John Herrman, Author at Gizmodo

What Is Tea?

Coffee? PHLEUGH. I drink tea. I drink it because it’s delicious and healthy. I drink it because it’s cheap, diverse, and doesn’t make my breath stink. But this überdrink has a secret. Tea, you see, is not as it seems. Tea is a drink… More specifically, tea is an infusion: a bunch of dried leaves…

Tech News John Herrman

The Best Cooking Apps

Listen, cookbooks are great. That’s fine. But do you know what else is great? Friggin’ apps. With the right apps, your smartphone or tablet is your new cookbook—and cooking instructor, and sous chef. Here are the best. iOS GOLD MEDAL: Epicurious Arguably the iPhone’s first serious recipe app, and by far its best. First and…

Tech News John Herrman

Giz Explains: How Food Cooks

For something so familiar, cooking is incredibly mysterious. Ask a home cook what happens to a steak in a pan—hell, ask most chefs. It gets hot. It gets brown. It gets juicy. How do you like yours, again? We burn, sear, boil, broil, grill and fry our food to make it appetizing, and, with any…

Tech News John Herrman

Giz Explains: What’s the Difference between GSM and CDMA?

America is divided! One faction is powerful and entrenched. The other is respected by the rest of the world, but can’t seem to seize power here. I’m talking, obviously, about our cellphones. Buying a phone is a tough choice. No wait, scratch that: It’s a tough set of choices, a dozen decisions wrapped into one,…

Tech News John Herrman

Giz Explains: Why Everything Wireless is 2.4GHz

You live your life at 2.4GHz. Your router, your cordless phone, your Bluetooth earpiece, your baby monitor and your garage opener all love and live on this radio frequency, and no others. Why? The answer is in your kitchen. What We’re Talking About Before we charge too far ahead here, let’s run over the basics.…

Tech News John Herrman

Vocab Lesson: Vapor-Metalized Plastic

A piece of plastic goes in, a piece of metal comes out. At least, that’s what vapor metallizing seems to accomplish, at least to our immediate senses. It’s gilding, except it’s been updated for the electronics age. And it’s everywhere. Vapor metallization is a solution to a common industrial problem: Plastic is easily moldable, lightweight…

Tech News John Herrman

Giz Explains: How Blind People See the Internet

Your eyes are absorbing this webpage. They’re passing over this, this, then this word, right now. That’s how reading works, online: you take this for granted. But what if you couldn’t? We grant our gaze to electronic screens for most of the day, and in return, they give us anything we want. We stare; they…

Tech News John Herrman

Vocab Lesson: Thermocouples

Welcome to Vocab Lesson, Gizmodo’s new weekly column on words—the ones you’ve heard, but can’t quite define, or the ones you haven’t, but might like to hear about. This week’s lesson: Thermocouples! (Huh?) You almost certainly own a thermocouple. You probably have at least a few, and may well command a small army of them,…

Space & Spaceflight John Herrman

Giz Explains: What Is Liquidmetal?

Apple has a new toy. It’s a materials company called Liquidmetal, and everybody’s talking! Problem is, nobody seems too sure what they’re talking about. So, Liquidmetal: What is this stuff? And what does Apple want with it? Liquidmetal. It’s a subtly powerful name, invoking images ranging from self-healing Terminators to Alex Mack. It’s also an…

Tech News John Herrman

17 Reasons to Jailbreak Your iPhone or iPod Touch NOW

Jailbreaking is truly and totally back for every iDevice, and it hasn’t been this easy for years. But with iOS 4’s new features, is it worth the (minimal) effort? 17 times yes. UPDATED: New guide here. https://gizmodo.com/the-ultimate-jailbreaking-guide-5675757 Now that multitasking, apps and custom wallpapers are standard features in iOS, it might seem like there really…

Tech News John Herrman

This Week’s Best iPhone Apps

In this week’s afterglow-y app roundup: Navigation, given away for nothing! The world’s most popular sporting event, parsed! Things, learned by rote! Drinking games, put to shame! Humans, zombified! And more… If you’d like to view this gallery as a single page, click here. Skobbler: Free turn by turn—a bit like Waze, but with a…

Tech News John Herrman

BP, the Man

From the apparently fantastic Mike Mitchell, cropped for your (HVGA) smartphone wallpapering convenience. For your own crops, here’s the full-size source image, in all its spewing glory.

Tech News John Herrman

How BP Deals With Office Coffee Spills

For God’s sake get these people some tippy cups! Then get them to engineer the oil rig equivalent of a tippy cup, and the world will be saved. [UCB via Cajun Boy]

Tech News John Herrman

Should I Worry About the Apple iPad + AT&T Security Breach? (Probably Not.)

