Columnist John Dvorak at an Apple Store. Pic by Steve Rhodes.
Columnist John Dvorak, who is perhaps the most hated pundit by Mac users because of his constant (and quote deliberate) Mac bashing, is now a Mac user himself — and he likes it.
In his latest PC Magazine Column, Dvorak confesses that he has been using an iMac at work for a couple of months, and it’s “not half bad.” After heaping on more weak praise, he says he has no plans to buy a Mac for personal use at home, but he increasingly finds himslef recommending the Mac to friends and neighbors who ask him what to buy! He writes:
“I can see why the Mac is gaining market share, because the rationale for using one is simple. Do you want to deal with the agony of antivirus, firewall, antispyware, and other touchy software subsystems, many of which do not work well? Or do you want to boot Microsoft Word and write a document and be done with it?
As someone who does recommend gear to people, I have to think to myself, “Should I recommend something that will come back to haunt me, or recommend a Mac with its higher price but lower hassle factor?” The answer is simple. I hate the idea of having to do customer service for people who cannot keep their systems clean, and that’s most people.”
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 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.
