July 2009
54 posts
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“I wouldn’t say Photoshop unexpectedly quit. I’d say it unexpectedly ran without...”
– Pete Lasko on Twitter, via Dave Chartier
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The Exploded Phone Poster →
First there was the T-shirt. Now there’s the Poster for Exploded Phone fans everywhere. I need to get myself a copy of this…
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“The problem with Firefox is that it’s not Safari.”
– Fasturtle, via Jay Robinson
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New Favourite Blog: Cocoa with Love →
If you write Cocoa, or have the remotest interest in feasibly doing so (rumour is that this Cocoa thing works on a pretty hot mobile device, after all) then Cocoa with Love should be in your RSS reader.
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Steve Jobs on why Apple doesn’t do market research →
There’s plenty to read here about Apple’s product ethos, and it mostly rings true. However Fraser Speirs makes an excellent point on Twitter:
Apple doesn’t do market research, yet they somehow know that customers are “confused” by duplicate functionality.
Something tells me the App Store Frustrations kettle is about to hit boiling point….
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“As with many other serious iPhone developers recently, we’ve made the hard...”
– Polar Bear Farm announce their move away from the iPhone
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“A good rule of thumb is this: if you can’t design something better than...”
– Apologies for ruining the crux of this piece, but Mike Rundle’s iPhone Application UI Design Patterns post is a must-read.
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Brent Simmons: The Anatomy of a feature →
This is music to my ears - a great piece.
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“Yes, the iPhone is doing incredibly well right now. And yes, there are over...”
– Yeah, there’s an app for that. But for how long, and at what cost? - TUAW’s Michael Jones in an incredibly smart piece on this App Store kerfuffle.
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Apple's "New iPhone Only Visible To Most Loyal... →
The Onion, back with Teh Funny about the iPhone. Well played.
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“In other [fake] news, Apple today removed bitmap editor Acorn from the Mac App...”
– Fraser Speirs, via Twitter
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“Ruby is like Jesus: I don’t mind him at all, it’s just the rabid...”
– André Pang, via Twitter
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“iDisk app came out? Sweet, now they can retroactively pull all the other apps...”
– Steven Frank, via Twitter
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What's on my iPhone?
I’m particularly fussy when it comes to apps on my iPhone - I don’t need all that many on the device, and have just one screen of apps currently. Here’s a quick run-through of them.
Darkslide - Fraser Speirs’ very excellent Flickr client, along with Facebook and Frenzic, are the few apps to stay on my phone since the App Store’s launch last summer. It’s got...
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“Received a Macworld 2010 promo email today. What is the value in a FREE exhibit...”
– Eric, via Twitter
I’m not entirely sure it’ll be empty, but it certainly made me laugh.
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“More important than the money is my enjoyment as a developer. I no longer enjoy...”
– Justin Williams on the App Store
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Amazon yanks 1984 and Animal Farm from Kindles →
Just two thoughts.
I’m never buying a Kindle so long as this absolute bullsh*t continues - and it’s not even launched here in UK
The irony of it being 1984 that’s been removed from Kindles it has already purchased on is very much not lost on me.
Just when we thought the big-businesses (the MPAAs and RIAAs of this world) were leaving the stone-age, it seems another industry...
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Developer Color Picker →
A custom color picker designed specifically for developers. Makes getting colors out of Photoshop/Acorn mock-ups quick and easy.
A super-handy picker that supports NSColor, UIColor, CGColorRef, CSS and HTML styles - this is a great addition to the very excellent HexColourPicker I swear by.
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Buzz Aldrin Punches A Moon Landing Denier →
I must have watched this a dozen times - and so should you (via Gruber)
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“I rather like the irony of undermining Apple secrecy with an Apple product.”
– A comment accompanying photos of the forthcoming Brighton Apple Store
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Ollie the Twitterrific Bird - Coming Soon as a... →
The folks from the Icon Factory have announced that Ollie the Twitterrific mascot will soon be a vinyl toy. I can’t wait to get my hands on one and let him join the family of Droplets on my desk.
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Thurly App - Posting to Twitter from Safari →
Congratulations to Adam Shiver on shipping Thurly App, which is a plugin for Safari that uses his Thurly URL shortener with options to post to Twitter. It’s free with a $5 licence unlocking more templating options for super-quick posting.
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The Guardian tours Twitter's HQ →
Guardian readers seem sick of Twitter mentions (probably indicative of a wide Twitter saturation right now) but this is an interesting read from Bobbie Johnson.
