20Addison%20Ave,%20Palo%20Alto,%20CA%20%2094301,%20United%20States&ll=37.443018,-122.154640&q=367%20Addison%20Ave

Steve Jobs’s parents’ garage on Apple Maps
 https://maps.apple.com/?address=2066%20Crist%20Dr,%20Los%20Altos,%20CA%20%2094024,%20United%20States&ll=37.340323,-122.068897&q=2066%20Crist%20Dr&t=h

The A1844 Door Assembly With Reader
 https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-mystery-device-a1844-photos-user-manual-2017-3

Satellite image of Apple Park by Apple Maps.

In this special episode we interview Leander Kahney, editor of Cult of Mac, and author of New York Times best-selling biographies of Tim Cook and Jony Ive.

During his three-decade career, working first at MacWEEK, then Wired News, and now as the editor of his own tech news website, Cult of Mac, Leander attended all the legendary Steve Jobs keynotes and interviewed some of Apple’s most senior executives. 

Leander regales us with a wealth of fascinating Apple insights and anecdotes. He also shares his origin story as a war correspondent. Plus we learn how Cult of Mac became a thing… And why he wishes he’d never called it that.

MERCH STORE

Check out our merch store on Teepublic for retro-geek t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, mugs, stickers, and more:
 https://www.teepublic.com/stores/apple-core-podcast

LINKS:

Subscribe to Leander’s Cult of Mac Newsletter:
 https://newsletters.cultofmac.com

And check out Leander’s books:

The Cult of Mac
 https://www.amazon.com/Cult-Mac-Leander-Kahney/dp/1593271220/

The Cult of iPod
 https://www.amazon.com/Cult-iPod-Leander-Kahney/dp/1593270666/

Inside Steve’s Brain
 https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Steves-Brain-Leander-Kahney/dp/1591845513/

Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products
 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591847060/

Tim Cook: The Genius Who Took Apple to the Next Level
 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0525537600/

The Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition
 https://www.amazon.com/Cult-Mac-2nd-Leander-Kahney/dp/1593279140/

Apple Maps launched alongside the original iPhone in 2007. Initially, it relied on map data from Google. But in 2012, when the two companies became smartphone rivals, Apple was forced to find an alternative data source.

Opting to build its own map platform in-house, Apple attempted to replicate a product Google had developed over many years in a matter of months. Unsurprisingly, the results were not perfect. Users around the world reported bad directions, missing landmarks, and bizarre visual glitches.

The fallout from the Apple Maps launch led to a rare apology from Tim Cook, and the departure of one of Apple’s most indispensable software engineers. But with the benefit of hindsight, the wisdom of Apple’s move into mapping has become clear. It enabled Apple to compete head-on with Android, and kickstarted Cupertino’s move into services.

MERCH STORE

Check out our merch store on Teepublic for retro-geek design t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, mugs, stickers, and more:
 https://www.teepublic.com/stores/apple-core-podcast

LINKS

The Verge report stating Apple’s deal with Google still had a year to run when Apple scrapped it:
 https://www.theverge.com/2012/9/25/3407614/apple-over-a-year-left-on-google-maps-contract-google-maps-ios-app

Tim Cook’s apology letter (via the Internet Archive):
 https://web.archive.org/web/20121001005112/http://www.apple.com/letter-from-tim-cook-on-maps/

New York Times article on the brawl between Apple and Google in 2010:
 https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/technology/14brawl.html

Wall Street Journal report on Apple’s acquisition of C3 Technologies from Saab:
 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304543904577398502695522974

Cult of Mac on firing of Richard Williamson:
 https://www.cultofmac.com/apple-history/apple-maps-launch-disaster

Scott Forstall tells the story of his interview with Steve Jobs at NeXT:
 https://macdailynews.com/2020/05/22/scott-forstall-reveals-how-his-interview-with-steve-jobs-went/

Adam Lashinsky’s Inside Apple:
 https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Apple-Americas-Admired-Secretive-Company/dp/1455512168/

In 1996, Apple was in serious trouble. The Mac was almost obsolete. Its multitasking was flaky, it couldn’t handle multiple processors, and it kept crashing. Sales were tanking as users switched to Windows NT in droves.

Apple appointed a new CEO, Gil Amelio, to turn things around. He tried to replace the Mac’s System 7 with a new modern operating system he called Rhapsody. Amelio’s strategy wasn’t bad, but he failed to anticipate how difficult it would be to persuade Mac users and developers to switch platforms.

