Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com's senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late '90s and early '2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and '90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs' leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK's National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He's an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California's legendary Death Ride.
Apple filed a complaint in California on March 18, accusing Amazon of trademark infringement and unfair competition in regards to the upcoming “Amazon Appstore,” an online marketplace for Android devices.
“We’ve asked Amazon not to copy the App Store name because it will confuse and mislead customers,” Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet told Bloomberg.
Apple is seeking a court injunction on the “App Store” name and unspecified damages. According to the suit, Apple has applied for a trademark on “App Store,” but the application has been opposed by Microsoft. The matter will go before the trademark appeal board.
Here’s a great story about an iPad 2 that was returned to Apple.
Apple is keeping a close eye on iPad 2 returns as part of its QA process. The company wants to identify any problems in early production units, like the light-bleeding backlights we’ve been hearing about.
But one customer returned his iPad 2 for a different reason: his wife wouldn’t let him keep it. He took his iPad back to the Apple Store with a sticky note on it: “Wife said no.”
But a pair of executives at Apple got wind of the story and sent him a replacement iPad 2 with a new sticky on it. Guess what it said?
“Apple said yes”
If the lucky fellow reads this, please get in touch. We’d love to hear more.
What the Times brings to the story is not one, but two sources:
According to two people with knowledge of the inner workings of a coming iteration of the Apple iPhone — although not necessarily the next one — a chip made by Qualcomm for the phone’s processor will also include near-field communication technology, known as N.F.C. This technology enables short-range wireless communications between the phone and an N.F.C reader, and can be used to make mobile payments. It is unclear which version of an iPhone this technology would be built into.
The line for iPad 2s outside the Waikiki Apple Store. The same lines appear every day, one week after the iPad 2s launch. Photo by Jayson Smith: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaysonsmith/5537484729/in/photostream/
One week after the launch of the iPad 2, there are still overnight lines for the device.
Friday morning, there were 71 people in line for possible iPad 2s at the Los Gatos Apple store, according to CultofMac.com columnist Mike Elgan.
Mike called neighboring stores, and was told there were similar lines at stores in Santa Clara and Palo Alto.
It’s the same story at Apple’s stores all around the country. Look at the photo of the Waikiki store above. “Still no iPad2!” reports the photographer, Jayson Smith. At the 5th Avenue store in Manhattan, there’s a perpetual line of several hundred hopefuls.
Most are turned away disappointed. All these lines are for “possible” iPads. Although many stores have been getting fresh deliveries of iPad 2s every day, not all do. Still, standing in line seems quicker than ordering online. Shipping for online orders has been pushed back 4-5 weeks.
The Apple Store in Charlotte, NC, gave disappointed customers free Smart Covers when deliveries of iPad 2s failed to arrive, according to AppleBitch.
The store… told customers the previous day that an iPad 2 delivery was due for the following morning. However, when no iPads arrived, the customers in line, around fifty of them, were apparently offered a free Smart Cover by the Manager as an apology for the mis-information.
Some Apple stores have resorted to telling customers there are no stocks right off the bat. At one store in Los Angeles, this is how staff are answering the telephone:
Back in 2000, when Google was just getting started, its venture capital backers insisted the fledling company find an experieced CEO to provide ‘adult supervision.’
Venture capitalist John Doerr arranged for Google’s young co-founders to meet with half-a-dozen Silicon Valley CEOs in an attempt to get the process started. Larry Page and Sergey Brin met with Intel’s Andy Grove, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and several others.
At the end of the tour, they were ready to hire a CEO but there was a problem, according to Wired senior writer Steven Levy:
… they would only consider one person: Steve Jobs.
Jobs was busy running Apple, of course, which was just about to introduce the first iPod, the product that would transform the company. Doerr persuaded them to widen their net and introduced them to Eric Schmidt, then CEO of Novell. Schmidt became Google’s CEO in 2001.
