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.
The sales make Jackson the first artist to sell more than one million digital songs in one week. The week before his death, Jackson sold 48,000 songs, illustrating how big a jump this week’s numbers are.
Jackson’s records are dominating the charts. Six of his albums are in the top 10 Top Digital Albums chart, a record, and 25 of his singles are in the top 75 Hot Digital Songs.
Like Elvis, Jackson is likely to bigger earner in death than he was in life. Elvis earned a whopping $52 million in 2007 — $8 million more than living pop stars like Justin Timberlake ($44 million) and Madonna ($40 million), according to Forbes.com.
Fake iPhones are getting much better. This iPhoney is almost identical to the genuine article, until it's booted up. It was bought by Steven Fernandeez of Toronto. CC-licensed picture by Steven Fernandez.
Counterfeit iPhones have come a long way. They’re now almost identical to original iPhones, fooling bargain hunters on sites like eBay.
Look at the video below from Dana Stibolt, founder of MacMedics, who was given a fake iPhone bought on the auction site.
At first glance, it’s almost identical to current models, from the touchscreen to the volume switches on the side and the dock connector on the bottom.
“It looks EXACTLY like an iPhone,” says Stibolt. “But it does not work very well, and when it does work, it is very slow.”
Last year, knockoff iPhones were easy to spot. They were thicker, bulkier and often had extra buttons or keyboards.
Apple is advertising for a rare job inside its design studio. The studio is ultra secretive. The new design documentary, Objectified, from which this still of Jonny Ive is taken, is one of the few films to shoot inside the studio.
Apple is advertising a rare job in its storied design department — and it’s a cool one.
Apple is looking for a computer modeling expert to make 3D renderings of concept products.
“CAD sculptor/digital 3D modeler needed to create high quality CAD models used in the industrial design and development of new products,” says the job posting on the Dezeenjobs website.
Headed by Jonny Ive, Apple’s design department is one of the most famous industrial design groups in the world. Employing about a dozen world-class designers, the studio is responsible for a string of trendsetting products, starting with the original iMac (which launched an industry see-through electronics) to the iPod and it’s iconic white earbuds.
Whoever gets the job will be one of the first people in the world to get a peek at whatever Apple is working on. Only CEO Steve Jobs and a handful of top executives get to see products in development.
The vast majority of Apple employees don’t see a final product until the day it is launched, even if they helped build it. Software programmers never see the actual hardware, and hardware engineers work on bulky prototypes housed in big polypropylene boxes.
Only the design department gets to see the final shape of the new product, and the studio is ultra-secretive. Housed in a nondescript building off Apple’s main campus, entry is limited to a chosen few. Even Apple’s previous CEO, John Sculley, was denied entrance. His electronic badge wouldn’t let him (he threw a fit).
The job sounds cool, but the job posting warns it is not a design job, nor a stepping-stone to a design job. Too bad.
Id Software has released Doom Resurrection for the iPhone and iPod touch. It’s the first official release for the iPhone/iPod touch in the storied Doom franchise, which is now 16 year’s old and still running strong.
The $9.99 game is an “all-new chapter in the Doom saga,” says ID Software.
The first-person-shooter is based on 2005’s Doom 3, not the seminal Doom Classic, which runs on just about every gadget known to man, including the original iPod (if it’s already hacked to run Linux).
Unlike previous versions of Doom, the gameplay is not free flow. The character moves along a pre-determined path, blasting zombies and demons and dodging oncomong projectiles. Aiming is controlled by the iPhone;s accelerometer and reportedly works well.
“We built a completely new play style for this game,” says ID Software’s CTO John Carmack. “We have no worries that we’re going to do something utterly not fun.”
Carmack says he plans to release his port of Doom Classic to the iPhone and iPod in coming weeks.
Steve Jobs is back in charge at Apple HQ after a liver transplant. CC-licensed photo by Andy.
Steve Jobs is officially back at work after six-month’s medical leave, an Apple spokesperson just told Bloomberg reporter Connie Guglielmo in a phone interview.
“Steve is back to work,” said Apple spokesman Steve Dowling on Monday. “We are very glad to have him back.”
Jobs is working at Apple a few days a week and working from home the remainder of the time, Dowling added. Jobs reportedly returned to work last week, but Monday’s statement is Apple’s first official word.
Jobs took six month’s medical leave in January, promising to return by the end of June. Monday is June 29. During his absence, Jobs had a liver transplant in Memphis, TN.
