Top stories

How To Be First In Line To Pre-Order The iPad

With just a few weeks to go before the iPad hits stores, here’s the best way to ensure you’re at the head of the line to get one (or three).
If history is any indication, the iPad will be in short supply when it goes on sale April 3. Plus there are rumors of production delays [...]

Digital Americana: A Magazine For iPad, And A Sign Of Things To Come

20100310-americana.jpg

Digital Americana has just popped up out of nowhere, claiming to be “the first literary & culture magazine developed especially for the interactive tablet experience.”
Or to put it another way, it will be “a new interactive magazine made exclusively for the Apple iPad”. And anyone can contribute.

The editors are looking for fiction, artwork and photography [...]

Review: Launchy Comes To OS X From Windows

20100309-launchy.jpg

Just days after we reported on the launch of Alfred for OS X, along comes yet another keyboard-centric file and application launcher: Launchy.
Launchy has a long history as an open source Windows application, doing much the same on that platform that Quicksilver did on OS X. It too supports plugins that greatly boost its usefulness.
Right [...]

What’s On Homer Simpson’s iPhone?

20100305-homeriphone.jpg

Here’s Homer Simpson’s iPhone. Pretty dull, actually. Only one page of apps, and most of them look like the defaults. No iFart? No iBeer? No iDoh?
Wait – what’s that app there? Third row down, third from left?

Ah! Couch Gag! Yeah, one of my favorite apps.

Funny, it never does that when I use it.

MacBook Air Dissection: Big Battery, Small Logicboard

24-2.jpg

The tinkerers at iFixit have taken apart the MacBook Air to discover:

  • The battery isn’t hard to remove, but it isn’t something you’d do mid-flight when the battery dies.
  • Most of the internal volume is taken up by the battery.
  • The logicboard is surprisingly small: it looks like something out of an alarm clock, not a reasonably-powered laptop.
  • The touchpad uses the same hardware as the iPhone and iPod Touch, which may allow Apple to add new multi-touch gestures via software.
  • The hard drive is the slim 80-Gbyte model, not the chubby 160-Gbyte drive found in the iPod Classic. Unfortunately, 80-Gbyte is the maximum capacity of drives this size (5mm deep).
  • It’s held together by 88 tiny screws.

If you enjoyed this article:
Subscribe via RSS or email, or follow us on Facebook and Twitter

About the author

Leander Kahney

Leander Kahney is the editor of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

Email the author | Read more posts by Leander Kahney.

6 comments

    Most planes have a plug for you to plug in your laptop while you are flying. Just get an adapter and keep it plugged in and … you don’t need a second battery while on a flight. It works for me.

    88? O.O

    I did notice during the keynote the battery was the biggest thing, but it also kind of looked like there was a little empty space. No chance of squeezing in a little more RAM or storage?

    Anyone one else waxing nostalgic for “Speaker for the Dead” and the other “Ender’s Game” books when seeing that picture?
    Just a thought.

    I guess I am scratching my head wondering what the fuss is. If you don’t want it–don’t buy it.

    Virtually all planes I fly on DO NOT have an adapter. This includes Continental, AA, Jetblue, United, US Airways, etc.

    @Jimmi: Steve Jobs is just doing his job really well.

    “If Steve made the Macbook Air and I neither want it nor need it… does that mean I am becoming a luddite?”

    The ensuing discussion about the MBA can thus be seen as people’s attempt to justify their lacking need for the product. Steve Jobs can develop a niche product and actually have people get frustrated because they don’t belong to that niche. Who else can do that? Great to watch. Not to be taken seriously.

Buy Inside Steve's Brain Buy from Amazon.com Buy from Barnes & Noble