The nugget about Steve Jobs is from the latest Wired magazine, in a story about Larry Page retaking the reins as Google’s CEO. It is not yet online. The story is an excerpt from Levy’s upcoming book, “In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives,” which is available for pre-order on Amazon.
With all the rumors about NFC being in the next iPhone — or not in the next iPhone — we have a few more details about Apple’s remote computing plans that revolve around the technology.
According to a source close to the company, Apple is busy testing several prototype iPhones with near field communications (NFC). Unfortunately, the source has no knowledge of when Apple will actually introduce the technology in the iPhone. It could be the next model, due this summer, or next year’s, they said.
However, Apple is working out the kinks in an ambitious remote computing system — and a key component utilizes the recently launched Mac App Store.
As we previously reported, Apple is working on a system that allows users to log into another computer using an NFC-equipped iPhone. The iPhone pairs with the host machine, and loads the user’s files and settings over the net. It’s as though the user is sitting at their own machine at home.
These toddlers can barely speak, but they sure can rock an iPad.
Check out the video above. In it, two-year-old Bridger shows his mastery of the iPad. Just watch him swipe his way through the Home screen to find the app he wants.
The videos in this post are just a sample of many toddler videos on YouTube, demonstrating the unbelievable ease two- and three-year olds have mastering the iPad.
The iPad's Smart Cover makes a great fridge magnet. Photo: Leander Kahney/CultofMac.com Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
Thanks to its 21 built-in magnets, the iPad’s Smart Cover makes a great fridge magnet.
Just clip it to the fridge. It’s pretty sturdy. It clings to the fridge surprisingly strongly. There’s little danger of it coming loose, even when swiping your finger across the screen.
It’s another reason to invest in a $40-$70 Smart Cover when you get an iPad 2.
One of the drawbacks of the cheaper, WiFi-only iPad 2 is that it doesn’t have GPS — so it can’t run any of those beautiful fullscreen navigation apps.
GPS is limited to the more expensive 3G iPad models. But if you own a GPS-enabled iPhone, you’re in luck. The WiFi-only iPad 2 inherits GPS functionality when it’s tethered to an iPhone.
The trailer for Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard is the first “interactive” game trailer I’ve seen. Check it out below. You hit the hotspots to “play” the game. Pretty cool. Reminds me of Myst.
Microsoft is killing the Zune player after five years of unsuccessfully trying to compete with Apple’s iPod.
The Zune is being discontinued thanks to weak ongoing sales, Bloomberg reports. It will not be refreshed when current units sell out.
When the Zune was introduced in 2006, in mold-breaking brown nonetheless, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer predicted the player would one day overtake Apple. But it failed to even crack the top five MP3 players. According to NPD, Apple had 77% market share in 2010.
“MSFT abandoning Zune last sign AAPL totally dominated portable music for the last decade,” tweeted industry analyst Michael Gartenberg. “Sony, Samsung, Dell all failed to move needle.”
Gartenberg also predicted that tablets will be the next Zune.
Pundit Paul Kedrosky said: “My main reaction to news that Microsoft is going to stop selling Zunes is … Microsoft still sold Zunes?”
Instead of selling hardware players, Microsoft will shift its focus to putting Zune on smartphones running Windows mobile OS.
With its world class design, Microsoft’s young hip image, and ground-breaking advertising like the spot below, is it any wonder the Zune failed to take off?
Rocker Jon Bon Jovi says Steve Jobs is “personally responsible for killing the music business” with iTunes.
In an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine, Bon Jovi says kids no longer enjoy the “magical” experience of buying and enjoying LPs because of digital downloads. He hates to sound like an “old man,” he says, but it’s all Jobs’ fault:
“Kids today have missed the whole experience of putting the headphones on, turning it up to 10, holding the jacket, closing their eyes and getting lost in an album; and the beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it. God, it was a magical, magical time. I hate to sound like an old man now, but I am, and you mark my words, in a generation from now people are going to say: ‘What happened?’. Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music business.”