Unfortunately, the world's biggest iPhone is a fake.
A couple of weeks ago the Swedish site Dreamfeld.se posted a video showing the iPhone operating system running on a Mac Pro and a big multitouch screen.
The video was pretty impressive. It looked like the world’s biggest iPhone running on a 24-inch monitor. The video soon went viral on blogs, YouTube and Twitter. It’s been watched more than 300,000 times and is still being passed around.
But the whole thing is a fake; a viral video experiment to see how many hits could be generated.
Is the iPhone 3GS waterproof? This one kept recording, even after its owner dropped it in a swimming pool.
A Parisian iPhone owner was videoing friends in a backyard swimming pool when he accidentally dropped it in the water. Amazingly, the iPhone kept recording and was working fine when he fished it out.
“It still frickin’ works,” he says amazed into the still-recording camera. Watch the video of the entire episode below.
And it still works fine, says the owner. “Phone still working fine with no issues whatsoever,” he says in the comments to the video. “I’m probably the luckiest guy alive!!”
Although the iPhone 3GS is an exceptionally well-made piece of hardware, it is NOT waterproof. This iPhone had a rubbery condom cover on, which probably helped it survive the dip in the pool.
Apple has pulled Hottest Girls, the first iPhone porn app. Inappropriate apps containing pornography will not be approved in the future, Apple says.
Apple has spoken on the issue of porno iPhone apps, and it’s, ‘No way Jose.’
An Apple spokesman says the company will not approve iPhone apps with “inappropriate” content, especially pornography, despite the iPhone 3.0 age restriction system.
The question of porno apps arose after Hottest Girls appeared on the iPhone app store — the first app to feature saucy photos of naked women. Promising “2200+ sexy bikini babes and lingerie models,” the app is decidedly softcore. (The app disappeared for a few hours on Thursday, apparently because Apple had pulled it, but the developer had removed Hottest Girls voluntarily because of the strain on the image servers.)
Thanks to age restrictions in the new iPhone 3.0 OS software, mature apps can be blocked from download from the App Store. Many observers expected the App Store to be flooded with pornographic apps, especially because mobile porn is turning into big business. Juniper Research estimates the mobile porn market to be worth $3.5 billion by 2010. Growth will come from streaming video and video chat. The biggest market will not be the U.S., but Western Europe, Juniper said.
But now Apple says categorically it will not approve porno apps now or in the future. In a statement received by Cult of Mac, spokesman Tom Neumayr said:
“Apple will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content, such as pornography. The developer of this application added inappropriate content directly from their server after the application had been approved and distributed, and after the developer had subsequently been asked to remove some offensive content. This was a direct violation of the terms of the iPhone Developer Program. The application is no longer available on the App Store.”
Michael Jackson's albums are storming the charts on iTunes.
UPDATE: As predicted, seven of the Top 10 albums on iTunes are Michael Jackson’s. Checked at 8AM Friday morning.
Just hours after his untimely death, Michael Jackson’s albums are storming the charts on iTunes.
Jackson’s seminal album Thriller is currently the number one album on iTunes, while The Essential Michael Jackson is number two.
Several of his other albums are climbing the charts fast. At the time of writing (about 6.45 PST) Jackson has nine albums in the iTunes top 40:
Thriller (25th Anniversary, Zombie Cover) is #7; Off the Wall is #9; The Ultimate Collection is #12; Number Ones is #13; Bad is #22; Greatest Hits is #27; Dangerous is #29; and Thriller (25th Anniversary, Deluxe Edition) is #28.
Jackson is the best-selling solo artist of all time. He sold more than 750 million albums worldwide, and Thriller, produced by the genius Quincy Jones, sold an estimated 100 million copies worldwide.
I expect Apple to post a homepage tribute, and Jackson’s albums to dominate the chart by the morning.
An unofficial, limited edition Michael Jackson iPod offered in France in 2006.
The King of Pop died in Los Angeles on Thursday afternoon. He was 50-years-old. He’d been staying in Bel-Air while working on his comeback, including 50 sold-out shows in London. CoM pays tribute to one of the greatest popstars ever: rest in peace Michael.
Apple appears to have pulled Hottest Girls, the first iPhone porn app.
UPDATE 2: The app is available again from the App Store. Just checked at 4PM 6/25/09.
UPDATE: Apple hasn’t removed the app, the developer has, thanks to the strain on the saucy images server. “The server usage is extremely high because of the popularity of this app,” says the developer. “Thus, by not distributing the app, we can prevent our servers from crashing.” The app still works for those who have already bought it, the developer says.