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The Big Picture Remembers Apollo 11 →
There’s some absolutely stunning photos in this set from the original moon landing.
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Apress Updates "Beginning iPhone 3 Development" →
After my recent Cocoa recommendations, this updated title from Apress gets a thumbs up (though I’ve yet to read it). If it’s anything like the rest of the series it’ll be fantastic.
(via Jim Dovey - if you’re in the US, be sure to use Jim’s Get-Rich-Quick-Amazon link. Annoyingly it’s not listed on Amazon UK yet)
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FAIL Blog's reply to a Silly Cease and Desist
Dear Sir/Madam,
Thanks for writing us an email regarding the “Record Breaking Fail”. Unfortunately, douchebaggy cyber-bullying emails will only bring upon you more shame on your house. I am also resisting the urge to write this email in ALL CAPS.
I believe it is the duty of FAIL Blog(TM) to call out organizations when they encourage the public to do such things as “Break the record” for the...
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Cory Doctorow tells Hollywood to stop worrying →
A great piece by Doctorow about the paranoia in the movie industry.
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Verizon to its smartphones: thou shalt have no... →
Steve Jobs’ quote today about the App Store’s runaway success seems particularly pertinent with this news that Verizon are forbidding the factory-installation of non-Verizon App Stores on devices.
“The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality. With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up.”
Via Dave...
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Damn the Tab Bar?
Justin Williams’ piece Die You Damn, Dirty Tab Bar has had me thinking for the past week - and I’ll admit that I’ve been meaning to post something meaningful about it ever since - particularly this quote:
Rather than taking the easy way and slapping a tab bar at the bottom of your UI, put the extra effort into the design process to see if it is possible to do the application...
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“Imagine if Apple stopped rejecting apps, Adobe fixed Photoshop and Flash, and...”
– Michael Mistretta, via Twitter
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The Icon Lab's Unity Icon Set →
A great $25 set of 225 stock icons for iPhone, web and desktop use from Elixir Graphics’ Adam Shiver.
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“They say ‘just add a button’ [to your UI]…. that’s like...”
– Wil Shipley (via Martin Pilkington)
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Amazon Axes Delicious Library for iPhone →
This is a first: an application that has to be pulled from the App Store not due to an Apple fault, but through a licensing change from Amazon.
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Speedlimit for the iPhone Simulator →
If you’re doing iPhone development, this is almost certainly not new to you. However if you’re ever doing a little bit of iPhone development (as I’m currently doing) and need to test your app’s handling of low-bandwidth connections, Speedlimit lets you artificially constrain your net connection (or specific hosts) to WiFi, 3G, EDGE or GPRS speeds.
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“JavaScript sounds like it has something to do with Java. It doesn’t. Apart from...”
– Jeremy Keith in Misunderstanding Markup
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“Next February, when Steven P. Jobs — knock on wood — does his big reveal at...”
– The Media Equation - Only the Nosy Are Fixated on Steve Jobs’s Health - NYTimes.com
Someone ought to tell the New York Times about this, though I guess I should at least be grateful that they correctly capitalised the word Macworld (ahem, TechCrunch).
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“AT&T was given a great fortune with the iPhone exclusive, but they’ve...”
– Marco.org: AT&T’s massive iPhone blunder
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“Do they not realise that fans need the money back to go help pay for them to get...”
– Tickets offered to Jackson fans (via iamdanw)
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Maxvoltar - A conversation with my iPhone →
Tim Van Damme chronicles his adventures with Voice Control on the iPhone 3GS with some slightly alarming amusing results.
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“Dear Java lovers: Please continue to think the Xcode, Objective-C and Cocoa...”
– A comment on Green’s Opinion: Android versus iPhone Development: A Comparison. The comments make for an interesting read.
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“Pro Tip: read nasty blog comments in the voice of the Lemur King from...”
– Victor Agreda Jr, via Twitter
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FAQ: What's the best book for beginning Cocoa?
Since my return from the Big Nerd Ranch just over a week ago, I’ve received a number of emails asking “What books are you reading and what would you recommend to those interested in Cocoa?”. Depending on your background, there’s a number of excellent books available. Here’s a low down of some of the books I’ve been enjoying and learning from recently…
...
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Virtually Waterless Washing Machine Cuts Water Use... →
An interesting prototype, this is definitely something I’d love to see make it out of the labs.