Search Results for: Apple

Where Did the Korean Greengrocers Go?

Longreads Pick

After the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 opened the door to consistent migration from South Korea, Korean greengrocers, with their neat stacks of canned goods and their “stoop line” (sidewalk) spreads of apples, oranges, and flowers, became ubiquitous in the city, particularly in blighted and dangerous neighborhoods lacking regular grocers. But more recently, these stores have been vanishing. The Korean Produce Association reports that it has 2,500 members in the New York–New Jersey area, down from 3,000 a few decades ago.

Source: City Journal
Published: Jan 17, 2011
Length: 12 minutes (3,124 words)

The Untold Story of How My Dad Helped Invent the First Mac

The Untold Story of How My Dad Helped Invent the First Mac

The Untold Story of How My Dad Helped Invent the First Mac

Longreads Pick

Jef Raskin, my father, helped develop the Macintosh, and I was recently looking at some of his old documents and came across his February 16, 1981 memo detailing the genesis of the Macintosh. It was written in reaction to Steve Jobs taking over managing hardware development. Reading through it, I was struck by a number of the core principles Apple now holds that were set in play three years before the Macintosh was released. Much of this is particularly important in understanding Apple’s culture and why we have the walled-garden experience of the iPhone, iPad, and the App Store.

Author: Aza Raskin
Published: Feb 14, 2011
Length: 12 minutes (3,059 words)

Suitably Dressed

Longreads Pick

It has become a symbol of conformity. “Suit” was the chosen insult of hippies to describe a dull establishment man. The garment has been ostentatiously rejected by Silicon Valley titans like Steve Jobs of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sergey Brin of Google. Yet the business suit has an exciting and mysterious history that should give wearers a tingle of pleasure every time they put one on. It is a garment born out of revolution, warfare and pestilence. The suit still bears the marks of this turbulent past as well as the influence of Enlightenment thinking, sporting pursuits and a Regency dandy. In the year that may well mark the 150th anniversary of the suit it seems a shame that no celebrations were held in its honor.

Source: The Economist
Published: Dec 20, 2010
Length: 7 minutes (1,905 words)

The Torch Singer

Longreads Pick

Patti Smith is fifty-five, but she doesn’t look much different than she did in 1975, when her friend Robert Mapplethorpe photographed her for the cover of “Horses.” The Mapplethorpe photograph, which was shot in black-and-white—unusual for the time—is one of the most recognizable images in the iconography of rock and roll. Smith is standing against a white wall. Her dark hair, which grazes the base of her neck, is thick and wild, and she stares insolently at the camera. She wears a white shirt and has tossed a black jacket over her left shoulder in an homage to Frank Sinatra’s boulevardier poses. She looks arrogant, androgynous, and fragile.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Mar 11, 2002
Length: 48 minutes (12,024 words)

Who’s Afraid of Steve Jobs?

Longreads Pick

Not Consumer Reports. Over the past year the 74-year-old magazine has carved up Apple and made Toyota roll over. Pretty good for a lab in Yonkers

Source: Businessweek
Published: Jul 22, 2010
Length: 7 minutes (1,969 words)

Steve Jobs: The Next Insanely Great Thing

Longreads Pick

Steve Jobs has been right twice. The first time we got Apple. The second time we got NeXT. The Macintosh ruled. NeXT tanked. Still, Jobs was right both times. Although NeXT failed to sell its elegant and infamously buggy black box, Jobs’s fundamental insight—that personal computers were destined to be connected to each other and live on networks—was just as accurate as his earlier prophecy that computers were destined to become personal appliances. Now Jobs is making a third guess about the future. His passion these days is for objects.

Author: Gary Wolf
Source: Wired
Published: Feb 1, 1996
Length: 24 minutes (6,169 words)

Remembrances of the Punk Prose Poetess

Longreads Pick

Patti Smith, along with her friend Robert Mapplethorpe, lived a particular New York dream–the Chelsea Hotel, Max’s Kansas City, CBGB, superstardom–to the fullest. Now in a great new memoir, she tells it like it was.

Published: Jan 10, 2010
Length: 12 minutes (3,067 words)

Google Android: on Inevitability, the Dawn of Mobile, and the Missing Leg

Longreads Pick

If for no other reason than the “Anyone but Apple” crowd NEEDS an alternative, there is an “inevitability” meme associated with Google’s Android initiative. After all, Google is formidable, has a strong brand, and their (relative) openness is the “zig” to Apple’s proprietary “zag.” And of course, mobile is strategic to Google’s future, so they can be expected to compete vigorously for market and mind share (via Android) over the long haul. But, do those ingredients combine into a recipe that makes their success in the market inevitable? Over a year after Android’s launch, I have to say that the jury is still out.

Author: Mark Sigal
Published: Dec 3, 2009
Length: 30 minutes (7,543 words)

While My Guitar Gently Beeps

Longreads Pick

The odd recording session in March was one very small contribution to what Apple Corps — the company still controlled by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison — hopes will be the most deeply immersive way ever of experiencing the music and the mythology of the Beatles. The band that upended the cultural landscape of the 1960s is now hitching its legacy to the medium of a new generation: the video game.

Published: Aug 11, 2009
Length: 33 minutes (8,269 words)