August 2009
39 posts
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Conversational UX Design →
Sometimes I wish I had more smart ideas for a meme blog, just so I could experience areas of the Tumblr site that I never see though staying permanently logged in. This sign-up and guidance experience is one of those. (via David Karp)
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My likes on Tumblr →
Tumblr’s awesome ‘Likes’ feature makes for a fantastic way to give posts you like a thumbs-up. I make fair use of it, and whilst I’d love for there to be options like ‘post a daily digest of likes to my Tumblog’, you can keep track of these anyhow by visiting this page.
There’s no RSS (sorry) but if you’re wanting to see what I’m reading,...
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Elation at hitting milestones en route to a...
Over the weekend I shipped a small first-look of something I’ve been working at (on and off) for the better part of a year. Whilst it’s easy to say this is a post to pique interest in a mysterious yet-to-be-announced app for a certain device - it’s not - the elation of getting something into users hands, no matter how early-stage it may be, saw me grinning like a Cheshire cat for...
Steve Jobs: The man who polished Apple →
The Sunday Times ran this pretty-darn-long piece on Steve Jobs yesterday, despite this succinct line from Apple PR:
We want to discourage profiles
Whilst not exactly revelatory, it’s an interesting read. As usual, steer clear of the comments - and watch out for the author’s sensationalist prediction of Google and Apple getting hitched.
TIME interviews the guy behind FAILblog and ICHC →
Short of it: he’s making a tonne of money, and people are submitting 10,000 images a day to the network of sites like I Can Has Cheezburger and FAILblog.
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Appearing on the TUAW Talkcast tonight, 9pm ET →
I’ll be joining my good friends (and former colleagues) from TUAW tonight for their weekly talkcast. We’ll be talking news, LittleSnapper 1.5 and Ember and more. As always, it’s live-streaming on Talkshoe.
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“See, I’d add the Get Satisfaction Remote component to my app but I’d...”
– Aral, via Twitter
Brandon Walkin on Managing UI Complexity →
A superb piece from Brandon Walkin on UI complexity. There’s a tonne of examples too - and I can’t remember the last time I learnt this much from a single blog post.
xkcd - A Webcomic - Estimation →
Yet another storming XKCD, this time at the expense of the Windows file-copy dialogue.
John Nack on Adobe: Goodnight, Suite RISC... →
John Nack is one hell of a diplomat. He’s often on the receiving end of Adobe hate (which, whilst occasionally justified, shouldn’t be aimed squarely at him) and isn’t afraid to enter a discussion.
As you’d expect, there’s a bucketload of stupid from people in the comments.
The Guardian reviews the Samsung i8910 →
A device that is gunning for the iPhone, Charles Arthur’s review is far from flattering. Whilst the biggest issue may be the baffling UI, demo apps shipping on the device that require a paid-for licence to view Office documents are something of a stark contrast to the iPhone (it’s inconceivable that Apple would ship demo apps on a device).
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Fade out your iPhone App's Default.png →
If you’re looking for a neat way to add a little bit more polish to an iPhone app, then this is 17 lines of code that you might be interested in. A slick fade-out of the Default.png (loading screen) to your app’s usable interface.
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“You know, I’ve ignored Robert Scoble for so long I forgot how utterly...”
– Christina, via Twitter
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Steven Frank's iPhone Exile draws a comment from... →
I’m remarkably impressed with Apple’s engagement with those who’ve provided rational, thoughtful criticism about the App Store.
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“Shipping quality is a longer, tougher road than just shipping whatever to be...”
– Buzz Andersen commenting on this post from Andre Torrez.
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Just how hard can it be to give things away? →
37signals want to give away a set of icons. Yet the ensuing comments prove that ‘Free for you to use’ is just not a clear enough licence.
via Justin Williams
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“Maybe one day publishers will realize that we buy stuff not because we cannot...”
– Aral, via Twitter
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“Facebook is a good match for FriendFeed, insofar as I’ve never understood why...”
