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in February, President Obama surprised Steve Jobs with a question of what
it would take to make the iPhones in the United States, rather than China.
Jobs replied that the iPhone could never be made in the United States ... and no, it's not because American labor costs (in fact, labor cost is a tiny fraction of the cost of making an iPhone). It's because America simply doesn't have the manufacturing might anymore:
“Apple’s an example of why it’s so hard to create middle-class jobs in the U.S. now,” said Jared Bernstein, who until last year was an economic adviser to the White House.
“If it’s the pinnacle of capitalism, we should be worried.”
Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.
A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.
“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”
Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher wrote this intriguing article over at The New York Times about the death of manufacturing and the disappearing American middle class - if you read only one thing today, make it this one: Link | TLDR? Here it is in video summary
The tech world is talking about the new Steve Jobs action figure from Inicons that is eerily realistic. It comes with a ton of accessories, but no iPhone or iPad. The figure should be available in late February for $99. See a lot more pictures at Gizmodo. Link
These Apple-themed cake pops will be part of the Steve Jobs Inspired Cake Shop, a fundraiser in London next Wednesday for the organization Pancreatic Cancer UK. It’s part of series of events called Internet Week Europe. Oh yes, they’ll have candied apples, too! Find out more at Cakehead Loves Evil. Link
Montreal, Canada, based artist Olivier Lefebvre created this portrait of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs out of ... yes, real apples: Link - Thanks Yan!
Ranker listed the most immediate internet reactions to Steve Jobs’ death, including the good, the bad, and the tasteless. Laughing Squid also posted a roundup of tributes. Randall Munroe, who normally posts a new comic at xkcd on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, posted this extra in memory of Jobs. Link
Founder and former CEO of Apple Steve Jobs has died after a seven-year battle with cancer. He was 56.
The hard-driving executive pioneered the concept of the personal computer and of navigating them by clicking onscreen images with a mouse. In more recent years, he introduced the iPod portable music player, the iPhone and the iPad tablet — all of which changed how we consume content in the digital age.
More than one pundit, praising Jobs’ ability to transform entire industries with his inventions, called him a modern-day Leonardo Da Vinci.
“Steve Jobs is one of the great innovators in the history of modern capitalism,” New York Times columnist Joe Nocera said in August. “His intuition has been phenomenal over the years.”
Jobs’ death, while dreaded by Apple’s legions of fans, was not unexpected. He had battled cancer for years, took a medical leave from Apple in January and stepped down as chief executive in August because he could “no longer meet (his) duties and expectations.”
CNN has the highlights of Jobs’ eventful life in the obituary. Link
(Image credit: Apple)
Everyone’s seen their fair share of Apple lovers, but there are those that take it beyond an admiration and into a religious-like obsession. Mental Floss has a great look at the many levels of Apple fandom. Do any of you fit into these categories?
Joseph Tame has only been an Apple product-owner for five years (since he purchased a 5th gen iPod Classic) but he’s happily professed his love of the company’s tech since. Tame claims that “[h]aving an iPhone really has changed [his] life,” and as a tribute to Steve Jobs after the recent news of his resignation, Tame used his iPhone’s Runkeeper app to record his 21km logo-shaped marathon through the streets of Tokyo. To read more about the tribute and see other works of GPS art, check out Tame’s Art of Running. Link
You’ve probably heard by now that Steve Jobs has resigned as the CEO of Apple, which saddened many fans who assume the move is due to his health. As a tribute to his career, Ranker has posted The Top Steve Jobs Keynote Moments, with videos of his most memorable speeches, highlighting the expected “surprise” unveiling of new Apple products. The earliest features a new Macintosh computer that referred to Jobs as “a man who’s been like a father to me.” The image here is from the 2007 iPhone introduction. There’s even a compilation of bloopers! Link
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I’m not sure who would want to buy this, but the idea of a Steve Jobs figurine for sale if not neat, you will have to agree is pretty odd. I could see this becoming a whole collectible set of tech industry leaders including Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Who do you think deserves an action figure?
It’s true, there’s a 12-inch Steve Jobs replica accessorized with miniatures of the Apple Store’s best merchandise. Whether or not the real Mr. Jobs will let the Steve Jobs Limited Edition 12-inch Collectible Figurine see its way into production is another story altogether, but for now it’s fun for an Applehead to dream that someday, for the low-low price of only $160, he or she too can own a tiny inanimate clone of the only guy on the planet who can rock the same outfit every day of the week because he just wants to.
Society6′s Greg Koenig created the Steve Jobs in Carbonite iPhone case, but got a Cease and Desist letter from Apple’s lawyers. So from now on, this piece of awesomeness will live only as images on countless blogs and websites.
Too bad. Via FireWire
Once upon a time, before his fairy godmother gave him the magical Turtleneck of Confidence, Steve Jobs was a young man with interesting facial hair and an aversion to the TV cameras. We’re talking the kind of nervousness that is accompanied by serious intestinal distress. This clip is a true Mac classic.
Back in the late 70′s Steve Jobs wasn’t exactly a household name, but he was important enough to appear on Nightline. The footage after the break is not of the actual interview, Steve’s just getting his microphone and monitor set up, but he’s visibly nervous and seemingly impressed with the technology around him. It’s not exactly news, but it is a very interesting way to spend one minute and thirty-seven seconds on the internet.
While Apple mastermind Steve Jobs is on a medical leave of absence, designer Charis Tsevis has created a tribute to the man behind iEverything. Check out this stunning portrait of Jobs, composed of a collage of his many creations.
The collage features all the products Jobs was credited as having a hand in—from the revolutionary (iPod and iPhone) to the less-than-inspiring (Apple TV and eMac).
With Jobs currently on indefinite medical leave, Fast Co Design calls Tsevis’ effort the “ultimate get well soon gesture”.
