David Pierini - page 41

How silly songs about the iPhone sparked a music career

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When the Moog strikes, Parry Gripp writes funny songs about anything.
When the Moog strikes, Parry Gripp writes funny songs about anything.
Photo: Dana E. Ross

Cult of Mac 2.0 bugParry Gripp was the lead vocalist of a promising pop punk band that had a record deal and stardom just around the corner.

Success never came and just as Parry Gripp was set to give up, a new career in music rose from the ashes — by accident — thanks to the iPhone and Apple.

The technology company was not only fodder for Gripp’s brand of absurd novelty music he was creating but, through iTunes, Apple provided a way for him to publish his music and start to make a living.

How a viral Steve Jobs tribute sparked one designer’s career

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Grieving Apple fans took comfort in this tribute to Steve Jobs and turned it into a viral phenomena.
Grieving Apple fans took comfort in this tribute to Steve Jobs and turned it into a viral phenomena.
Illustration: Jonathan Mak Long

Cult of Mac 2.0 bugApple fans felt a deep sense of mourning in 2011 when Apple founder Steve Jobs succumbed to cancer. With the fifth anniversary of his passing approaching, Cult of Mac looks at the artistic tributes that followed.

The Tumblr bio of Hong Kong graphic artist Jonathan Mak Long reads, “I try to do good work, and the world agrees on occasions.”

The death of Steve Jobs was one such occasion. Within hours of the news, grieving Apple fans across the world took comfort in an image created by the then-teenaged college student of a silhouetted Jobs in the bite of the Apple logo.

Words like ‘crazy ones’ paint accurate picture of Steve Jobs

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Steve Jobs typeface portrait
Apple is made in Steve Jobs' image.
Photo: Dylan Roscover

Cult of Mac 2.0 bugApple fans felt a deep sense of mourning in 2011 when Apple founder Steve Jobs succumbed to cancer. With the fifth anniversary of his passing approaching, Cult of Mac looks at the artistic tributes that followed.

If the wrinkles and curves on a person’s face tell a story, Dylan Roscover will find the right words to narrate each and every line.

The commercial artist from Boulder, Colo., used the messaging from Apple’s “Here’s to the crazy ones” television commercial from 1997 to create a portrait of the embodiment of misfit genius, Steve Jobs.

It’s all in the fingers for this ‘sick’ iPad drummer

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cult 2.0
The fast-flying fingers of iPad drummer extraordinaire Appleman.
Photo: Appleman

Cult of Mac 2.0 bugHe has been described as the “sickest drummer in metal right now” with the speed, muscle and snap to become a legend — a legend on the iPad, that is.

This self-styled musician and Apple fanboy from Japan has raised eyebrows for furiously finger tapping through a catalog of rock drum solos, using the virtual rock kit on Garageband with eye-popping dexterity with a well-viewed YouTube channel as his stage.

This might be the geekiest Steve Jobs portrait ever

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A familiar face to Apple fans made from familiar technology.
A familiar face to Apple fans made from familiar technology.
Photo: Jason Mercier

Cult of Mac 2.0 bugApple fans felt a deep sense of mourning in 2011 when Apple founder Steve Jobs succumbed to cancer. With the fifth anniversary of his passing approaching, Cult of Mac looks at the artistic tributes that followed.

Artist Jason Mercier is yet another creative person to use Apple devices — and maybe the only one to literally break them into pieces for his work.

Mercier has made a name for himself around the San Francisco Bay Area by creating mosaics with trash befitting his celebrity subjects. So when his cousin commissioned him to do a portrait of the late Apple founder, Mercier knew he had to construct it with the very products and components Jobs had a hand in creating.

Bubble wrap portrait of Steve Jobs gives new meaning to pop art

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Bradley Hart injects paint into bubble wrap for photo-realistic portraits, like this one of Steve Jobs.
Bradley Hart injects paint into bubble wrap for photo-realistic portraits, like this one of Steve Jobs.
Photo: Deukyun Hwang/Arte Fuse

Cult of Mac 2.0 bugApple fans felt a deep sense of mourning in 2011 when Apple founder Steve Jobs succumbed to cancer. With the fifth anniversary of his passing approaching, Cult of Mac looks at the artistic tributes that followed.