Fortunately, Amelio selected NeXTSTEP as the core foundation of Rhapsody, and the acquisition of NeXT led to the fateful return of Steve Jobs. Over the following two years, Jobs ousted Amelio, fixed his flawed Rhapsody strategy, added a shiny UI that looked so good you could lick it, and rename the whole thing Mac OS X.

LINKS

Gil Amelio’s book: On the Firing Line: My 500 Days at Apple
 https://www.amazon.com/Firing-Line-500-Days-Apple/dp/0887309186/

MacWorld Expo San Francisco January 7 1997 - Steve Jobs first keynote after his return to Apple:
 https://youtu.be/QhhFQ-3w5tE?si=f0IIUmN-s_Ff0n0I

WWDC, May 1998 at the San Jose Convention Center - Steve Jobs and Avi Tevanian introduce Mac OS X and Carbon:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03kTC0Sm7wc

Macworld San Francisco January 2000 - Steve Jobs announces Aqua:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko4V3G4NqII

Screenshot of iMovie running on Mac OS 9 with Aqua controls, before Aqua was announced for Mac OS X:
 https://x.com/mac_os_9/status/1080826112408662017

Interesting article about Steve Jobs and object oriented programming:
 https://computerhistory.org/blog/the-deep-history-of-your-apps-steve-jobs-nextstep-and-early-object-oriented-programming/

The iPhone in your pocket, the Mac on your desk, and even the watch on your wrist are all based on NeXTSTEP, an operating system developed by a long forgotten computer maker called NeXT.

Steve Jobs founded NeXT in 1985, just months after his humiliating departure from Apple. Jobs was determined to beat Apple at its own game by proving his new company was the next big thing in computing. But it didn’t work out that way. While NeXT’s iconic cube-shaped workstations gained a loyal following, they never sold in large numbers. 

Despite many setbacks and failures, Jobs’ wilderness years at NeXT laid the foundation for decades of success that would follow. Apple’s acquisition of NeXT in 1997 proved to be one of the greatest mergers in business history. During his second tenure at Apple, Jobs oversaw the migration of the Mac onto his NeXTSTEP platform. Many of its quirky features, like the spinning beachball of death, are still recognizable in MacOS to this day.

LINKS

The full story of how Steve Jobs learned about 3M computers on a trip to Brown University - “What’s a megaflop?”:
 https://www.folklore.org/Whats_A_Megaflop.html

The NeXT logo, designed by Paul Rand:
 https://www.logodesignlove.com/next-logo-paul-rand

Try NeXTSTEP out for yourself on Infinite Mac:
 https://infinitemac.org

The NeXT Computer Tim Berners-Lee used to develop the world’s first Web browser at the Science Museum in London:
 https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/world-wide-web-global-information-space

Check out these pics of NeXT’s HQ and *that* staircase:
 https://allaboutstevejobs.com/pics/pics_places/next/next_hq

NeXT cube Photograph by Rama, Wikimedia Commons, Cc-by-sa-2.0-fr
 © Rama, Cc-by-sa-2.0-fr
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT#/media/File:NEXT_Cube-IMG_7151.jpg

Thanks to our sound engineer, Martin Algesten, for making us sound fabulous.

These days, Cupertino describes Apple Watch as “the ultimate device for a healthy life.” But it didn’t start out that way. When Tim Cook originally launched the product in 2014, he positioned it as an “intimate way to connect and communicate.”

Over its ten year history, Apple Watch has pivoted more radically than any previous Apple product. The user interface has transformed to such an extent that even the Digital Crown and side button no longer perform their original functions.

The story of how and why this happened reveals a deeper truth about Apple’s evolution. Under Steve Jobs, the company toiled for years in secret to develop perfectly conceived products. Whereas, under Tim Cook, Apple has released products earlier and learned from consumer reaction. This approach could have profound implications for the future of Vision Pro.

Featuring special guest D. Griffin Jones from The CultCast and Cult of Mac. Sound engineering by Martin Algesten.

LINKS

Griffin mentioned this book - The Apple II Age: How the Computer Became Personal by Laine Nooney:
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo195231688.html

Jony Ive and the battle of the big tent:
https://www.macworld.com/article/696590/apple-expose-jony-ive-departure-apple-watch-tent.html

Apple Event September 2014 “Wish we could say more”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38IqQpwPe7s

Apple Event March 2015 “Spring forward”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2dVrpUxUhM

Graham wrote an article about the evolution of watchOS:
https://www.cultofmac.com/news/radical-evolution-of-watchos

Griffin’s YouTube video about how he uses Vision Pro:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im3_yq-LxMQ