Simple Beep: Recent Episodes
Ed Cormany and Brian Sutorius
A podcast looking back at the history of Apple and the Mac community. Hosted by Ed Cormany and Brian Sutorius.
We're celebrating another major milestone in Apple history: the 20th anniversary of the announcement of the iPod. We cover its incredibly rapid development, its worldwide popularity, and the fact that we still carry widescreen iPods with touch controls today.
We're back with a special episode to mark the 20th anniversary of Mac OS X. We remember what it was like to enter the lickable world of Aqua, leave behind our Classic apps, and grow with macOS over two decades.
After over five years of producing Simple Beep, we've decided to stop recording on a regular schedule. We're really proud of the collection of episodes that we've created, and we plan on maintaining them for as long as possible for our friends in the Mac community.
But just like shutting down a classic Mac, there is always the possibility to hit Restart. It won't be next month, but someday there will be big Apple news to put in historical perspective or another milestone anniversary to celebrate. When the time comes, we'll be back on the microphone for e89.
In our final regular episode, we celebrate a great milestone: the 10th anniversary of the introduction of the iPad.
This episode we cover the desktop publishing revolution, the Apple-led trifecta that kicked it off in the late '80s, and how it's evolved over three decades. For a holiday bonus, Ed talks about how he used a Mac to design and lay out his family's Christmas cards in the '90s. And finally, we wrap up the year with an announcement.
A team of ex-Apple engineers in the early 90s made a product that flopped worse than the Newton but might be the reason we have iPhones today. We look at the little-known history of General Magic and the newly released documentary about the company.
Apple hardly ever gives away information about upcoming products…unless you believe that there are secret clues in hidden places. We look at what Apple may (or may not) have signaled in event invitations and product codenames over the years.
Apple's online presence has evolved significantly since the days of the early web. From rainbow imagemaps to WebObjects to epic scrolljacking, we tour the technology and content of Apple dot com.
Brian made a summer project of putting a Mac Mini in a Macintosh Classic and it got us thinking about all kinds of mods people have done with old Apple hardware. Besides the "Classic Mini", we cover Macquariums, unexpected iLamps, weight-bearing cheese graters, and more.
The announcement of the 2019 Mac Pro got us thinking about what Apple has called "Pro" in the past. That includes incredibly expensive hard drives, printers with RAM slots, an OS patch release, and even its employees!
Mac OS as we know it today can be traced to one major event: Apple's decision to scrap internal attempts at creating a new operating system and to acquire NeXT instead. We look at how influential NeXTSTEP was in the creation of Mac OS X and just how much of it still lives on in Apple's products…sometimes in surprising places.
As Apple turns its attention to TV and movies, so do we! In this episode we pick our favorite appearances by Macs and other Apple products on the big and small screens.
This episode is all about the venerable game developer Bungie and how they got their start on the Classic Mac. We cover all their titles, including a trio of Marathons, terrible code names, and the coolest game Steve Jobs had ever seen.
Apple has been building computers — and standalone products — with sound capabilities for over 40 years. We discuss 1-bit audio, incredible hardware hacks, usable and unusable old speakers, a CD drive with a horrible logo, and even the HomePod.
This episode, we trace the evolution of Mac word processing from MacWrite to the present. Along the way we find a secret moose, complain about Microsoft, and learn that some apps have true staying power.
For our 4th anniversary episode, we return to our roots of discussing classic Mac sound design. We cover the tragic backstory of the Wild Eep, the immortal Sosumi, the poorly named "ChuToy", and much more.
This episode we revisit MacAddict magazine and its freakin' awesome coverage of the Apple world in the late '90s.
We'll be doing our first live event on Twitch, on Monday September 24 at 8:30 PM Eastern time. We'll be streaming Myst on its 25th birthday!
With an iPhone event right around the corner, the rumor mill is operating at full capacity. We examine how this important part of the Apple world got to where it is today, from wild speculations, to Apple lawsuits, to outright hoaxes.
We celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of the original iMac, tracing how the revolutionary Bondi gumdrop evolved into flagship desktop Mac of today.
We celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the App Store launching on July 10, 2008. After a brief history of the store itself, we pick some of our favorite, most influential early iOS apps.
Great typography has been part of Apple products since the original Macintosh. From 1-bit wonders to Thinking Different in Garamond to SF Mono, we examine decades of Apple's fonts on screen and in print.
Apple has officially discontinued its AirPort line of wireless products after nearly 20 years(!) We examine how our Wi-Fi has evolved from the original iBook until today.
Apple's March 2018 event highlighted how they've been working in the education space for over 40 years. We pick some of our favorite products and programs they've developed for schools, students, and teachers.
The transition from Classic Mac OS to OS X was difficult for many users who felt like OS X removed their favorite features. Enter a little company named Unsanity, who solved those problems and created new ones.
To start 2018 off right, we run through our wish lists of what we'd like to see from Apple — in years past. What will System 7 bring? What will the iPod Phone look like? And will Apple ever make a TV set?
We love Apple products, but not all of them have been perfect. We remember some of the worst, including exploding batteries, corrupt data, crumbling plastics, and more.
On iPhone X release day, we cover Apple's many uses — and pronunciations — of the Roman numeral.
It's our 64th episode and big 64-bit changes are coming to iOS as we record, so there's no better time discuss Apple's architecture changes over the years (and to begin talking about "classic iOS apps").
Brian went to Mysterium, the annual Myst fan convention, and brings back stories of Cyan history, their latest game, and a huge fan project. And in a mega follow up segment, we cover many more emoji easter eggs.
Inspired by World Emoji Day, we take a look at various bits of history that Apple has hidden in its emoji artwork.
The iPhone was released to the world 10 years ago today. We celebrate a decade of the device that changed the world.
The announcements made at WWDC 2017 reminded us of a lot of classic Mac technologies, in name, design, and function.
Inspired by the grand reveal of the new MacPaw museum and some new early Apple exhibits in Seattle, we take a tour of the world's greatest Apple collections on display.
The Internet Archive recently made a library of classic Mac software available via in-browser emulation. So we played a bunch of Mac games from the late '80s and early '90s — some that we remembered fondly, some that we'd never played, and some that destroyed us.
Inspired by the release of the PRODUCT (RED) iPhone, we trace case colors throughout Apple's history: candy-color Macs, lots and lots of iPods, and some expensive rarities.
We go behind the scenes of Simple Beep: how we create the show, a comprehensive emulation how-to, and our favorite classic Mac resources.
This episode covers a bunch of Apple products that barely or never happened, including a magic tablet, IPTV vaporware, and some wild green machines from Macworld.
Jake Bordens and Thomas Brand join us to share stories of the Newton community, past and present(!)
This episode, we look at the Newton platform — Apple's first attempt at (almost) handheld computing. Recorded on the 10th anniversary of the iPhone announcement, we notice a lot of parallels between the development of Newton devices and the iOS devices we carry today.
It's our Christmas special episode! We've made our own gift lists of classic Apple products that could fit in a stocking — not all of which have turned to coal over time.
Ed is joined by Stephen Hackett to talk about the how and what (rather than the why) of Apple chronicling its own history in the new photo book Designed by Apple in California, as well as Stephen’s new ebook Aqua and Bondi.
We cover the wild, wonderful, and sometimes half-baked history of getting data in and out of Macs. It turns out we've been citizens of Dongle Town for a long time already.
After what is surely-for-real-this-time the last event at Apple's Town Hall event space on the Infinite Loop campus, we cover the history of events big and small that have happened in Apple's most intimate presentation setting.
In this episode, we share five conversations we had at Release Notes about the history of the Mac, iOS, and finding fellow Apple nerds.
At Release Notes, we joined Stephen Hackett and Christina Warren to pick our personal favorite Macs…and we managed to keep it mostly on the rails.
Avara, the minimalist 3D mech shooter from Ambrosia Software, just turned 20 years old. We celebrate the occasion and are joined by Scarlet Swordfish, who ran a 20th anniversary event that was livestreamed on Twitch.
