LeanderKahney
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The beautifully detailed art of Mac OS X app icons
Over at his blog Cult of Mac, writer Leander Kahney published a post this morning featuring full-size 512 x 512 pixel screenshots of Mac icons. As he notes, the highly detailed icons are part of a move to make the OS resolution independent, but they're also an indication of Apple's attention to detail.Many of the icons are works of art when viewed at their full size. The TextEdit icon, for example, is actually a note from "John Appleseed" to "Kate" featuring the text of the "Here's to the crazy ones" ads of the late 1990s. The Jar Launcher app, featuring a cup of hot Java sitting on a paper napkin, reveals miniscule bubbles on the side of the coffee, as well as real Java code written on the napkin. All of these icons are indications of the fanatical attention to detail of Apple designers. After looking at Kahney's gallery of art, I gathered my own collection of icon goodness from both Apple and third-party apps. Click the gallery icon below to see what I found. If you have found any 512 x 512 icons that are incredibly good, send 'em to us at http://tuaw.tumblr.com/submit. %Gallery-71952%
Mac founding-fathers appear at Welcome to Macintosh screening
This year at Macworld 2009, two documentary films about the Mac held screenings. While we didn't have anyone on-site at MacHEADS, a few of us were fortunate enough to attend Thursday night's screening of Welcome to Macintosh. Welcome to Macintosh, a documentary by Josh Rizzo and Rob Baca, chronicles the history of Apple and the Mac, using interviews with the people and the users that were there. Tony Walla contributed a great piece about the film last April, which fills in more background. While the film is amazing (the DVD is available now and it is chock-full of awesome), the discussion after the screening was truly magical. Five of the participants from the film, along with Very Special Guest, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, appeared on-stage and answered questions from the crowd. (See the Woz answer our own Mike Rose's question here) Read on for more historic geekiness...%Gallery-41649%
Leander Kahney and Apple sitting in a tree
Today Wired reporter Leander Kahney did the unthinkable: he admitted that he loves a multinational corporation that is incapable of every returning that love. Good thing the giant corporation he loves is Apple or I'd be forced to think there was something wrong with him.Leander points to the elegant way that Apple's Mail.app handles dates in columns that are resized. The date formatting changes so that the date is still readable within the column, just another example of Apple's attention to detail. It is these touches that make people like you and I (and Leander) love this company that does nothing for us other than take our money and manipulate our emotions so well.Why do you love Apple so (and if you're reading a blog about Apple chances are you like it more than most people do so just fess up to it)?
Wired on the Apple media backlash
Leander Kahney takes on all the recent Apple hating in this column today at Wired.com. He asserts that Apple, as a company, gets a lot of attention from the media at large for a number of reasons. Apple is seen as the 'thought leader,' where its hardware goes other PC makers usually follow.The downside to all this attention? When things go bad, and they always will at some point, everyone knows about it thanks to sites like TUAW (and others on the MacWeb). This has an 'echo chamber' effect where it seems like every MacBook turns yellow the second you touch it and your iPod is bound to get you struck by lightning.Leander thinks that things get blown out of proportion, and I agree.