Link via Fast Co Design
You know what they say -when you find a look that works, stick with it. However, if you look back far enough, you’ll see that he’s tried other styles as well. Link -via J-Walk Blog
Why serve a cheese ball when you can serve Steve Jobs’ head on a platter? Ken carved this from mozzarella cheese for his iPad launch party! See the process in pictures at The Cook’s Den, with recipes for the other foods served with the Apple “head cheese” (strangely, I see no apples, but you’ll find iPad Thai). Link
Hello, everybody! After writing about 100 articles for Neatorama in the past couple of years, I can't bear to write another Top 10 article - at least for a while (other Neatorama authors undoubtedly will pick up the slack). So, please let me try something new. In what I hope will be a regular feature, I'm going to take a regular object and try find the neatest nuggets of knowledge about it.
Let's start with the letter A ... say, apple. So without any further ado, here is Neatolicious Fun Facts: Apple.
1. The Wild Ancestor of All Apples: Malus sieversii
Today,
there are some 7,500 different cultivars of apples that are derived from
a single wild ancestor from Central Asia: Malus sieversii. In
fact, that species still grows in the mountains of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan and Xinjiang, China.
Photo: Malus sieversii, as collected by the 1996 Kazakhstan Apple Collection Mission of the USDA Agricultural Research Service
2. Apple: The Forbidden Fruit?
From The Fall of Man by Titian (c. 1570)
In the Bible, God forbids Adam and Eve from eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. When they eat the fruit anyway, Adam and Even are expelled from the Garden of Eden.
But why apple? The Book of Genesis never mentioned the fruit as apple - in fact, early interpretations pointed to fig, grapes, citron (a lemonlike fruit), carob, and pomegranate (the most likely culprit), but never apple.
The bad rap for apple began when Christians translated the Bible into Latin. Malus, the Latin word for bad or evil is very similar to the word for apple (malum). It seems like the assignation of apple as the forbidden fruit was the result of a pun. Source
3. "An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away"
The first version of the proverb is actually from Pembrokeshire, Wales. The first recorded use was in the February 1866 edition of Notes and Queries magazine: "Eat an apple on going to bed, and you'll keep the doctor from earning his bread." (Source)
It became popular, however, when fruit specialist J.T. Stinson used it in his speech at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
Apples do have a lot of good nutrients and pythochemicals that may help reduce the risk of heart disease, colon cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer, and even tooth decay. But don't eat the seeds; they are mildly poisonous.
4. The Big Apple
Why
is New York City called The Big Apple? Parking ticket judge by day and
amateur etymologist by night Barry
Popik tracked down the first use of the term "The Big Apple"
back to the 1920s by journalist John J. Fitz Gerald, a horse racing reporter
for the New York Morning Telegraph.
Fitz Gerald overheard stable hands in New Orleans racetrack talk about the "Big Apple" racing circuit, meaning "the big time" where a lot of money could be won (Horses love apples, by the way). He liked the term, and wrote a column called "Around the Big Apple" on February 18, 1924:
The Big Apple. The dream of every lad that ever threw a leg over a thoroughbred and the goal of all horsemen. There's only one Big Apple. That's New York. (Source)
5. Bobbing for Apples
The
game bobbing for apples comes from Celtic festival of Samhain, the precursor
of Halloween. As apple is associated with love or fertility, the winner
of the game - the person who catch an apple with his or her teeth first
- is supposed to be the first to marry. (Photo: calebdzahnd
[Flickr])
On February 19, 2008, Ahrita Furman of Brooklyn, New York - who has set 216 official Guinness records - set the world record for bobbing for apples: He bobbed 33 apples in a minute.
Oh, and remember that tradition of throwing rice at weddings? Well, that came from the tradition of throwing apples at newlyweds (yikes!)
6. Record-Breaking Apples
In
2005, Chisato Iwasaki of Hirosaki City, Japan, grew the world's
heaviest apple. At 4 lb 1 oz (1.849 kg), it's the size of a small
pumpkin!
The world's longest single continuous apple peel was created in 1976 by Kathy Wafler Madison at the tender age of 16. It measured 172 feet, 4 inches long. Kathy grew up to run her own apple tree nursery!
7. Newton's Apple
Legend has it that Isaac Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of universal gravitation when an apple fell on his head. Though that was apocryphal, the part that the physicist was inspired by the apple was actually real. Newton himself wrote that he witnessed the falling apple while staring out the window of his house at Woolsthorpe Manor.
Purported offspring of the Newton’s Apple Tree in Woolsthorpe Manor (Image Source: Mathematical Association of America)
What happened to the apple tree? Various places claim that they have the tree. The King's School in Grantham claims that they bought the tree, uprooted it and transported it to the headmaster's garden. The staff of Woolsthorpe Manor, of course, disagreed: they claim that the tree is still present in their garden. Trinity College in Cambridge claimed that they have a descendant of the original tree growing outside the room Newton lived when he studied there.
Oh, and what kind of apple was it? It's a green cooking apple called the Flower of Kent: a pear-shaped, mealy, and generally of poor quality of an apple by today's standard.
See also: Neatorama's 10 Strange Facts About Newton
8. How Did Apple the Computer Company Get Its Name?
Steve Jobs worked summer jobs at an apple farm and liked the Beatles' record label, Apple. So, when he and Steve Wozniak was trying to figure out a name for their new computer company, they decided that if they couldn't think of a better name, they'd name it Apple. Apparently, they couldn't! (Source)
... and talking about Newton, would you know it that Apple's first logo was of Sir Isaac sitting underneath an apple tree?
See also: Neatorama's Evolution of Tech Logos
Do you know more apple fun facts? Please add them to the comment ... and while you're at it, what should we do for "B"?
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