Five Apple Anecdotes as iPhone Maker Marks 50 Years

A fan takes photos at an event in London to mark the 50th birthday of US tech giant Apple. JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP
A fan takes photos at an event in London to mark the 50th birthday of US tech giant Apple. JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP
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Five Apple Anecdotes as iPhone Maker Marks 50 Years

A fan takes photos at an event in London to mark the 50th birthday of US tech giant Apple. JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP
A fan takes photos at an event in London to mark the 50th birthday of US tech giant Apple. JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP

iPhone maker Apple celebrates its 50th anniversary on April 1, having marked pop culture and the tech industry like few other firms since its beginnings in 1976.

Here are five things you may not know about the history of the California giant.

Apple logo

Designer Rob Janoff said that Apple cofounder Steve Jobs gave him one terse instruction when he commissioned a new logo in January 1977: "don't make it cute".

"I just wanted to make the computer easy and fun to be around," Janoff told Forbes in 2018.

He included the bite mark for scale to set the apple apart from similar round fruit like cherries -- learning only later it was a homonym for the computer term "byte".

And belying urban legends, there was no link to the Biblical story of Adam and Eve or the death of computing pioneer Alan Turing.

Janoff added that the Apple job was "the only time in my entire career where I presented only one solution" to a client.

"But it was just so right".

'1984' ad

In a totalitarian sci-fi world, a hammer thrown by a young athlete smashes a "Big Brother" figure declaiming to brainwashed citizens from a vast screen.

Tens of millions of Americans saw director Ridley Scott's one-minute Apple advert during the Super Bowl on January 22, 1984.

Broadcast with an announcement of the release of the Apple computer, it was more than a little inspired by George Orwell's dystopian novel named for the year.

The ad's originality lay in the fact it did not directly show off the product, but instead promised a new world of emancipation for consumers thanks to home computers.

Bold colors

Apple's devices have over the years played with color to set themselves apart from more staid competitors.

Its first-generation iMacs, released in 1998, offered transparent shells in candy-like blue, green and more -- combining a pop of visual interest with a glimpse at the high tech workings within.

The iPod music player, at first available in metallic grey, quickly diversified into a whole spectrum of bright colors.

Later, the "rose gold" variant of the iPhone 6S in 2015, spawned many copycats, surfing a years-long trend dubbed "millennial pink".

09:41 photos

Anyone who has watched more than one Apple product announcement or browsed its website will see a remarkable coincidence: almost every screen appears to show the time as 9:41 am.

Australian game developer Jon Manning said he asked Scott Forstall, then-head of Apple's mobile operating system iOS, about the phenomenon when he bumped into him in California in 2010.

Forstall explained that the timing was down to Steve Jobs' preferred structure for announcements.

"We design the keynotes so that the big reveal of the product happens around 40 minutes into the presentation," Forstall said.

"When the big image of the product appears on screen, we want the time shown to be close to the actual time on the audience's watches. But we know we won't hit 40 minutes exactly".

Apple's third man

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak have gone down in history as the Apple co-founders.

In fact, a third man also signed the three-page contract that launched the company on April 1, 1976: Ronald Wayne.

According to Walter Isaacson's biography of Jobs, Wayne, an engineer at the Atari video game company, was in charge of hardware engineering and documentation in the fledgling business.

But while his two co-founders were throwing themselves into the business, Wayne feared losing what little savings he had if Apple failed.

Just 11 days later, he gave up his co-founder status, selling his 10 percent stake for two instalments of $800 and $1,500.

That 10-percent share of Apple would have been worth around $370 billion by 2026.



EU Warns Meta WhatsApp AI Fee Breaches Antitrust Rules, Orders Rollback

FILED - 27 May 2025, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Schwerin: The Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp apps are shown on a smartphone display that reflects the logo of the AI application Meta AI. Photo: Jens Büttner/dpa
FILED - 27 May 2025, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Schwerin: The Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp apps are shown on a smartphone display that reflects the logo of the AI application Meta AI. Photo: Jens Büttner/dpa
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EU Warns Meta WhatsApp AI Fee Breaches Antitrust Rules, Orders Rollback

FILED - 27 May 2025, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Schwerin: The Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp apps are shown on a smartphone display that reflects the logo of the AI application Meta AI. Photo: Jens Büttner/dpa
FILED - 27 May 2025, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Schwerin: The Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp apps are shown on a smartphone display that reflects the logo of the AI application Meta AI. Photo: Jens Büttner/dpa

The European Commission said on Wednesday it intended to order Meta Platforms to reinstate rival artificial intelligence assistants on its WhatsApp messaging service after the U.S. tech giant imposed an access fee. "The Commission notified Meta that the revised policy seems to have the same effect of excluding third-party AI assistants from WhatsApp and thus appears at first sight to be in breach of EU competition rules," the EU's executive arm said, Reuters reported.