Apple announced a lot of things this past week, but they didn't announce One More Thing. This episode is a comprehensive rundown of Steve Jobs' biggest presentation trope — the good, the bad, and the ugly of specially featured Apple announcements.
From solid steel balls to unusable hockey pucks to sleek pieces of sushi, we cover all of Apple's mouse designs. And we couldn't stop there, so we threw in some trackpads and third-party pointers for good measure.
Apple has been striving to make their products thinner, lighter, and easier to carry around for well over 30 years. We discuss some landmark products in Apple's quest for portability.
This episode we discuss the history of how Apple has helped you learn to use the Mac. Along the way we encounter Jay, Cleo, undersea creatures, and the horror of HTML frames.
Douglas Adams is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but he was also a huge fan of the Macintosh. We discuss his many Macs, interactive fiction, and his extremely astute vision of the future of technology, both fictional and real.
There were no big "end of an era" announcements at WWDC, but a few 30-year-old technologies are now officially on their way out. We say goodbye to catalog B-trees, naming everything after NeXTSTEP, and more.
On the eve of WWDC 2016, we look back at the history of the event: its role in the community, major past announcements, and Steve Jobs' most candid hour.
Stephen Hackett of 512 Pixels and Relay FM joins us again to discuss his complete iMac G3 collection and the history of the computer that saved Apple.
The Macintosh has had a voice since it was first introduced. This episode, we cover over 30 years of talking to Apple devices and having them talk back.
This episode is all about the Control Strip and its many uses on the classic Mac, from early PowerBook power management to silly games. We also discuss its successors and how they got from the bottom left corner of System 7 to the top right of OS X today.
We discuss one of the defining pieces of early Macintosh software, HyperCard. We cover the application's origins and ambitious vision, the HyperTalk scripting language, our own creations, and the absence of HyperCard-like tools today.
What was the state of independent Mac software before iOS? We find out by returning to the 2006 competition My Dream App, featuring productivity plants, syncing in space, and meteorological eye candy.
We compare our current setups with how we worked and played on the classic Mac. Along the way we praise modern backups, pay for our previously pirated software, and Brian accidentally downloads malware.
After looking through all the files in the System Folder last episode, we couldn't help ourselves and had to open up some of them in ResEdit. We realized that a lot of classic "hacks" are now standard features…and we found a few Easter eggs along the way.
This episode is all about the software that made the classic Mac tick. We take a full tour of the System Folder's contents and how they were meant to be manipulated by users…although maybe not with ResEdit.
We celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first Intel-based Macs, which were released in January of 2006. Always on the quest for more performance per watt, we contemplate Apple's big hardware and software transitions of the past, present, and even the future!
It's a Boxing Day special all about when software came in boxes (or cans, sometimes). We cover everything from staid operating system packaging to odd un-stackable shapes to wild, fictional shareware box art.
We review some of the best software for kids on the Apple II and the Classic Mac, most of which we grew up with. Along the way we die of dysentery (not really), pursue a sticky-fingered filcher, and put "something on that I don't like!"
In this episode we cover 20+ years of Mac and iPod advertising, from Big Brother's grey dystopia to Jony Ive's white room and beyond.
To celebrate our first anniversary, we're joined by Stephen Hackett of relay.fm and 512 Pixels. We talk about the different ways we came to the Mac, some of the weirder things in our Apple collections, and the importance of archiving technology for the future.
This episode is all about "the best-loved application for the Mac", ClarisWorks. We remember a simpler age of word processing, not understanding how the "New document" command or pixels worked, and some difficult transitions in our productivity workflows.
In this episode we go on a hunt for some of the hidden "features" of classic Macs. It's a menagerie of iguanas, gerbils, pigs, dogcows, tiny swords, and more!
This episode we explore the emergence of whole industries to create accessories for the original iMac and early iPods, including everything from floppy drives to FM radio transmitters to really ugly blue plastic and other dumb ideas.
In this episode we talk about all kinds of widgets, gadgets, and little software thingamabobs. We discuss what qualifies as an app, how to hack together a Konfabulator widget, and hardware accelerated ripples.
