June 19, 2015
Last fall, I posted A Brief History of Apple Home Page Tabs which showed a visual history of each change in the tabs on the apple.com home page since they were introduced in January 2000. That post also called out some of the major changes and common themes in both interface style and products over the years.
On June 8th, 2015, about 9 months after the previous change, the Apple home page tabs have changed again.
Click for the full-sized image.
With the introduction of the Apple Music service, the iPod and iTunes tabs have been replaced with a single Music tab.
The Apple home page has had iTunes and iPod in a tab for almost twelve years. The iTunes tab first appeared in September 2003 with iPod being added for a combined iPod + iTunes tab the very next month in October 2003.
They shared a tab together for close to a decade before being broken out into separate tabs in March 2010, where they have remained until being combined into a single Music tab last week.
A Music tab on the Apple home page is not entirely new, nor is the term Apple Music. A Music tab first appeared at the introduction of the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003.* In addition, posters commemorating the launch listed the site address AppleMusic.com.
That tab lasted until September 2003, when it changed to an iTunes tab. Time will tell if the Music tab and the Apple Music brand hang in there longer this time around. •
Poster of the original AppleMusic.com from 2003.
I used the Internet Wayback Machine to help track these changes down. If I’ve missed any changes, please feel free to let me know!
*The original post listed the addition of the original Music tab in May 2003, which is the earliest archive I found in the Internet Wayback Machine. However, this change almost certainly went live on the day the iTunes Music Store was introduced on April 28th, 2003.
Category: Apple
June 3, 2015
I’ll be doing a few things next week at WWDC and wanted to pass along my schedule. Hope to see you at one or more of these happenings!
Monday: NeXTEVNT Fundraiser for the Cartoon Art Museum
I’ll be doing a short set of James Dempsey and the Breakpoints songs at this fundraising event at the Cartoon Art Museum.
This event has been a lot of fun each year, always with great speakers and plenty of time to meet and mingle with very interesting folks. If you are a fan of comics, cartoons, or animation — or have an interest in where the technology we use every day comes from — this is a great event for a great cause.
I highly encourage you to check out the details and come to the event.
NeXTEVNT Fundraiser for the Cartoon Art Museum
Monday, June 8th, 4:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Wednesday: LIVE near WWDC 2015 (aka The Big Show!)
Our LIVE near WWDC show is the biggest James Dempsey and the Breakpoints performance of the year — and this year’s show is our biggest ever. Thanks to our fabulous sponsors, we’re at a bigger venue and the drinks are on us!
The event is free, but registration is required. We are handling admission the way AltConf does. Registration does not guarantee admission. For general admission registrations, we will fill the venue on a first come, first admitted basis.
You can read all of the details and register for the event here.
James Dempsey and the Breakpoints, LIVE near WWDC presented by Capital One
Wednesday, June 10th, Doors open at 7:30 PM, show starts at 8:00 PM. Event goes until 10:30 PM
Friday: Closing session at AltConf 2015
I’ll be closing out the week at AltConf 2015 again this year with an easy-going look back at the announcements of WWDC 2015 and their possible implications in a session entitled So, That Just Happened.
This session is a talk about the week in review and not a set of James Dempsey and the Breakpoints songs.
However, there may also be a bit involving a ukulele.
AltConf 2015, June 8 – June 12, 2015
Closing Session, Friday, June 12th, 3:15 PM, Theater 15
A Busy WWDC 2015 Week
It will be a busy WWDC week as we walk around with our heads swimming trying to soak in all of the new announcements.
I hope you can make it out to one or more of these events! And if you do, please say hello! •
Categories: Mac, Music, Software Development, iOS
March 24, 2015
Last fall, I received an email that read, “I would like to invite you to be a speaker at NSConference 7”.
In the invitation email, conference organizer Steve ‘Scotty’ Scott (@macdevnet) described his intent for the conference:
“At NSConference I want the speakers to be with the attendees all the time. I want you to be at the sessions, I want you to be at the meals, I want you to be at the events. I want you to mix, eat, drink and chat with as many attendees as possible.”
“What I require most in an NSConference speaker is enthusiasm and a love of being with the OS X and iOS developer community. Right now I am not looking to pick talk topics, as it’s all about people first.”
I accepted the invitation immediately.
All About People First
In his opening remarks, Scotty expressed the same intent in a different fashion. He said that the speakers and topics were, of course, important, but the real heart of NSConf was creating an environment where members of the developer community could interact.
Leicester Athena
Photo by NotFromUtrecht via Wikimedia Commons
The format at NSConf was unlike other conferences I have attended. Each segment began with a 30-minute talk followed by two 10 or 15-minute blitz-talks, followed by a 30-minute break. This approach packed three topics plus plenty of time to talk with fellow attendees into a 90-minute block.