From afar, the colorful portrait of a smiling Steve Jobs looks like a pixilated portrait made with an early digital camera. Get closer and those pixels take on a shape familiar to your thumb and forefinger — bubble wrap.

Jobs would appreciate Bradley Hart’s “Think Different” approach to bubble wrap as well as the hyper-focus attention Hart pays to inject each bubble with a different color of acrylic paint to form a famous face.

Steve Jobs left an imprint on tech and the skin of some devoted fans

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Craig Sarich with a Steve Jobs tribute design tattooed on his arm.
Craig Sarich with a Steve Jobs tribute design tattooed on his arm.
Photo: Craig Sarich

Cult of Mac 2.0 bugApple fans felt a deep sense of mourning in 2011 when Apple founder Steve Jobs succumbed to cancer. With the fifth anniversary of his passing approaching, Cult of Mac looks at the artistic tributes that followed.

Nothing grants a person supreme being status like a tattoo. After all, the ink is permanent.

So even if the late Steve Jobs had a well-established legacy as the father of personal computing, some Apple fans felt the need to wear their devotion more deeply.

The value of old iPods could be music to your ears

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Tony Hawk, Madonna and No Doubt are just a few of the names whose signatures graced Special Edition models of the iPod Classic.
Tony Hawk, Madonna and No Doubt are just a few of the names whose signatures graced Special Edition models of the iPod Classic.
Photo: Ivan Chernov

Cult of Mac 2.0 bug Nick Wellings listens to music on his iPhone, preferring not to disturb any one of his 108 iPods.

He figures his collection would hold 231,000 songs, but only one has ever been touched or seen the light of day. They remain factory-sealed in their boxes.

The iPod’s status as an icon was brief but seismic, a sleek and at-times-colorful trigger of upheaval to the music industry in the middle of the century’s first decade. Soon the iPhone, which grew more powerful with each generation, relegated the iPod to junk drawers, closets and boxes, next to that cassette-tape-playing Sony Walkman.

Coffee table book is self-taught photographer’s valentine to Apple design

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Jonathan Zufi's book ICONIC has been popular with Apple fans.
Jonathan Zufi's book ICONIC has been popular with Apple fans.
Photo: David Pierini/Cult of Mac

Cult of Mac 2.0 bugThe fun Jonathan Zufi had playing RobotWar on his high school’s lone Apple II in the early 1980s re-emerged one day. He just had to play it again.

The lark that led Zufi to an online search for an Apple II to play the game grew into the acquisition of more than 500 vintage Apple items, which he lovingly photographed, but then sold to fund production of a coffee table book that has sold more than 15,000 copies.

Apple prototype collector in search of rarely seen devices

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A
A "clear shot" prototype of an Apple Powerbook 140.
Photo: Jonathan Zufi

Cult of Mac 2.0 bugSerious Apple prototype collectors usually know exactly what they are looking for as they try to build a physical timeline of each distinct device ever made. A Holy Grail artifact would be an Apple I. Fewer than 50 are said to exist.

Hap Plain wants the pieces none of us, including him, have ever seen.

He is one of a very select subculture who search the world over for Apple prototypes. Before being polished into the personal computing icons of our lives, Apple computers, iPods, iPhones and other devices start out as crude, unfinished test models so glitches and user experience hangups can be identified and worked out before hitting the market.

Prague Apple Museum offers intimate look at Steve Jobs

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The Apple Museum in Prague pays homage to innovation and Apple founder Steve Jobs.
The Apple Museum in Prague pays homage to innovation and Apple founder Steve Jobs.
Photo: Apple Museum, Prague

Cult of Mac 2.0 bugHow far would you travel to see a collection of rare Apple devices, or the clothes Steve Jobs’ wore when introducing the iPad to the world?

