A coveted writing assignment

What makes a guy like Steve Jobs tick? His incredible vision, determination and insight into technology have made him the subject of many books, none of them authorized by the man himself. But it was recently reported in a New York Times article that Mr. Jobs will collaborate with author Walter Isaacson on an authorized biography.

Those readers interested in learning about the life Mr. Jobs will no doubt recall the hubbub surrounding his disapproval of some of the books about his life.

Which unauthorized biography of Steve Jobs infuriated the Apple CEO so much that all titles by the publisher of the book were pulled from Apple Stores?

Think you know the answer? Post a response in the comments and we’ll post the answer later.

Identify this Mac

If you’re an Apple fan and you happen to be visiting New York City, consider visiting the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa). It’s not only one of the most influential museums of modern art in the world, but a few of Apple’s products have been acquired by the museum for display in its design collection. Apple products in the MoMa design collection include an original Macintosh from 1984, and a Macintosh SE from 1987.

For today’s quiz, name the correct Apple Macintosh model based on the following clues:

- It was introduced in 2000

- It’s also part of the MoMa design collection

- It featured a revolutionary case design

- It was described by Steve Jobs as “a wrong concept — fabulously implemented”

Think you know the answer? Post a response in the comments — we’ll post the answer later.

The svelte Apple MacBook Air. Image credit: Apple.

Steve Jobs enjoys product introductions that are full of drama, and by pulling the MacBook Air out of a manila envelope on stage, he definitely emphasized the fact that it is thin.

Aside from being the first subnotebook from Apple in a long time and the first Mac to support Multi-Touch (the same screen gesturing technology found on the iPhone), the MacBook Air offered a new disk drive choice called an SSD. The SSD is a costly option and has limited capacity, but dramatically improves battery life and reads information much faster than a conventional hard drive.

The Apple iPhone 3GS. Image credit: Apple

In June of 2009, at the mayhem and craziness that is the World Wide Developers Conference, Apple made some new product announcements (as it usually does). Phil Schiller, Apple’s Senior Vic President for Product Marketing, took the stage (in place of Steve Jobs, who was still on medical leave) to demonstrate Mac OS X v10.6 “Snow Leopard” and several MacBook updates.

Apple also announced updates to the iPhone with the release of iPhone OS version 3.0, including one simple feature many users had really been waiting for.

Macintosh signatures. Macintosh Image credit: Old Computers

Have you ever looked inside the case of the original Macintosh? No, we’re not talking about the motherboard or the disk drive here — we mean the case itself. On the inside of the case, in raised plastic, were the signatures of the Mac division employees.

Why would Apple do something like this? Simply put, the Mac was special. Specifically, Steve Jobs felt that the Mac was a work of art. Artists sign their work, so it only made sense to have the signatures on the Mac.

Apple included the signatures on the original Mac and continued this practice part way through the production of the Mac SE. Several years later, Apple again included signatures on the inside of 2 Macintosh models.