The venue was the Leicester Athena, a gorgeous 1930s art deco theater re-styled to host events. The seating was at round tables, giving folks a chance to talk with one another. There was a massive stage with great lighting and sound (and yes, a full bar on stage too). It is truly a beautiful venue, well-suited to Scotty’s goals for the event.
The days were filled with speakers giving talks, conversations with attendees and lots of coffee and tea. In the evenings, good food and more conversation. The first night was the banquet, each table set with a candelabra, with wine and a meal served at your table. The second night was the party, with a buffet meal and mingling.
It was after folks had a chance to be fed at the party that we launched into our Breakpoint Jam.
Breakpoint Jam: NSConf Edition
The idea behind a Breakpoint Jam is that the band is made up of whoever happens to be in town for a conference. Folks practice up some James Dempsey and the Breakpoints songs on their own before arriving, we do a quick rehearsal the day of the show, and then we perform.
I find the most stress-inducing shows are when all the musicians are new to the Breakpoint Jam — this was one of those performances.
It takes a leap of faith to get on a plane in San Francisco and fly over 5,000 miles to England, knowing you will be performing for a theater full of people with musicians you have never performed with, rehearsed with, or in some cases even met before.
Kevin Cupp, James Dempsey, Jonathan Fox and Steve ‘Scotty’ Scott kick off the NSConf 7 Breakpoint Jam
Photo by Cathy Shive
That leap of faith was rewarded by musicians that pulled it all together amazingly well in the rehearsal time allotted.
Guitarist and iOS developer Kevin Cupp (@kevincupp) did perhaps the best walk-on guitar part in Breakpoint Jam history, having learned every nuance from the rehearsal tracks I had sent.
Longtime NeXT and Apple indie developer John Fox (@djembe) added a full drum kit to a Breakpoint Jam for the first time, skillfully playing the varying musical styles from the driving beat of Goto Fail to the Hawaiian breeze-inspired Liki Song.
Rounding out the core trio of Conditional Breakpoints for the evening was NSConf’s own Scotty on bass. (It is no coincidence that Scotty was positioned closest to the on-stage bar.)
For The Liki Song, backup singers arrived in the form of Laura Savino (@savinola) and Ruotger Deecke (@roddi) making their Breakpoint Jam debut, and Uli Kusterer () whose bass voice is perfect for the ‘object alloc’ chant beneath the choruses.
And, on the ever-important slide-advance keyboard, the incomparable Daniel Steinberg ().
Left to Right: Kevin Cupp, James Dempsey, Jonathan Fox, Laura Savino, Ruotger Deecke, Uli Kusterer, Steve ‘Scotty’ Scott.
Image by Marius Ciocanel
It was tremendous fun to play on that big stage, in that beautiful theater, complete with lighting effects (and a fog machine, I think). The show was only possible because of all of those who joined in the jam—a big thank you to them for lending their talents to the show. And of course, a giant thank you to everyone the audience, it was a privilege to play for you all.
The Future: A Look Back
Scotty had stated that this year’s NSConference would be the last. When I looked at the schedule, I saw that Scotty had chosen my session The Future: A Look Back to be the last talk of the last day of the last NSConf.
The talk took a look back to the Apple/NeXT merger and the history of some of the technologies that we use today. After the talk, some old-timers told me that they enjoyed the walk down memory lane, while some more recent arrivals to iOS and OS X development commented they appreciated hearing some backstory on the technologies they are using today.
The Future: A Look Back at NSConf 7
Photo by Raphael Sebbe
Scotty had also announced that, although this was the final NSConf, he hoped to do another event in the future that took the best of NSConf, but proceeded in a different way — different enough that calling it ‘NSConf’ would be misnomer.
With that in mind, I closed my talk as follows:
“As we wind down to the last session of the last NSConf, I’d remind you that in this developer world of ours, nothing is ever truly gone. Specific implementations come and go, particular instances are created and released, but the underlying themes stick around. That’s true whether we are talking about technologies, or the community of people that use them to create magnificent things.”
Almost Like Being There
Being at NSConf was a fantastic experience — I learned a lot and had the chance to meet and get to know people I would likely not have met otherwise.
I’m very grateful to Scotty for inviting me and to the entire conference team for doing a fantastic job and for treating the attendees and speakers very well. NSConf had an easy-going feel, but everything hit its mark. It takes a great team to make it look that easy.
The next best thing to being there would be watching the amazing talks. And as of last week they are available to everyone on the NSConf 7 channel on Vimeo. I encourage you to check out all the talks, including my talk The Future: A Look Back, which I’ve included below. •
NSConference 7 was held March 16-18, 2015 in Leicester, UK.
Categories: Mac, Music, Software Development, iOS
