SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2010 — Veteran Mac programmer Bill Atkinson took the stage at Macworld for the first time in 23 years to show off PhotoCard — an app for sending fine-art postcards through the mail.
Written by Atkinson himself (he’s the genius behind early and great Mac software such as QuickDraw, MacPaint and HyperCard), PhotoCard allows you to write a postcard on your iPhone. When you hit send, a beautifully-printed postcard is sent through the mail.
“I’ve learned a lot color matching and fine art printing,” said Atkinson, who is now a world-renowned nature photographer, having cashed out of the tech industry more than a decade ago.
The $4.99 PhotoCard app uses 150 of Atkinson’s own nature photographs, but users can send their own images (which requires jumping through some hoops to get the best quality. Hint — don’t use iPhoto).
The large format postcards are printed locally using qualified printers (Atkinson’s a stickler for quality — each is meticulously color matched and printed on high-end Indigo digital presses) — and mailed in two business days through the US Postal Service.
“That’s what the big difference is,” he said. “It’s really high quality.”
The system is largely automated, but users are often sloppy with the addresses, misspelling cities and mangling zip codes. Atkinson gets up at 5.30AM each day to fix addresses himself, by hand. “I call it ‘milking the cows’ — it’s my daily chore,” he told the audience to a big laugh.
Each card costs about $1.50 each if users buy a pack of 50 credits for $40 (payments are made through PayPal). Digital postcards sent via email are free. More info about PhotoCard here.
The last time he presented at Macworld was 23 years ago, he said.
On stage with Guy Kawasaki, the ex-Apple evangelist, Atkinson tried to send Kawasaki a card, but had trouble finding his address in his iPhone’s address book.
“Try J-O-B-S,” Kawasaki joked. “We should send it to Steve. Wish you were here!”
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
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.
Leander is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
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.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
