April Fools’ Day cancelled due to Coronavirus

Usually, on this day, there is a positive tsunami of April 1 stories. This year, understandably, there isn’t the same enthusiasm for making jokes. Leica Rumors made a valiant effort with its fixed-lens medium format Leica camera. Ha, ha, although the bit about the limited editions isn’t so far-fetched. For most of us, though, fooling our fellow isolationees somehow feels a little tasteless. And it seems the Internet thinks so also.

Today, however, isn’t without its milestones. Did you know that on this day in 1976 Steve Jobs & Co. founded Apple Computer? For the first 30 years of its existence, Apple was known as a niche player with a dedicated nerdy following. Yet it took a mass consumer product, the iPod in 2001, to start the real growth of Apple as we know it today.

The iPod led to a greater public awareness of Apple as a consumer manufacturer and, largely because of the need for iTunes, began to take Apple’s computers out of the little walled garden planted by the technorati. The iPhone set the seal on this change in Apple fortunes and, for the past 12 years, there has been a steady move away from the classic boffin world to the mass-market organisation we know today.

So, happy April Fools Day to Apple. And don’t bother waiting for Leica’s medium-format fixed-lens bombshell. It certainly isn’t Leica’s iPod.

Leica’s Limited Editions (April 1 Edition)

Frank Dabba Smith sent me this iPhone shot of some “Leica Special Editions”. It’s probably the only sure bet in Leica Rumors’ new medium-format camera. As I said to Frank earlier today, Leica would make a special edition of the factory cat, given the opportunity. With a red dot on its nose, it would sell like hot cross buns at Easter.