For your weekend viewing enjoyment:

But in almost every way that mattered, the Macintosh was right. Right about how we’d use computers going forward. Right about the idea that computers needed to be less complicated. Right about the fact that caring this deeply about both hardware and software design would make a difference. Though Apple didn’t sell many of those original Macintoshes, there’s no question it changed computers forever.

On this episode of Version History, we tell the story of the original Macintosh. David Pierce, Nilay Patel, and Daring Fireball’s John Gruber explain the strange corporate infighting that led to the project in the first place, the ways in which the Macintosh changed over time, and how Jobs and his team drove such massive hype for the device some people didn’t even want to ship. Then they debate the device’s true legacy, and whether the computer or the commercial is the true icon.

Look, I’m all for democracy, but a poll whose results currently have the Extended Keyboard II down at #47 is a poll that makes me angry.

Stephen Hackett, at 512 Pixels:

I’ve thought a lot about the bad timing Jones mentions. Had Apple stuck to the original timeline, and killed off the 2013 Mac Pro in favor of an iMac “specifically targeted at large segments of the pro market,” back in 2017, Apple could have avoided putting out the best Intel Mac ever, less than a year before the transition to Apple silicon.

Did Apple know in 2017 that 2020 was the year the M1 would make it out of the lab? Probably not, but it doesn’t make the timing any less painful.

Apple might not have had 2020 set in stone for the Apple Silicon transition, but in 2017, they definitely knew that Apple Silicon was the future. I think they knew that years before 2017, and in broad strokes, that’s why 2015–2020 was such a bad period for Mac hardware. They didn’t ship a retina MacBook Air until 2018. The 12-inch MacBook was beautiful but expensive and seriously underpowered. And nothing suffered more than the Mac Pro in that stretch. I think Apple knew that the future was on their own silicon, but in the meantime, they just couldn’t get it up for the last five years of the Intel era.

While I’m bitching about Netflix’s craptacular new video player on Apple TV, let me quote from a piece I wrote two years ago (also complaining about Netflix’s tvOS app):

Turns out there are two better ways:

1. If you use the Control Center Apple TV remote control on your iPhone, there’s a dedicated “CC” button.

2. In tvOS, go to Settings → Accessibility → Accessibility Shortcut, and set it to “Closed Captions”. Now you can just triple-click the Menu/Back button on the remote to toggle captions. (On older Apple TV remotes, the button is labelled “Menu”; on the new remote, it’s labelled with a “<”.)

But here’s the hitch: Netflix’s tvOS app doesn’t support either of these ways to toggle captions. Netflix only supports the on-screen caption toggle in their custom video player. I get why Netflix and other streaming apps want to use their own custom video players, but it ought to be mandated by App Store review that they support accessibility features like this one.

What Apple should have done right from the start with the tvOS-based Apple TV a decade ago is require all apps to use the system video player. No custom video players. It’s too late for that, alas. But the tvOS App Store review process ought to insist on compliance with these accessibility and platform compliance features.

You want to use your own custom video player? Fine. But apps with custom video players must support the “CC” button in the iOS Control Center remote control, must support the triple-click accessibility shortcut, must support the platform conventions for fast-forwarding and rewinding using the Apple TV remote control, etc. If your video player doesn’t comply, your app update doesn’t get approved.

Apple should use the App Store approval process for the benefit of users. Isn’t that supposed to be the point?

This feature from Harry McCracken is just spectacularly good. (And it’s a gift link that’ll get you past Fast Company’s paywall.) 50 years is a long time and there are some key players in Apple’s origin story who are gone — but because everyone was so young at the time, it’s amazing how many of them are still alive. And, of course, in Chris Espinosa’s case, still working at Apple:

I was sitting there in the Byte Shop in Palo Alto on an Apple-1 writing BASIC programs, and this guy with a scraggly beard and no shoes came in and looked at me and conducted what I later understood to be the standard interview, which was “Who are you?” I said, “I’m Chris.” And he said, “What are you doing?” I said, “I’m writing BASIC programs on this Apple-1 for the owner.” And he said, “Are you any good?” I showed him my BASIC programs on the Apple-1.

He told me, “I’ve seen you around Homebrew. Woz is working on this second-generation computer, and instead of loading BASIC from cassette tape, we want to put it in ROM. And so it has to be perfect. I want you to come and test Woz’s BASIC, and I’ll give you 4K of RAM for that when you build your own computer.” That sounded like a good deal. Steve Jobs’s idea back then of recruiting was to grab a random-ass 14-year-old off the streets.

Apple is at its best when it’s infused with a bit of the spirit of the two Steves whose first joint venture were blue boxes that let you make long distance phone calls for free. The first public phone call Steve Jobs ever made on an iPhone was a prank call to the Starbucks next to Moscone West. I feel like that renegade spirit has been repressed in the Tim Cook era.