I agree with all of Stephen Hackett’s very positive iPad Air review, including his points about the cover.

The new cover doesn’t have any points of overlap, and the iPad Air can come detached if typed on too hard. In the vertical orientation, the tablet feels secure, but I’ve had it tumble over backwards on more than one occasion while using it in bed.

In short, the new Smart Cover is a step backwards.

I know the old cover’s metal hinge left scratches after a while but it also provided a much more secure attachment. And the new cover’s polyurethane binding lets it twist. I use the Smart Cover for protecting the front of the iPad Air and putting it into a standing position for watching something or using it for reference. But I don’t rely on it like I did the old cover.

Complaints about the cover aside, I think the iPad Air is a leap forward for the iPad even bigger than the Retina screen.

Why am I plugging a desk? No, Dania is not a sponsor, my wife got this desk a few weeks ago and for $500 it’s the cheapest, decently-made motorized standing desk that I’ve seen. She hasn’t had it that long, but I put it together for her and it seems solidly built. We’ve had some Dania furniture before and while it’s not the best it’s better than Ikea in my experience. (Maybe that praise is too faint.) Assembly was a little complicated but I did it so it can’t be that hard. The top goes up and down smoothly with her monitor, MacBook and a moderate amount of assorted papers and crap on top of it.

It seems like a lot of people are looking for sit/stand desks and most of the prices we saw when we were looking started at $800 and quickly run up into the thousands, so this one is a deal if you’re in the market.

From the “It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy” files, the LA Times reports on the white supremacist who is now being targeted by other white supremacists after his DNA results were revealed on national television as being 14 percent sub-Saharan African.

Aw, such a shame.

(Via TPM)

The Verge’s Bryan Bishop:

$290 million is a significant drop from the more than $450 million that Koh cut, but it’s clearly not the kind of number Samsung was looking for. Apple had been asking for $380 million out of the damages retrial, while Samsung was targeting a mere $52 million.

Alas, we no longer have Dan Lyons to tell us what it all means so you’ll just have to figure it out on your own. Sorry. So sorry.

Kickstarter by The Magazine to make a hard-cover book with some great material from its first year.

At the $15 pledge level, you can get a year of The Magazine, a $19.95 value. For $8,000 you get to have dinner with Glenn Fleishman.

Choose wisely.

(Disclosure: I have written for The Magazine in the past.)

Benedict Evans on all the kinds of devices that get counted as Android:

The important dynamic here is that a combination of very cheap off-the-shelf chips and free off-the-shelf software means that Android/ARM has become a new de facto platform for any piece of smart connected electronics. It might have a screen and it might connect to the internet, but it’s really a little computer doing something useful and specialised, and it probably has nothing to do with Google.

The answers to these questions are usually more complicated than they seem.

How do the economics of product design and consumer electronics change when you can deliver a real computer running a real Unix operating system with an internet connection and a colour touch screen for $35?

They’re puttin’ computers into everything nowadays.

Shawn Blanc’s new site dedicated to finding the very best apps for iOS and the Mac is live and I have two pieces in it, looking at the best Twitter app for the iPhone and for the Mac.

Hard to believe Microsoft is having trouble connecting to consumers.

(Via Molly Wood and Jason Snell.)

And it’s only Monday! But no less an outfit than the Los Angeles Times reports that teens are clamoring for iPhones! Well, according to:

…a survey conducted by Ebates.com, an online cash-back shopping and coupons website.

In Ebates defense, all of the good web site names were taken years ago.

There’s not a lot about the methodology of the survey other than this:

The survey was conducted during October and polled 500 teens ages 12 to 17.

Yes, I’m sure teens want iPhones. But a survey that’s probably just of 500 visitors to an “online cash-back shopping and coupons website” is not designed for scientific accuracy. It’s designed to get the “online cash-back shopping and coupons website” in the news.

(Via TUAW.)