Hopefully, the Czech Republic is not too far for you.

The newly opened Apple Museum in Prague is home to products and memorabilia from eight different private collectors. Its inventory might make the visitor think he’s strolling through some corporate archive in Cupertino.

Give me some skin! Standing desk company introduces customization

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This standing desk cover will make you feel like you are working in a field of sunflowers.
This standing desk cover will make you feel like you are working in a field of sunflowers.
Photo: Evodesk

We can customize our iMac desktops with a favorite photo. Why not the desk itself?

Evodesk, in addition to getting us to stand up for our work, now offers graphic inspiration with a durable second skin that envelops the desk with a wide selection of photos and patterns to keep creatives happy and productive.

Apple collectibles are a seller’s market

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Bids for this Apple I started at $370,000.
Bids for this Apple I started at $370,000.
Photo: Christie's

Cult of Mac 2.0 bugStarting a collection of Apple’s past is relatively easy and often affordable. But once you get started and a pricey, rare object presents itself, will you be able to control yourself?

Here’s a list that will test whether you have the fever and an intense desire to hold personal computing history in your hands. It may also test your fiscal fitness.

Meet the loyal Newton fans who keep the device alive and kicking

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Keeping the light on. A group of enthusiasts who keep their Apple Newtons aglow.
Keeping the light on. A group of enthusiasts who keep their Apple Newtons aglow.
Photo: Adam Tow

Cult of Mac 2.0 bugGrant Hutchinson has never owned an iPad. He does, however, own some 15-dozen Newton devices, a few of which he uses every day to help manage tasks, a schedule and software clients.

Why would Hutchinson cling to and even rely on a clunky obsolete digital message pad, an Apple failure so big it inspired f-bomb rage in Steve Jobs and a week’s worth of damning Doonesbury comic strips?

Hutchinson is just one of a few thousand people worldwide who collect and even use Apple’s first mobile computing device, discontinued in 1998 after a number of incarnations over a rocky five-year run.

Teen uses lawn-mowing money to fund incredible Apple collection

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Alex's Apple Orchard
Alex's Apple Orchard occupied the basement of the family home.
Photo courtesy of Alex Jason

Cult of Mac 2.0 bugA 10-year-old kid in Maine finds an iMac G5 on Craigslist and arranges to trade a minibike and a snowblower for it.

The computer was supposed to be for games and homework. It instead proved to be the first piece in what is becoming one of the most significant private collections of Apple devices in the United States.

For world’s biggest Apple museum, book a flight to Italy

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The All About Apple Museum in Savona, Italy.
The All About Apple Museum in Savona, Italy.
Photo: All About Apple Museum

Cult of Mac 2.0 bugFor years, Apple has been under pressure to open an Apple museum. The company’s rich and storied past has its fans clamoring for a central repository of that history.

Word from the company: No. Apple’s leaders say they are more interested in the future than the past.

In fact, the most complete historical collection of all things Apple is nowhere near Cupertino. The serious Apple fan must travel to, of all places, Savona, Italy.

Apple Stores’ biggest fan shined a light on the little people

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Gary Allen with his son, Devin, at a Beijing Apple Store in 2008.
Gary Allen with his son, Devin, at a Beijing Apple Store in 2008.
Photo: Devin Allen

Cult of Mac 2.0 bugTim Cook, Jony Ive and Apple’s legendary Steves earned their loyal followings.

Writer Gary Allen made sure the foot soldiers — Apple retail workers and even the carpenters who made display tables for Apple Stores — got props for their contributions to Cupertino by way of Allen’s now-defunct website ifo Apple Store.

In doing so, Allen left his own thankful and devoted followers saddened when he passed away last fall from brain cancer.