– John Gruber, via Twitter
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“Apple is a company that uses its ease of use and customer support as primary...”
– Calacanis’s case against Apple: TUAW responds (via filmgirl)
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Planet Calacanis →
If you’ve not yet read Marco Arment’s excellent smack-down of Jason Calacanis’ link-bait post, you should. Right now. There’s a whole bucketload of stupid in Calacanis’ piece, and Marco does a brilliant job at debunking the nonsense.
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“Whoa. Late on a Saturday night, and my tweet stream has been taken over by...”
– Mike Rose
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dConstruct 2009 →
Ever since starting work in Brighton two years ago, I’ve wanted to go to dConstruct - Clearleft’s very-excellent web conference. This year the theme is “Designing for Tomorrow” and the conference day (4th September) features a tonne of interesting speakers. After consistently missing the conference through holiday, I’m super excited to finally make it to dConstruct...
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The Timelapse Story of a Macworld Cover Shoot →
I’m a complete sucker for time-lapse photography, and this time-lapse of how photographer Peter Belanger and the Macworld team created the Macworld cover of the magazine is no exception.
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“Tired of seeing headlines like: Is “$unchecked_fact” responsible for...”
– John Adams, via Twitter
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“When Twitter is down, address all complaints to The Deparment of Things you...”
– Perhaps my favourite of all the very excellent quotes generated by WHEN TWITTER IS DOWN
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“Across the street from our office, some people have just taped a big paper sign...”
– Going Way Old School | TPM (via moltz)
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“The only reason Twitter itself would be a fad is if someone comes along and does...”
– Twitter’s Ev Williams, interviewed by the BBC last night via The Guardian
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“I guess you can’t even duplicate existing functionality if you are on Apple’s...”
– Justin Williams on Twitter, via Dave Chartier
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“Complaining about my use of profanity is a surefire way to get blocked. Unfollow...”
– Justin Williams, via Twitter. Amen to that.
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Apple bans App Store’s 3rd-most prolific developer →
Submitter of nine hundred apps, many with dubious copyright issues surrounding them, it’s good to see that Apple’s App Store team are on the ball enough to prevent copyright infringement before an app goes on sale.
Ahem.
All snark aside, I guess it’s another positive baby-step from Cupertino….
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“Thinking Apple should add a warning to Interface Builder for UIWebView...”
– Aral, via Twitter
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“Remember that time when Flash on a web site didn’t slow your whole...”
– Steve Streza, via Twitter
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“From a developer standpoint it’s a nightmare. An Orwellian review team which...”
– the_codist() (via Mike Franklin)
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Palm, iTunes, and the ties that don't bind →
Engadget’s Nilay Patel really hits the nail on the head regarding the Palm Pre’s iTunes syncing. Palm’s cavalier attitude to the cat-and-mouse iTunes sync game is reckless at best - especially as there’s a whole lot of talented folks at Palm who could make the sync experience great without iTunes.
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Announcements and News - iPhone Developer Program →
After logging into ADC this morning, I too noticed this all-new Announcements and News page for developers, listing the average wait time for approvals and also the direct email address for cases where you need a bug fix or need to contact the Approvals Team. It’s a step in the right direction from Cupertino. (via Jim Dovey)
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Ready to Port your iPhone App to Windows Mobile? →
This post from the Windows Mobile team is an interesting read. Whilst it touts the ease of porting the sample application with plenty of Visual Studio adoration and iPhone pot-shots, it doesn’t even scratch the surface on building it for more than one device with different form factors - a pain I’d wish on very few people.
One joy of the iPhone SDK is that you’re given a...
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Touché, Mike Arrington →
Remember the whole Twitter-documents scandal not so long ago, in which Mike Arrington thought it acceptable to publish Twitter’s private documents?
Well it turns out that Arrington is more than a little annoyed that someone published details on his little Crunchpad adventure:
RE CrunchPad, obviously I’m completely ripshit mad about all this unauthorized BS press:...