Details in the ‘Photos Every Day’ spot
Some very nice attention to detail in the recent spot from Apple. I noticed that the camera work and the cuts are especially well done after reading this.
Spaceship
Fascinating how the design of the new campus reflects the organizational structure at Apple.
Apple is a functional organization. Unlike almost every other large company it’s not organized in “divisions” which have responsibility for “a business” in the sense of profit or loss. At Apple most people or teams are assigned a function like “design”, “engineering”, “sales” etc. When a product is being built, they are assigned to that effort. When the product is complete, they go to another product.
The Default Narrative
“Apple is Big Brother” has become a default narrative about the company. Apple stands for closed systems, proprietary everything, and a level of control over the way their customers use their products that would send us all fleeing for the hills if we had any common sense.
Safari is released to the world
Fascinating inside look at the release of Safari and the surprising announcement of using KHTML instead of Gecko.
Can Siri go deaf, mute and blind?
A detailed and well thought through look at interesting possible routes for Siri going into the future.
Steve’s magic recipe was that he was a product designer at his core, who was smart enough to know that the best way to design products was to have the magic wand of CEO in one of your hands.
Glenn Reid in “What it’s Really Like Working with Steve Jobs”
Design Dictatorship
Most magazines are awful on the iPad because publishers feel that their design is more important than accessibility.
Enter magazines. Most magazines made the decision that preserving appearance is more important than utilizing all of the iPad’s functionality, so instead of pages loading text dynamically, a typical magazine page is one big png file. Add that up for the number of pages in a typical magazine, and that’s how we get to the 500mb figure
Hypercritical
Some of the most influential ideas for me in the past few years.
In fact, most geeks have this inclination to some degree, even if it’s just nitpicking logical or scientific flaws in a favorite TV show or movie. This is actually a skill worth developing. Have you ever met someone who holds strong opinions but is completely incapable of explaining them? “I really hated that book.” “Why?” “I don’t know, I just didn’t like it.” Who wants to be that guy? That’s no way to live.
The Hypercritical podcast just came to an end, and I think I should thank it and John Siracusa for helping me expand, nurture, and appreciate my own critical tendencies. I will deeply miss listening to interesting new episodes every week, and I will continue to look forward to other works produced by Siracusa (Oh, those lengthy OS X reviews…). Both this piece and the podcast has helped me realize that recognizing faults and mistakes is a very valuable skill, and sadly, often vilified or under-appreciated.
A Big Misunderstanding
Some great points by John Gruber. One of Apple’s greatest achievements recently has been bringing accessibility of premium products down to affordable prices.
The part that’s wrong is the insistence that broad mass market appeal and an insistence upon superior design are mutually exclusive. Apple’s brand stands for both quality and inclusiveness. It’s a luxury brand for the masses. The company’s retail stores exemplify this. They’re not stuffy or standoffish, like, say, high-end jewelry or fashion stores. Apple’s stores are welcoming — crowded and casual. Apple is like no other computer or gadget maker, and its stores are like no other as well.
I’ll make another point not related to price: Apple is also bringing accessibility of usable products to groups of people previously ignored by other computer manufacturers. Many handicapped people who used to struggle with awfully designed user interfaces are now able to take advantage of modern technology. There’s a reason why many blind people are embracing the iPhone.
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