A robot rolls into an Apple Store …

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Lucy Kelly's purchase of an iPhone 6s at the Sydney Apple Store was a global news story.
Lucy Kelly's purchase of an iPhone 6s at the Sydney Apple Store was a global news story.
Photo: Atomic 212

Cult of Mac 2.0 bugThe lines outside Apple Stores across the globe will be long later this year when the much-anticipated iPhone 7 goes on sale, a guaranteed media spectacle ripe with companies seeking inexpensive advertising of their products.

No guerrilla marketing stunt set the bar higher than one in Sydney last fall, when a telepresence robot with the cheerful face of a woman named Lucy framed in an iPad took her place in line to buy an iPhone 6s.

Hungry publicity hound saves his spot in Apple history

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Greg Packer is described as a professional line-sitter with a knack for getting publicity. He often can be found at or near the front of the line at the Fifth Avenue Apple Store in New York City whenever a new iPhone is about to go on sale.
Greg Packer goes where the new iPhones are.
Photo: Gizmodo

Cult of Mac 2.0 bugGreg Packer is a shirtless footnote in the history of the iPhone. The retired highway maintenance worker from Long Island made a name for himself as the first person to line up for the sale of the first iPhone in 2007.

During his nearly weeklong stint sitting outside the Fifth Avenue Apple Store in New York City, scores of reporters came by to interview him as he sat in a lawn chair, at times not bothering to put on a shirt during his many closeups.

Pictar grip gives conventional camera feel to iPhone

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Pictar eliminates the worry of dropping your iPhone while making pictures.
Pictar eliminates the worry of dropping your iPhone while making pictures.
Photo: miggo

The more I grow to love photography with an iPhone, the more I miss certain things about conventional cameras. Get a grip, you say? A grip is one of the things I am talking about.

miggo, innovative makers of camera bags, straps and mounts, brings to Kickstarter the Pictar, an ergonomic camera grip for the iPhone that also shifts cumbersome menu functions to five programmable wheels and buttons right at the tip of your shooting finger.

This commuter/camera backpack will PRVKE you to retire your other bags [Reviews]

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The PRVKE pack (pronounced
The PRVKE pack (pronounced "provoke") puts fashion and function on your shoulders.
Photo: David Pierini/Cult of Mac

Backpacks evoke certain expectations. Sexy is usually not one of those expectations.

Yet that is the first feeling I had when checking out the PRVKE Pack, a smartly engineered backpack for photographers designed by brothers Ryan and Spencer Cope. Their company is called WANDRD, and wander is exactly what you will want to do with this bag.

Vintage-computer fest celebrates 40 years since our first bite of Apple

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The colorful era of the first iMacs on display in an Apple Pop-up exhibit at the Computer Museum of America in Roswell, Ga.
Colorful early iMacs are among the technological wonders on display in the Apple Pop Up exhibit at the Computer Museum of America.
Photo: Computer Museum of America

Phil Schiller says Apple is too busy “inventing the future” to “celebrate the past” by building a museum.

So if you are in search of history on the 40th anniversary of Apple’s founding, you might want to travel to Georgia. There, a guy named Lonnie Mimms has taken over an old CompUSA building and meticulously crafted a tangible timeline that would make Apple’s futurists — perhaps even Schiller — pause with nostalgia and pride.

Woz will pop the cork on some bubbly with you if price is right

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The dinner conversation could be interesting.
The dinner conversation could be interesting.
Photo: Cult of Mac file

We have a ready shortlist when asked which famous person with whom we most want as a dinner date.

So if Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is on that list, he will happily dine with you and three friends and even throw in a bottle of champaign tied to Apple’s history – that is, if you are the winning bidder.

Steve Jobs’ legacy lives on thanks to Apple fans’ tattoos

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A kind of love that goes skin-deep.
A kind of love that goes skin-deep.
Photo: greezer.ch/Flickr CC

Steve Jobs had a way of getting under people’s skin. Still does, if you consider the growing number of Apple fans who have had his iconic face or some other Jobs tribute tattooed onto their skin.

Today we celebrate what would have been the Apple co-founder’s 61st birthday by looking at body art inspired by the pioneer of personal computing.