The first iPhone porn app has been removed from the iPhone App Store.
The softcore app, Hottest Girls, was downloadable for a few hours on Thursday, but is now unavailable. Neither Apple nor the developer were immediately available to provide an explanation, but it appears Apple changed its mind after the app received so much press attention on Thursday.
The $1.99 app for the iPhone and iPod touch featured 2,000 images of “topless, sexy babes and nude models,” according to reports.
“There is no slideshow to display a progressive striptease of the same model, so you are limited to one picture at a time before you have to navigate back to the main screen, which shows a lack of understanding as to how a porn app should work,” he wrote.
The brief approval of the app had many wondering if Apple was now willing to approve adult content on the App Store. The iPhone 3.0 OS includes age restrictions on applications.
Warren Buffett has criticized Apple for keeping Steve Jobs's liver transplant a secret. Illustration by MacBlogz.
Joining other experts, billionaire investor Warren Buffet says Apple might have violated the law by keeping quiet about Steve Jobs’s liver transplant.
The head of Berkshire Hathaway said Jobs’s life-saving operation was a “material fact” that Apple was legally obliged to report to investors. The Securities and Exchange commission requires public companies to report material facts to shareholders. Failure to do so is in breach of the law.
“It’s a material fact,” said Buffett on CNBC on Wednesday. “Whether he is facing serious surgery or not is a material fact. Whether I’m facing serious surgery is a material fact. Whether (General Electric CEO) Jeff Immelt is, I mean, so I think that’s important to get out. They’re going to find out about it anyway so I don’t see a big privacy issue or anything of the sort.”
Guy Kawasaki's hugely popular Twitter feed was used to spread a rare Mac Trojan.
Ex-Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki’s Twitter feed has been used to spread a Mac Trojan.
Kawasaki’s popular feed, which has 140,000 subscribers, included a link on Tuesday night to a what purported to be a sex tape featuring Gossip Girl actress Leighton Meester. However, the link pointed to the OSX/Jahlav-C Trojan, a rare Mac Trojan that has popped up recently on a couple of porno websites.
Kawasaki said the link was the result of leaving his feed open to “user generated” stories.
“Here’s the scoop,” Kawasaki said by email to CoM. “I used Twitterfeed to insert the Truemors feed into my tweets (Here’s the feed). I thought that was a 100% safe, moderated feed, but I now know it isn’t. ‘User generated’ stories can get inserted into that feed. The bottom line is that my Twitter account wasn’t hacked; Twitter-Twitterfeed was all working right. It’s just that a bad story got into the feed that was refed by me.
“My short career as a pornographer lasted 45 minutes. :-)”
Graham Cluley, a spokesman for Sophos, a British security firm which first publicised the malware tweet, said it was the first time he’d heard of Twitter being used to spread the Mac malware.
“Guy is the only person we’ve discovered by this attack, but it may just be that he’s the most high profile,” said Cluley.
The popular Boxee media center software is the rare app that starts on the Mac before going to Windows. CC-licensed pic by Matt Grimm.
Here’s some good news for Mac users of Boxee, the popular media platform for Macs and Apple TV: The software is going Windows.
At a developer event on Tuesday night in San Francisco, Boxee released its first version for Windows PCs.
This is good news for Mac users because the Boxee platform will have a much larger user base for developers to create plug-ins for. Significantly, the software will run on Windows Media Center PCs, which is by far the biggest installed base of computers connected to TVs.
Methodist University Hospital in Memphis has confirmed Steve Jobs had a liver transplant
UPDATE: Hospital spokeswoman Ruth Ann Hale declined to add any more information to hospital’s statement. She would not say when the transplant was performed (the Wall Street Journal said about two months ago); how long Steve Jobs had been on the transplant waiting list; nor where the donor organ came from. “We’re not saying anything beyond what it says in the statement,” she said by phone on Tuesday night. It’s safe to assume the donor liver came from a deceased patient — otherwise Jobs wouldn’t be on a waiting list. But the lack of a time frame for the operation is curious. Perhaps it’s to protect the identity of the donor? If the time of the operation is known, maybe it makes it easier to identify potential donors?
Methodist University Hospital in Memphis has confirmed that Steve Jobs had a liver transplant — and the disclosure was made with Jobs’s permission, the hospital says.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the hospital said Jobs was the sickest person on the waiting list at the time the donor organ became available.