Interim measures, which the Commission imposes when it has concerns of damage to competition, would remain in place until the end of the investigation, it said.

"To prevent serious and irreparable harm to competition, the Commission intends to order Meta to reinstate access for third-party AI assistants under the same conditions as before 15 October 2025," it added in a statement.

Meta previously informed the Commission in March that it would allow rival AI assistants on WhatsApp for one year, contingent on a fee, after initially planning to ban third-party AI chatbots from WhatsApp Business.

"The European Commission is proposing to use its regulatory powers to enable some of the largest companies in the world to use the paid-for WhatsApp Business product for free," a Meta spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

"This means that a small bakery in France paying to use the service to take croissant orders will be picking up the tab for OpenAI. Small European businesses shouldn't foot OpenAI's bill," the spokesperson added.

The Commission also said that its investigation had been expanded to Italy, where the Italian competition watchdog had opened its own probe last year.


OpenAI to Open First Permanent London Office in 2027

FILE PHOTO: OpenAI logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: OpenAI logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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OpenAI to Open First Permanent London Office in 2027

FILE PHOTO: OpenAI logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: OpenAI logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

OpenAI said on Monday it has secured its first permanent office in London, expanding capacity to meet growing demand in the UK and building on the ChatGPT maker's plans to make the city its largest research hub outside the United States.

Here are some details ⁠on the new ⁠London office:

The office is expected to open in 2027, with capacity for 544 team members, Microsoft-backed OpenAI said.

The ⁠space is located at Regent Quarter, spanning Jahn Court and the Brassworks Building in the King's Cross area.

OpenAI currently employs around 200 people in London across research, engineering, customer support, policy, and sales.

Last week, OpenAI said it was ⁠pausing ⁠its main data center project in Britain due to an unfavorable regulatory environment and high energy costs, a move that dealt a blow to the UK government's push to position the country as a global AI hub.


Canada's Cohere, Germany's Aleph Alpha Reportedly in Merger Talks

FILE PHOTO: AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot hand are placed on computer motherboard in this illustration created on June 23, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot hand are placed on computer motherboard in this illustration created on June 23, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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Canada's Cohere, Germany's Aleph Alpha Reportedly in Merger Talks

FILE PHOTO: AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot hand are placed on computer motherboard in this illustration created on June 23, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot hand are placed on computer motherboard in this illustration created on June 23, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

Artificial intelligence companies Cohere of Canada and Aleph Alpha of Germany are in talks to merge and have Berlin's support for a potential deal, newspaper Handelsblatt reported late on Thursday.

Citing government and industry sources, the paper said the German government would be willing to become a key customer of a combined company, part of a push to provide digital public services.

"If leading AI companies from Canada and Germany were to join forces that would send a very strong signal," German Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger told the ⁠paper.

Germany and Canada ⁠were already collaborating closely in the field, he was also quoted as saying.

Aleph Alpha told Reuters that regular discussions over strategic partnerships were standard practice in the AI industry and that Aleph Alpha had its own independent strategy, declining to comment further.

Cohere said it meets "with companies and institutions ⁠across Germany and Europe and continually evaluates strategic opportunities that support our global growth."

It also pointed Reuters to its international expansion efforts as well as to the Canadian-German Sovereign Technology Alliance agreed this year, but would not comment further.

Germany's research and digital ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Handelsblatt said merger talks started early this year and had reached an advanced stage, with plans for the new entity to be headquartered in both countries.

Germany has been eager to catch ⁠up with ⁠dominant AI players the US and China in a global race to master a transformational technology and attract high-income jobs. India has also emerged as a contender.

Last month, Berlin unveiled plans to encourage investments to boost AI data processing capacity at least fourfold by 2030.

Microsoft, which is collaborating with Cohere, unveiled $23 billion in AI investments in December, with the bulk earmarked for India and parts for Canada.

That was after Alphabet's Google said it would spend $15 billion over five years on an AI data center in India.