AT&T accidentally exposed a whole bunch of iPad customers’ email addresses. Oh dear! But wait, I’m an AT&T customer! And I have an iPad! Should I be worried? And what exactly was exposed here? Here’s the rundown. Updated. What was leaked? iPad customers’ email addresses (the ones they used to register with AT&T) and ICC-IDs,…

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On Firing Steve Jobs From Apple, 25 Years Later

“I haven’t spoken to Steve in 20-odd years,” says John Sculley, the former Apple CEO who ejected Jobs from the company in 1985, in an illuminating, slightly painful Daily Beast interview. Hindsight is 20/20, yes, but also cruel. If you read the interview (and you should) your eyes will probably dart around, trying to find…

Tech News John Herrman

iOS 4 Jailbroken Within a Day of First Release

A Gold Master release of iOS 4 (née iPhone OS) was seeded to developers yesterday. And the next iPhone’s software has been surprisingly accommodating to jailbreakers’ attempts to crack it wide open. The current technique was finagled from existing jailbreak software (Pwnagetool, specifically) by msft.guy. On top of this prerelease hack, the iPhone Dev Team…

Tech News John Herrman

Should I Buy an iPhone 4?

The one question Apple never answers at keynotes—their opinion is implicit—is always the most pertinent: Should I buy this new thing? Here’s a simple guide: Steve Jobs lobbed a few surprises today, but the majority of iPhone 4’s new features were established back when we published it in April, and when Apple showed the world…

Tech News John Herrman

What Is iPhone 4’s FaceTime Video Chat?

Steve Jobs usually saves the meatiest bit of his keynotes for the end. But WWDC’s “One More Thing” was a little tame: FaceTime, a video chat system for iPhone 4. So, what’s special about FaceTime, and how does it work? First, let’s get this out of the way: Yes, FaceTime is video chat, similar to…

Tech News John Herrman

How a Silly Phone for Teens Reveals Microsoft’s Plan for Us All

Despite its mobile prowess, Apple sucks at the internet. But surprisingly it’s Microsoft—not Google—that’s best positioned for Our Future in the Cloud. Here’s why. It’s common for writers to trot out the Google/Apple binary. It’s not entirely invalid: Yes, following spectacular success with the iPhone and the App Store, Apple has let its online ambitions—Mobile…

Tech News John Herrman

This Week’s 10 Best iPhone Apps

In this week’s moderately anticipatory app roundup: Long distance charges, eliminated! Text messages, circumvented! Novelty zombie books, adapted! Free music, streamed! Consciousness, conveniently regained! Art, simulated! And much more… If you’d like to view this gallery as a single page, click here Mastercard MoneySend: Basically, an alternative to PayPal, from a brand people generally trust,…

Tech News John Herrman

John Herrman

What Is Tea?

The Best Cooking Apps

Giz Explains: How Food Cooks

Giz Explains: What’s the Difference between GSM and CDMA?

Giz Explains: Why Everything Wireless is 2.4GHz

Vocab Lesson: Vapor-Metalized Plastic

Giz Explains: How Blind People See the Internet

Vocab Lesson: Thermocouples

Giz Explains: What Is Liquidmetal?

17 Reasons to Jailbreak Your iPhone or iPod Touch NOW

This Week’s Best iPhone Apps

BP, the Man

How BP Deals With Office Coffee Spills

Should I Worry About the Apple iPad + AT&T Security Breach? (Probably Not.)

On Firing Steve Jobs From Apple, 25 Years Later

iOS 4 Jailbroken Within a Day of First Release

Should I Buy an iPhone 4?

What Is iPhone 4’s FaceTime Video Chat?

How a Silly Phone for Teens Reveals Microsoft’s Plan for Us All

This Week’s 10 Best iPhone Apps

WD 5TB Portable External Hard Drive for Mac Drops to $0.03 per GB Even After Amazon’s Spring Sale

Apple Offers Rare Olive Branch to Liquid Glass Haters

Mamdani Lifts NYC TikTok Ban for City Employees, but with Some Unusual Restrictions

Tesla Goes Ahead and Admits Its Robotaxis Are Sometimes Fully Human-Controlled

School Forced to Replace Toilets After Kids Flush Vapes

‘Scream 7’ Just Won’t Stop Making Money as ‘Scream 8’ Gets Started

The Curtain Has Closed on Meta’s Movie Rating-Inspired Content Filters

Good News! You Can Finally Change That Ridiculous Gmail Address

ExpressVPN Just Launched ExpressAI: Your Prompts Are Now Invisible

VR Just Took Another Massive Body Blow

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Review: A Solid 2-in-1 Laptop With Some Glaring Flaws

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

Nothing Headphone A vs. Headphone 1: Which Pair of ANC Wireless Headphones Wins?