Pretty cool article about Apple’s apparent lack of public concept products. To paraphrase Jobs, real artists ship.

http://counternotions.com/2008/08/12/concept-products/

Another good bit of info comes out of the comments from that article:

“In my opinion, product development is about building knowledge – about a lot of things: technology, end-users, behavior, processes, infrastructure, interoperability… Good companies, like Apple, has the ability to build this knowledge into their products. They also organize themselves to facilitate this kind of learning. Companies who think that software development is Henry Ford, where you can transfer knowledge between brains like it’s manufacturing, will ultimately fail. And you see this all the time. A CEO who creates a research division, puts them in a special house, even at a separate location, and expects the learning to find itself into regular projects in other parts of the company. Xerox Parc is the ultimate example of this failure (from Xerox’s perspective).”

Awesome – Old footage of Steve Jobs speaking about his experience working with Paul Rand (who designed the Next logo):
http://paul-rand.com/video_stevejobs_interview.shtml

My favorite part: “I asked him if he would come up with a few options, and he said, “No. I will solve your problem for you, and you will pay me. And you don’t have to use the solution, if you want options go talk to other people. But I’ll solve your problem for you the best way I know how, and you use it or not, that’s up to you – your the client, but you pay me.” Well stated.

Also, be sure to check out this interview with Rand himself:
http://paul-rand.com/video_conversationWithPaulRand.shtml

This is a really interesting article about business competition. Basically, it says that Canon makes good products because Nikon makes good products and vice versa. Who is Apple’s Nikon? In terms of design, it certainly isn’t Microsoft. Or at least, if it is, they don’t really have to try very hard to stay ahead. A true design competitor for Apple would really push them to make better products.

It also talks about the emotional bonds people form with technology and how good design is part of Apple’s success. I would go so far as to say, not just hardware products either. I think people can get an emotional attachment to the software they use as well. Think about really well designed websites that you just like, you know, “using.” A well designed web site makes itself a part of your day if it’s a really good tool or news site.

Read

Wow. Looks really scratch resistant. Wonder if these screens will be in new iPods soon?

http://www.pcworld.com/video/id,545-page,1-bid,0/video.html

The iPhone isn’t even out and there are already a ton of people building AJAX apps for them. Heck, there is even a web site listing a bunch of them.

http://iphoneapplicationlist.com/

What do you really need to make apps for the iPhone? The dimensions of the screen and copy of Safari. Whether the phone will share the same success level as the iPod is anyone’s guess, but chances are it’ll do pretty damn well. And there is a pretty good chance over the years that’ll it’ll evolve into a huge market, bringing decent internet capabilities to a handheld device… not just mobile versions, but the whole shebang.

Just interesting to consider the possibilities of such a device if the mass market accepts it. The Harley NMY Tool could have a tool that would tell Ada when someone has made changes. We could make iPhone friendly versions of our admin tools so clients could update their site on the run. What apps would you think we could build for a device?

Side note: There isn’t a Flash plug-in for the iPhone, but it has been hinted that there might be one. My guess is that Adobe is going to wait to see if the phone is successful before investing time into programing a specific plug-in for it. With that said, Apple is already working with YouTube to bring QuickTIme encoded version of their movies to Apple TV, so I’m guessing the iPhone will be able to work with that version… imagine… YouTube on your phone…

If you’re not already a fan of the excellent radio show “This American Life”, one of the recent shows features a bit by the actor who plays the PC in the Mac/PC commercials that I’m sure many of us are fans of. He has some funny stories of his accidental fame.

Give it a listen when you get a chance.

It’s a small change but all the Mac Folks might want to know this:

Apple modified the way the ejection key located on the keyboard works with MacOSX 10.4.9.
While previously pressing it would have initiated the ejection of the CD/DVD or opening the tray of the optical drive, now one needs to maintain the key down for at least half a second to get the operation started.
If this modified feature is not described in Apple TechNote, it is a good improvement as it will prevent most of the unexpected media ejection taking place by pressing the ejection key inappropriately.

And I for one never knew you could do this in the first place:

Also affected is the Control-Eject keyboard shortcut that brings up the Restart/Sleep/Cancel/Shutdown menu. With OS X 10.4.9 you have to press the Eject key a little longer than you did previously.

It’s here coming in June! The iPhone is potentially a big issue for GS Interactive. Web sites and web applications (Dashboard widgets) delivered via iPhone may be commonplace in 5 years or less (how many of our clients have podcasts today? how many are thinking about it?)
Kottke did a cardboard cutout mock up (GEEK!) of the iPhone to get a feel of its size in comparison to other phones/remotes/Wii controllers.

The iPhone is bound to become an icon just as the iPod did. It’s in the NYT and web comics (Sheldon and PvP) already. The announcement at Macworld got over *18000* Digg’s.

Anyone think Steve Jobs will introduce a cell phone during his keynote at the Macworld Expo in Jan? (January 8-12, 2007 in San Francisco) And if so, what do you think he will call it, since Cisco already owns the trademark to iPhone? iMobile… iTalk… iCell… I’d like to see him get a call during his talk and answer it with his new Apple phone.

I’ve read lots of rumours and predictions about what will debut from a widescreen video iPod to iTV….

What do you think?

Interesting article about how the iTunes Store saved the TV show “The Office.”

Read