We're joined by visual artist and and icon/emoji creator Brian Brasher, perhaps better known as Etherbrian. We talk about making vectors and pixels of all sorts, getting $2 in the mail from strangers, the genius of bell peppers, and various objects worn as hats.
This episode we explore the history of Adium, the venerable open-source messaging app for OS X. We trace the evolution of the duck, get Ed's obscure feature requests implemented, and eventually move all our chat needs to iOS.
This episode we talk with Erin McKean, founder of online dictionary Wordnik, about her history of processing and analyzing words with NeXT boxes, OS/2, and the Mac. We discuss self-identifying as a programmer, HyperCard qualifying as math, and hardcoded Danish comments.
This episode we cover 30 years of icon design, from black and white pixel art all the way to today's gorgeous, full-screen, retina eye candy. Along the way we encounter some FatBits, creatures that go "Moof!", and deep levels of icon-ception.
Brian and Ed share their top ten picks of fun "utilities" for the classic Mac. Ranging from useful to totally impractical, we cover flying toasters, beloved muppets, butchers of song, and more.
This episode we link back to Myst Island, scene of one of the all-time classic games to be developed and premiere on the Mac. We discuss our impressions of Myst's gameplay and greater mythology, have an Accidental Incomparable episode about The Myst Reader, and forget which one is Atrus and which one is Aitrus.
This episode we talk with Jonathan Zufi, creator of Shrine of Apple and Iconic: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation. He tells us about his Apple II clone from down under, coming back to the Mac after a long hiatus, and — of course — how he tracked down and photographed some of the most elusive Apple hardware on the planet.
Our history of iTunes continues, picking up with major updates introduced in version 4 and making it all the way to the present day. We discuss awkward definitions of podcasting, ill-fated products and features, and serious controversy in icon design.
We chronicle the launch and early history of iTunes, from the acquisition of SoundJam up through version 3.0. Along the way we unearth bizarre Apple web services, people go crazy over burn folders, and Steve Jobs slips up.
Before streaming, we listened to music on our Macs from CDs and low-quality MP3s found in shady corners of the Internet. This episode, Ed and Brian tell the Audion story, declare themselves children of the filesystem generation, and struggle to pronounce the word "earbuds".
We conclude our coverage of Triumph of the Nerds, finally reaching the famous "sugar water" quote. Come learn how Microsoft did everything right, Apple permanently lost its soul, and Oracle wound up dominating the internet…or not.
We embark on watching the classic PBS documentary mini-series Triumph of the Nerds. We learn a little we didn't know about the early history of Apple, get excited with Woz, and facepalm with Jobs over the many offensive things that got said and done in the computer industry 20+ years ago (and, sadly, still today).
We go on a galactic adventure with one of our favorite Mac shareware games, Escape Velocity by Ambrosia Software. We encounter delightful pop culture references, everyone's favorite parrot space pirate, and — of course — the most destructive forklift in the universe.
We remember how we first got on the internet on the Mac in the early 90s (hint: it came on a floppy disk in the mail). Then we recall the rise and fall of eWorld, getting Sherlocked, and other classic Mac OS internet essentials.
Our first foray into Macintosh hardware, we examine a part of the Mac we often take for granted: the keyboard. We wind back the clock all the way to the Apple II to uncover all sorts of oddities including the BELL key, "open Apple", buckling switches, and chiclets galore.
We revisit At Ease, the multiple user management system in System 7. Our discussion of its interface leads us on a historical journey through Apple's 22-year quest to perfect a grid of buttons.
In a stocking-stuffer-sized holiday special we remember Merryxmas and other HyperCard viruses. Happy holidays!
Ed tells the story of his efforts to make System 7 look like Yosemite by creating his own Kaleidoscope scheme. In the process, he remembers just how painful it was to work in a fragile, crashy, data-loss-prone OS.
We revisit the golden age of Mac interface customization: the development of the Kaleidoscope control panel, the extensive Kaleidoscope scheme archive, and the limited possibilities for theming in OS X.
Our first episode takes a tour of the Macintosh startup chime, from drilling holes in a prototype Mac case in 1982 to the current chime we've known and loved since 1999.