I’m an old man too, but I’ve never enjoyed music more. I much prefer my fantastic Sonos music system than my old record player. I do recall the excitement of buying a new LP every week. I doubt I’d get the same excitement these days, but that’s not Steve Jobs’ fault.
As for killing music, I’d say Bon Jovi has done more on that front than Steve Jobs.
Incidentally, Bon Jovi sits on a White House panel with Jobs’ wife, Laurene Powell Jobs. Both are members of the White House council for Community Solutions. Might be awkward at the next meeting.
Just marvel at the engineering behind the iPad 2’s Smart Covers. Between them, the iPad 2 and its Smart Cover contain an incredible 31 magnets.
Apple has made extensive use of magnets in the past – to hold a remote control to the iMac, for example, or keep the lid of a MacBook closed. But it has never used so many magnets in a product, or so elegantly.
The 31 magnets in the iPad 2 and the Smart Cover:
clip the Smart Cover to the side of the iPad
Keep the Smart Cover attached to the screen when closed
ensure the Smart Cover retains its triangular shape when folded into a stand
instantly wake the iPad and put it to sleep when opened and closed
It’s really quite mind-boggling. iFixit has the details.
Like we said, the iPad 2 is one slim sexy slab of computing awesomeness. Most of the tech press has yawned at the iPad 2 because it doesn’t seem like there’s a ton of new features. But it’s the small changes — the thinness, the speed, the cameras – -that make all the difference. The iPad 2 is the tablet done right — finally.
For regular consumers, the iPad 2 is irresistible. Look around: the whole world is going iPad bonkers. Did you see the lines at the stores yesterday? There was nowhere near enough stock. A lot of people went home disappointed. And that was just the early adopters. There’s a lot of mainstream consumers lusting for the iPad 2. For weeks, I’ve been taking calls from friends and family of all ages and walks of life, from kids to grandparents. There’s a ton of non-nerds planning to get an iPad in coming months.
Are they right? Is this the iPad to get? What about the rumored iPad 3 in the fall? Should you wait?
Heck no! Take the plunge with the iPad 2. Read on for the details:
Remember when logicboards were one of the biggest components of a computer? Not any more.
An iFixit teardown of the iPad 2 reveals a logicboard the size of a couple of matchbooks. By contrast, the three batteries consume almost all the interior space.
According to this Target employee, the store has only 5 iPad 2s for sale later today. They are all 64GB, WiFi-only models in black. That's not a lot of stock. We've hidden the employee's identity so they don't get fired.
If you’re thinking of visiting Target for an iPad 2 later today, better think again.
We just got a report from the stockroom of one Target store, which has only five iPad 2s in stock for sale at 5PM today. They are all 64GB, WiFi-only models in black.
An employee at the store just sent us the following message with the picture above:
“stockroom we only got 5 of the 64gb wifi only black models insulting right.
Stock levels at big box retailers like Target and Best Buy were expected to be much lower than Apple’s retail stores, but this is shockingly low.
It’s not clear if this is the inventory level at all Target stores, but I’d say it’s typical. Apple is offering the iPad 2 for sale at about 10 different retailers, so stocks are likely to be stretched thin. Obviously, retailers are keeping their inventory levels secret: they don’t want to scare potential shoppers away.
The Target employee summed it up nicely: “Better off waitin outside apple or best buy.”
The popular Flipboard app was updated on Wednesday, adding Instagram support and search across social networks. But it also included a surprise for users with jailbroken iPads.
Steve Jobs has jumped almost 40 places on Forbes’ list of the World’s Billionaires. He is the 43 rd richest person in the U.S. and the 110th richest in the world.
Jobs’ net worth has jumped almost $2 billion in one year, from $5.5 to $8.3 billion, Forbes estimated. The leap is thanks to Apple’s surging stock, bouyed by a successful year of iPads and iPhone 4s. Jobs has been on Forbes’ 400 list for the last 11 years. He’s grown his net worth more than 500%. Not bad for a college dropout.
