Shop Different

post from Daring Fireball on 08 November 2011 11:05:02 PM. © Daring Fireball

The check-yourself-out feature on the new Apple Store iPhone app seems too good to be true, no?

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Read The Full Article:
http://eliainsider.com/2011/11/08/an-unbelievably-awesome-retail-experience/

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WebOS Fate Remains Undecided

post from Daring Fireball on 08 November 2011 10:05:27 PM. © Daring Fireball

Josh Topolsky:

HP CEO Meg Whitman just told a room full of Palm and HPemployees that the company doesn’t yet know what to do withwebOS. “It’s really important to me to make the right decision,not the fast decision,” she told those gathered with her on the HPcampus, adding that a decision would come in the next three tofour weeks. This comes as a bit of a surprise, as reportsrecently swirled that the computer-maker has been in discussionsto sell of the troubled mobile platform to the highest bidder. “IfHP decides [to keep webOS], we’re going to do it in a verysignificant way over a multi-year period,” she said, adding that“it’s a very expensive proposition, but HP can make that bet.”

Translation: they tried to sell it but no one was buying at a good price.

In general, I favor taking extra time to “make the right decision, not the fast decision”, but time is of the essence here. My sense is that the team is dispersing — the talent is moving on. So the longer HP waits, the less valuable WebOS becomes, because more and more of the smart and talented people behind it will have left. Same goes for if they decide to keep it.

When you’re faced with a “we need to stop the bleeding” problem, you need a fast decision.

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Read The Full Article:
http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/8/2548121/hp-no-decision-webos

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The Social Graph Is Neither

post from Daring Fireball on 08 November 2011 10:05:27 PM. © Daring Fireball

Maciej Ceglowski:

Imagine the U.S. Census as conducted by direct marketers — that’sthe social graph.
Social networks exist to sell you crap. The icky feeling you getwhen your friend starts to talk to you about Amway, or when youspot someone passing out business cards at a birthday party, isthe entire driving force behind a site like Facebook.

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Read The Full Article:
http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/11/the_social_graph_is_neither/

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Facebook Acquires Strobe

post from Daring Fireball on 08 November 2011 10:05:27 PM. © Daring Fireball

Strobe offered an “app delivery network” for HTML5 web apps, and employed the team behind the SproutCore web app framework.

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Read The Full Article:
http://blog.strobecorp.com/?p=304

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Khoi Vinh: On the Grid

post from Daring Fireball on 08 November 2011 08:05:49 PM. © Daring Fireball

Brief interview with my friend Khoi Vinh on grid-based graphic design. A beautiful short film, not a mere “video”.

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Read The Full Article:
http://thecolormachine.com/khoi-vinh-on-the-grid/

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A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design

post from Daring Fireball on 08 November 2011 08:05:49 PM. © Daring Fireball

Bret Victor:

Pictures Under Glass is an interaction paradigm of permanentnumbness. It’s a Novocaine drip to the wrist. It denies our handswhat they do best. And yet, it’s the star player in every VisionOf The Future.

The iPhone is only the beginning — the first drop — of touch-based design.

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Read The Full Article:
http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/

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Thirteen Movie Poster Trends That Are Here to
Stay and What They Say About Their Movies

post from Daring Fireball on 08 November 2011 07:05:17 PM. © Daring Fireball

Not sure about the “here to stay” part — a bunch of these strike me as flash-in-the-pan trends — but it really is striking just how derivative and formulaic many movie posters are.

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Read The Full Article:
http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/64047251.html

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Adobe Announces More Layoffs

post from Daring Fireball on 08 November 2011 07:05:17 PM. © Daring Fireball

Adobe:

In order to better align resources around Digital Media andDigital Marketing, Adobe is restructuring its business. This willresult in the elimination of approximately 750 full-time positionsprimarily in North America and Europe.

This follows a 680-person layoff in 2009, and a 600-person layoff in 2008.

Here’s how the company describes itself:

Adobe is investing aggressively in Digital Media and DigitalMarketing, two growing market areas. In Digital Media, the companyis the industry leader in content authoring solutions, enablingcustomers to create, distribute and monetize digital content. InDigital Marketing, the company intends to be the leader insolutions to manage, measure and optimize digital marketing andadvertising.

In my ideal world, Adobe would describe itself instead as follows: “Adobe makes best-of-breed tools for creative professionals.”

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Read The Full Article:
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20111108007266/en/Adobe-Reaffirms-Fourth-Qu
arter-FY2011-Revenue-Target

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Add Tasks to Things or The Hit List With Siri

Siri doesn’t (yet) offer much in the way of interoperability with third-party apps. But because iOS “reminders” are, behind the scenes, stored using CalDAV, to-do apps that offer CalDAV support can sync with them.

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Read The Full Article:
http://oliviercollet.com/2011/10/add-to-dos-to-things-with-siri/

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Built to Be Flexible

Thom Holwerda:

However, I always recalled seeing a video where alongside theBlackBerry-esque prototype, Google also showed off a device with afull touch screen.
As it turns out, my memory isn’t playing tricks on me. We’retalking November 12 2007, and Google released the fist SDK forAndroid. Other than the keyboard-driven BlackBerry-esque style,the SDK also supported touch screens just fine. And, just as Iremembered, Google showed off a reference design with a full touchscreen (and, by the looks of it, it’s capacitive) — lookingsuspiciously similar to the HTC Dream, the first Android device —including gestures and flicks.

So in November 2007 — 11 months after the iPhone was unveiled publicly — Google demoed an Android prototype with a 3.5-ish-inch touchscreen. But watch the demo video. That prototype seemingly has no way to type, and most of the UI is driven not by direct on-screen touch but by a BlackBerry-style menu driven by a hardware D-pad and select button under the screen. Web page zooming is done with buttons on the side of the device. It’s like a BlackBerry with a touchscreen. Every single difference between this 2007 prototype and the first actual consumer Android phone a year later was in the direction of being more like an iPhone. And in the years since, Android’s evolution has continued almost solely in the direction of iPhone-likeness.

Android fans would be better-served going with the “Good artists copy, great artists steal” defense.

Back to Holwerda:

Android was never intended to run on just one form factor. Androidruns on everything from candybar touch screen phones toqwerty-phones, and everything in between.

Yeah, I see all sorts of Android phones that look like BlackBerrys and candy bars. Tons of them.

Heck, there was a race to get Android running on laptops, and evenbefore Android was well and ready for it, it was dumped ontablets.
In other words, unlike iOS, Android was built to be flexible, andrun on many sorts of devices, with different screen sizes and formfactors.

Have you ever read something that made you wonder if you’ve been zapped into an alternate universe? That.

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Read The Full Article:
http://www.osnews.com/story/25264/Did_Android_Really_Look_Like_BlackBerry_Before_
the_iPhone_

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