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History of Apple wallpapers

Week 41.0 — 6th August '18

In recent years Apple switched from a big cat based naming convention for macOS to a Californian theme for their yearly software updates. That took them from nebula based backgrounds to scenic photography and it's been a nice change. macOS Mojave brings dynamic wallpapers that change throughout the day to reflect the current time of day. A nice touch in theory, it will be interesting to see how noticeable it actually is.

And speaking of wallpapers, Google Photos user nucleam has been putting together a collection a history of wallpapers from iOS and macOS.

Despite being a Mac user for over 13 years now I've never really paid that much attention to the wallpapers beyond the system default and it looks like I've been missing out. With a phone it's different, you explore and personalise but how often do you spend looking at the background on your desktop?

macOS Mavericks wallpaper
macOS Mavericks wallpaper

The old Apple TVs have beautiful National Geographic screensavers while the new one has 4K fly over videos of various locations around the world and more are added every now and then.

When you look through the macOS offerings, macOS 9 and earlier were more abstract and gaudy. 10.0 bought more tasteful backgrounds but it wasn't until 10.4 Tiger that we saw anything other abstract shapes and 10.5 Leopard when we saw a real range of options. Not that abstract stuff is going away...

macOS Mojave wallpaper
macOS Mojave wallpaper

And there's some really fun stuff coming too:

macOS Mojave wallpaper
macOS Mojave abstract wallpaper
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Notable

Quick links and commentary on interesting articles, videos and more throughout the week.

  1. 41.1 – Monday
    1. The Old Man & The Gun trailer Fox Searchlight Pictures on trailers.apple.com
    2. Apple's secret iPhone launch team Wall Street Journal on youtube.com
    3. The After Party trailer Netflix on youtube.com
  2. 41.2 – Tuesday
    1. Maniac trailer Netflix on youtube.com
    2. Air Jordan Future by Nike nike.com
    3. The Real Marigold Hotel season 3 trailer BBC on youtube.com
    4. Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals Tiny Desk Concert NPR Music on youtube.com
  3. 41.3 – Wednesday
    1. I Am Iron Man Top Screen on youtube.com
    2. Zion trailer Netflix on youtube.com
    3. How Heath Ledger's Joker was born IGN on CineFix on youtube.com
    4. The Radio 1 Ibiza Prom BBC Radio 1 on youtube.com
    5. Maharishi embroidered tiger hoody maharishistore.com
  4. 41.4 – Thursday
    1. Photo of the Milky Way taken with the Huawei P20 Pro smartphone petapixel.com
    2. Vector, the home robot Anki on kickstarter.com
  5. 41.5 – Friday
    1. Stitchbird DIY Rowboat blessthisstuff.com
    2. Peter Jackson is remastering old WWI film footage kottke.org
    3. Moon 101, a quick explainer video from National Geographic about the Moon kottke.org
    4. Mac Miller Tiny Desk Concert NPR Music on youtube.com
    5. Home of the Future with Grant Imahara The Verge on youtube.com

Jump to notable items for Week #40, Week #42 , view the notable archive or my favourites.

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