The hospital’s statement is likely in response to growing questions about the transplant. On Tuesday morning, the New York Times published a high-profile story asking whether Jobs’s money and power helped him to jump to the front of the queue. “Whenever someone rich and famous receives a transplant, suspicions inevitably arise about whether that person managed to jump to the head of the waiting list and take an organ that might have saved the life of somebody just as desperate but less glamorous,” the paper said.
The hospital’s statement appears to be a flat denial that Jobs received any preferential treatment.
“He received a liver transplant because he was the patient with the highest MELD score (Model for End-Stage Liver Disease) of his blood type and, therefore, the sickest patient on the waiting list at the time a donor organ became available,” the hospital said.
The hospital said Jobs is doing well.
“Mr. Jobs is now recovering well and has an excellent prognosis.”
Hacker George Hotz appears to have found a way to jailbreak and unlock the iPhone 3GS.
The 19-year-old Hotz, better known as GeoHot, may have found a hole in the iPhone 3GS boot sequence, which will allow hackers to unlock the device.
The crack comes just days after the release of the new iPhone. Previous jailbreaking hacks have sometimes taken weeks.
Details are hazy, however. Hotz has posted a screenshot that appears to show a custom command inserted into the iPhone’s iBoot, implying that signature checks had been bypassed, according to one explanation in the comments of the post. If so, it’s the first step in jailbreaking the device.
In addition, the just-released UltraSn0w unlock should also be compatible with the iPhone 3GS.
Kevin Miller has a great story about how he used the new “Find My iPhone” feature to track down his stolen iPhone and recover it from a thief.
In Chicago for a Lego convention, Kevin had his iPhone stolen in a bar. Luckily, he’d just activated the Find My iPhone feature. The following day, Kevin and a couple of his Lego-convention friends used the iPhone’s built-in GPS and Google Maps to track its location.
As they converged on the crook, he tried to make a run for it. I won’t ruin the rest of the story. It’s a great story, well told.
Apple broke the law by lying about Steve Jobs health, says a top marketing professor.
But whether the Security and Exchange Commission has the “balls” to prosecute is unclear.
Paul Argenti, Professor of Corporate Communication at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, says that Apple’s communications about its CEO’s health violated the SEC’s full disclosure regulations.
Steve Jobs's Mercedes at Apple's HQ in August 2008. Photo by Ranajune.
UPDATE: Reuters reports that Steve Jobs was seen leaving Apple’s campus on Monday. “He was seen leaving the main Apple building in Cupertino, California and getting into a black car alone that was then driven off by men in black suits with ear-pieces,” the news service reported.
CNBC’s Jim Goldman is saying that Steve Jobs returned to work at Apple on Monday.
Employees have seen Jobs around Apple’s campus, Goldman says. “Officials at Apple have yet to respond to multiple phone calls and emails seeking guidance about Jobs and his whereabouts, but employees are doing what Apple PR isn’t, and that’s confirming that he’s here at work,” says Goldman.
The information jibes with this morning’s iPhone 3G S press release,
which quoted Jobs for the first time since he took his medical leave,
implying he’s back in charge.
This is great news – if it’s true. I’d be delighted to see Jobs back in charge at Apple, but trouble is, I’m not sure I trust Goldman. He’s proven as unreliable as Apple’s own PR surrounding Jobs’ illness. Goldman last year said Steve Jobs wasn’t sick, just days before he took sick leave. For this, he was accused by NewsWeek columnist Dan Lyons (aka Fake Steve) of being “played and punked” by Apple PR.
So I’m willing to give a prize to the first reader who sends in a picture of Steve Jobs at Apple’s campus or a picture of his car (preferably parked in a handicapped spot).
Yeah, I know, it’s stalkerish. But I’d like to know if Steve Jobs is really back at work, and this is one way of getting to the bottom of it.
BTW, I’ve called and emailed Apple’s PR asking if Jobs is back at work — but I’m not holding my breath.
Show us Steve’s smiling face. Let’s cheer his return to work and good health!
Dan Lyons at a San Francisco book signing in 2007 with tech podcaster Veronica Belmont and Bike Helmet Girl, a recurrent character in the Secret Diary.
Steve Jobs may not be back to work yet, but Fake Steve is.
Fake Steve Jobs (aka Newsweek columnist Dan Lyons) has started blogging again.
Over the weekend, Fake Steve made a series of off-color jokes about Steve Jobs’ recent liver transplant. The posts are classic Fake Steve — sick, tasteless and LOL funny.
