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.
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.
New beta Release Candidates of Lightroom 3.4 and Camera Raw 6.4 are available for immediate download on Adobe Labs.
Adobe:
The Release Candidates bring raw file support to seven popular camera models including Canon EOS Rebel T3i and Olympus E-PL1s, improve on lens correction profiles introduced in the Lightroom 3.3 and Camera Raw 6.3 releases, and add over 10 new lens profiles to help photographers automatically correct unwanted distortion and chromatic aberration.
An astonishing 82% of consumers plan to buy an iPad despite the dozens of competing tablets due this year, a ChangeWave survey found.
There’s a caveat: that’s 82% of consumers who plan to buy a tablet in the next 90 days, which is only 5% of the 3,091 consumers surveyed in February – before Apple showed off the iPad 2.
Still, it’s a huge percentage. Only 4% plan to buy the Motorola Xoom; and 3% plan to buy RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab.
Further out, almost 30% said they will be buying a tablet in the future — also an amazingly high number. Not surprisingly, these tablets will cannibalize sales of netbooks, eReaders and even traditional notebooks.
Just kidding. Of course it doesn’t suck. Just the opposite.
The first reviews are in, and they range from enthusiastic to downright giddy. Everyone raves how light and thin it is, and what a big difference that makes in a tablet. Across the board, the reviewers say Apple has made a great device greater, and it’ll be difficult to beat: on design, performance, experience and price.
The only knocks are the screen (last year’s spec) and the cameras, which are functional but not great.
Engineers built and flew a replica of the flying house in Pixar’s “Up” — setting the record for the largest cluster balloon flight ever.
It took 300 balloons, each 8-feet tall and filled with an entire tank of helium. The stint was for or National Geographic Channel’s “How Hard Can It Be?” show. Watch the video report:
Four days before the iPad 2 goes on sale, the first line is already forming.
Apple fan Justin Wagoner has set up camp outside an Apple Store in Dallas, Texas. Here’s a snap of his tent taken by a MacCast reader.
Wagoner appears to be the first person lining up for the iPad 2, which goes on sale on Friday at 5PM. Apple isn’t taking preorders, so its first come, first served.
Wagoner also camped out to be first in line for the iPhone 4 last year. He has set up a site to document his camping trip: iJustinOfficial.com.
Hungarian politician Jozsef Szajer is drafting the country's new constitution on an iPad.
A Hungarian politician is for the first time drafting the country’s new constitution on an iPad.
Politician Jozsef Szajer, a member of the European Parliament for Hungary’s ruling party, said in a blog post:
Steve Jobs will surely be happy when he gets word that Hungary’s new constitution is being written on an iPad, actually my iPad… The best is I don’t have to wait for minutes to turn it on, like with a normal laptop. I can open it anywhere and can take advantage of every minute. It’s a miracle!
When reader Liam Dennis updated his Twitter for iPhone app yesterday, it told him that Steve Jobs had registered a Twitter account. He explains:
“It scanned my address book for users I wasn’t following. It only found one. A twitter account linked to [email protected], a contact I had made to send the occasional email to him as we all do.
The [email protected] email address is known, of course, as Steve Jobs’ email address at Apple — the one he uses for his famous one-word responses to customers’ queries.
I feel pretty bad about yesterday’s post about the iPad 3 being the one to make a song and dance about. I’m sure the iPad 3 will be great when it comes out, but for right now, the iPad 2 is a great upgrade. This is not a ho-hum update, as our anonymous Apple staffer suggested.
It’s a rockstar from Mars update. It runs on tigerblood.
The slimmed-down weight and bulk make a big difference. It’s much easier to hold and handle. It’s pretty astonishing that Apple managed to cram in so more, yet made the case so incredibly thin. That is rockstar engineering.
The cameras should have been in there all along, of course, but the addition now makes the iPad much closer to feature-complete.
But the real magic of the device is the integration of hardware and software. Look at the piano in Garageband. You tickle the virtual keys softly and it plays softly. But hammer on them and you sound like Little Richard. The iPad 2’s screen is touch-sensitive, thanks to the built-in accelerometer, which tells the iPad how hard you are touching the screen. Watch the video of it in action here. It really is pretty astonishing!
Without that integration of hardware and software, other tablets are just fancy digital picture frames, as Wired’s Brian Chen noted on Twitter.
The iPad 2 is pure Apple: it proves that Apple is its own most ruthless competitor. Overnight, 15 million first-generation iPads were rendered obsolete.
Apple’s competitors are dead in the water. Steve Jobs is a master of hyperbole, but this time he’s right. There’s no doubt about it: 2011 is the year of the iPad 2.
The big news today for me is that Steve Jobs looks as healthy as ever. Yes he’s thin, but he looks good and his voice is strong. See for yourself. Watch the 30-second video below, taken from CNN’s live stream of this morning’s event.
This is NOT a man with six weeks to live. Long live Steve!
That was quick. Google appears to have already upgraded CultofMac.com in its search results, just a few days after downgrading us.
As we noted yesterday, Cult of Mac was collateral damage in Google’s war on crappy content farms. For some inexplicable reason, we got downgraded when Google tweaked its algorithms last Thursday.
But today we’re back in. We’re on Google News (a very important source of daily traffic) as well as Google’s general search results. However, we still get outranked by some of the scraper sites that steal our content, so not everything’s perfect.
Why we’ve been upgraded, I have no idea. Google’s head of spam, Matt Cutts, tweeted me yesterday, saying Google had likely seen my post and would get it resolved. And Wired.com published a story about us today after speaking to a Google Fellow Amit Singhal. But the changes were already in place early this morning, which makes me think Google is slowly tweaking its algorithm to get better results. I’ve asked Cutts for an explanation, and will post up if/when I get a reply.
I’d like to thank readers for your awesome support. We got some very nice notes in the comments to the last post. Made my day. Thanks guys.
This one looks a bit fishy, but we’re throwing it out for fun. Amazon.de may have accidentally posted the specs and release date of the iPad 2.
According to the screenshot above, snapped YourAppleDaily.net, the iPad 2 available will have Thunderbolt, a camera and 1.2GHz CPU. And it will be released released on March 17.
Here’s the specs:
9.7-inch screen (same as the current iPad)
1.2GHz CPU
Wi-Fi
Thunderbolt
Camera
Bluetooth
Available 17 March
However, the link to Amazon.de provided by YourAppleDaily.net isn’t working (here’s the link), and a search of Amazon.de pulls up zip.
Reader Lovell just sent this very puzzling email regarding something new from Apple tomorrow regarding phones. He writes:
I had a friend go to apple today to purchase an iPhone 4. The salesmen talked her out of buying it and told her to come back tomorrow. Would not say what was coming out tomorrow but said she would be verry happy. I ask what it could be phone wise because she said I don’t want a white iPhone but yet the salesmen still wouldn’t say.
Lovell is in Lexington, Ky. I’m stumped. Anyone thinking it could be the rumored cheapo iPhone?
This is the icon for a new section of the Finder in Lion (Apple’s latest update to OS X) called “All My Files.” It helps users find recently-used files, listing them by type, date and so on.
Look carefully. The file cards contain some of Steve Jobs’ best-known quotes, including the words to the famous “Think Different” commercial.
