Leander Kahney - page 19

iPod 10th Anniversary: To celebrate the iPod’s 10th anniversary on Sunday October 23, we’re running several special features this weekend. We’ll have an illustrated cultural history, appreciations and op eds. Check back for more.

This Mursi woman has two tools essential to survival in Southern Ethiopia: an AK47 and her iPod.

Ever wondered how the iPod became so ubiquitous? Where it came from? How Apple kept all competitors at bay, and made the iPod the key music technology of the 21st century?

We’ve got you covered in this cool infographic of the history of the iPod:

iPod 10th Anniversary: To celebrate the iPod’s 10th anniversary on Sunday October 23, we’re running several special features this weekend. We’ll have an illustrated cultural history, appreciations and op eds. Check back for more.

Fire, the wheel, and the iPod. In the history of invention, gadgets don’t come more iconic than Apple’s digital music player.

The iPod is to the 21st century what the big band was to the ’20s, the radio to the ’40s, or the jukebox to the ’50s – the signature technology that defines the musical culture of the era. And what a marvelous technology the iPod is. Inside Apple’s little white box is magic, pure magic, in the guise of music.

The first review of Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs is in, and it’s a good one.

Writing in the New York Times, critic Janet Maslin says the 630-page tome is “clear, elegant and concise.”

Steve Jobs was one of only 20 people in the world to have his DNA sequenced as well as the DNA of his tumor, Walter Isaacson’s upcoming biography reveals.

After Jobs delayed treatment for cancer for nine months while he tried alternative cures (including eating vegetarian dishes at a San Francisco restaurant with Dr. Dean Ornish), he went all in with the best treatments modern medicine can provide.

Because of the experimental gene therapy, Jobs said he’d either be one of the first to beat cancer, or one of the last to die of it.

Although Steve Jobs is not known for ostentatious displays of his wealth, he was designing his own luxury yacht. And typical of Jobs, he was designing it himself so that he could obsess over every detail.

Apple’s first ad for Siri and the iPhone 4S that started airing on TV tonight. Makes it look very attractive and cool. It’s going to be a monster smash.

BTW: The ad hasn’t yet been added to Apple’s official YouTube account.

Although everyone knows that Apple Computer was named after the namesake fruit, Steve Jobs has never talked about where the name came from — until now (AFAIK).

It was named during one of his fruitarian diets, Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Jobs reveals.

In a conversation with President Obama last year, Steve Jobs sounded like an out-and-out Republican, according to another excerpt from the upcoming official biography.

During President Obama’s trip to Silicon Valley in the fall 2010, where he met several business leaders, Jobs complained about regulations, taxes and the teachers unions. I always thought Jobs had a liberal bent, but he sounds like a member of the Tea Party.

He told Obama he would be a “one-term Presidency” unless he became more friendly to corporations.

The AP has somehow “purchased” an early copy of Walter Isaacson’s official biography of Steve Jobs, which is due to hit store shelves on Monday. According to this initial report, Jobs called Android “grand theft” and threatened to start a “thermonuclear war” with Google.

As Apple’s stores nationwide prepare to close for a few hours on Wednesday to remember Steve Jobs, many are removing the memorials that sprang up on their windows and doorsteps. The memorial at Apple’s flagship store in San Francisco, for example, was removed last week.

Not so the Apple store in Palo Alto, Calif. — Steve’s hometown. Quite the opposite, the number of Post-It tributes has grown to the point that both windows are now almost completely covered. The picture above was snapped just a few hours ago on Tuesday evening.

It’s a nice tribute. Let’s hope they stay up for a while longer. Here are a few more pictures:

Some have noted that the lines for the iPhone 4S on Friday were disappointingly short. Apple might have sold a record 4 million devices in four days, but the launch day lines were nothing compared to those for the iPhone 4 or the iPad 2.

But there was one place where the lines went around the block — and no one seems to have reported it yet.

The big question about the iPhone 4S is whether it’s worth the upgrade.

The answer is yes, and that’s because of Siri, the talking personal assistant.

