🟥 Apple champions 15 years of Product Red 🟥

December 01, 2021

Today is World AIDS Day, and to mark the occasion, Apple is highlighting its contribution to fighting the disease in collaboration with Product Red, a charitable effort co-founded by U2's Bono.

Apple is Product Red's biggest benefactor, and yet the company -- or rather Steve Jobs -- was initially reluctant to get involved.

Back in 2006, Bono pitched Product Red to Jobs, who bridled at the branding.

Jobs thought adding a Product Red logo to Apple products would diminish the Apple brand and make it appear like an afterthought.

Jobs and Bono started arguing, until it got "to the F-you stage," according to biographer Walter Isaacson. The two agreed to sleep on it.

In the end, they compromised and Apple released its first Product Red product: an iPod nano. The device was named the iPod nano (Product)Red Special Edition. Jobs let Bono call the product whatever he wanted in his own ads, but Apple would not use anything with (Apple)Red written on it in Apple stores.

“Steve can be sparky,” Bono later recalled.

Since then, Apple has donated nearly $270 million to Product Red and released dozens of Product Red products and accessories.

"We started in 2006 with one (RED) product, a nano, and now we've got well over half a dozen," recalled Apple's former head designer Jony Ive in 2014. "It's been really, really special for us."

-- Leander Kahney, EIC.

The company outlines new ways customers can support its ongoing efforts — like buying Red versions of iPhone 13 and Apple Watch Series 7.

Inspired by Tesla's Cybertruck, the limited-edition collectible — which is not a joke — is made from medical-grade stainless steel with a polished finish.

Apple seeded macOS 12.1 beta 4 to developers Wednesday. Its build number ends in “a,” which suggests the public release is only a week or two away.

They're a joint effort with trendy mens fashion brand Union, and you can snap them up at the store’s Los Angeles and Tokyo locations (or online).

Give your Apple Watch a suave and sophisticated makeover for less than $40 with this metal band from Laut.

How do you make MagSafe charging even better? Add a cooling fan that allows for the fastest possible charge over a longer period, of course.

Nothing released its first Ear 1 earbuds in late summer 2021 with a partially transparent design, a cool transparent case, good sound quality, active noise cancellation and wireless charging. Now the company’s rolling out the new Ear 1 “Black Edition,” which retains the interesting design and tech elements in a cool new look.

The device, which made its debut in 2014, may be more difficult to repair as official parts dry up.

Three screens and a MacBook make a magnificent workstation. This setup with one big display in landscape mode, bookended by two portrait-mode monitors, looks truly stunning. And it took some special connectivity tricks to make it happen.

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One more thing ...

"Steve Jobs said when we first approached him about (RED), 'There is nothing better than the chance to save lives.' I’m proud to know him; he’s a poetic fellow, an artist and a businessman. Just because he’s been extremely busy, that doesn’t mean that he and his wife, Laurene, have not been thinking about these things. You don’t have to be a friend of his to know what a private person he is or that he doesn’t do things by halves." — Bono on Steve Jobs and Product Red

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