Siri is unbelievable; a paradigm shift. It’s new way of interacting with computers that’s as big a breakthrough as the original Macintosh with its mouse, windows and icons. In fact, it’s bigger. It’s a much more natural way to interact with machines. It’s a glimpse of the future of computing.

Like the first Mac, it’s far from perfect. We’re at the very beginning of this revolution. But if you want to join the party, you need the 4S.

Lots of people are asking why Woz, Apple’s cofounder and still Apple employee number 1, is first in line to buy an iPhone 4S on Friday morning.

I just caught him on the local news, and he has a very good reason.

This looks cool. Gary Allen of IFOAppleStore just snapped these pictures of Apple’s new iPhone 4S window display. Allen is at the Apple Store on 4th Street in Berkeley.

Here’s a couple more pictures. One shows how these big video displays work:

Each year, the lines for Apple’s iPhone become more of a circus. Last year, it was pro line-sitter Greg Packer at the head of the line, giving tons of TV interviews.

This year, app developer Dillon Horowitz has brought a cow, a calf and a goat to Apple’s flagship NYC store.

The iPhone 4S looks like the iPhone 4, but under the hood it’s a whole new beast.

Here’s the first side-by-side picture showing the differences inside:

Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak is already in line for his iPhone 4S. According to Woz’s Twitter account, he’s first in line at the Los Gatos Apple store.

“The long wait begins,” Woz tweeted, “I’m first in line. The guy ahead was on the wrong side and he’s pissed.”

To celebrate Steve Jobs Day this Friday, Erica Montelongo and Gunter Zieber are getting married at their local Apple Store.

 “Gunter admired Steve Jobs and this is how he wanted to celebrate Steve Jobs Day,” said Montelongo, 34. “And when you add in Tiffany and Co., how could a girl say no?” To learn more about the steve jobs wedding, check out this detailed article.

The WSJ’s crusty old Walt Mossberg, not easily impressed by new gadgets, was also pleased by the iPhone 4S and Siri:

Inside its familiar-looking body there lurks a nascent artificial-intelligence system that has to be tried to be believed.

Walt Mossberg: The iPhone Finds Its Voice

The first reviews of the iPhone 4S are coming in, and they look pretty good.

David Pogue, in a review headlined “New iPhone Conceals Sheer Magic,” says Siri is game-changing:

It’s even more amazing how Siri’s responses can actually form a conversation. Once, I tried saying, “Make an appointment with Patrick for Thursday at 3.” Siri responded, “Note that you already have an all-day appointment about ‘Boston Trip’ for this Thursday. Shall I schedule this anyway?” Unbelievable.

From all the bitching and moaning, you’d think the iPhone 4S was a flop.

But Apple just announced that iPhone 4S preorders topped more than 1 million in the first 24 hours — a new record. No wonder the preorder system was glitchy on Friday morning.

Here’s the cover of the October 17, 2011, issue of The New Yorker. Notice that they reuse the same ‘St. Peter uses an iPad’ gag as the recent Next Media Animation tribute to Steve Jobs.

Me & Steve Stories — Some of the best stories about Steve Jobs are the personal, intimate ones. We’re collecting them here and will run as many new stories as we can find. If you have a story about Steve you’d like to share, please send us your submissions.

In September, 2004, KC Bradshaw was working as a trampoline installer, which is how he got to meet Steve Jobs in person and leave with a very special souvenir.

In recent years, Steve Jobs became famous for emailing terse responses to queries sent by Apple customers to his public email address: [email protected].

It’s not a new habit, it seems. Back in the early days of Apple, Jobs used to mail letters with computer chips attached to them. Letters of Note posted the one above. How many of these are out there?

UPDATE: Jobs wasn’t in bed watching the live feed, but sitting on a sofa enjoying apple juice with rice pudding. Our source reports: “He was sitting in his favorite single soft leather sofa chair and having apple juices with rice pudding, as his favorite.”

We don’t have many details, but we have it from a good source that Steve Jobs watched the launch of the iPhone 4S from his death bed home in Palo Alto.

A special private video stream was set up for him to watch the event from home.

According to our source: “At the end of the show, he smiled as if to say ‘All things are in good hands’ but did not utter a word.”

The source declined to go into further detail. The source is well-connected and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Jobs died the following day.