1. My Cosmonaut arrived at the office, just in time for Christmas.

    My Cosmonaut arrived at the office, just in time for Christmas.

    Thursday December 22nd, 2011

  2. ➶ The Icon Handbook

    If you build software, use icons in anything, or simply want a great-looking book on icon design, Jon Hicks’ new book should be on your Christmas list.

    I was fortunate enough to see a PDF of the finished book1 just before it went on sale yesterday: it looks truly incredible.

    1. The Analog and LittleSnapper icons are featured in the book. ↩

    Wednesday December 21st, 2011

  3. ➶ Justin Williams' Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)

    Lots of great apps and hardware here.

    Monday December 19th, 2011

  4. The Jamie Oliver Recipes app has long been one of my favourites - especially as it came to the iPad a few months back. Whilst the app is free, there’s a number of In-App Purchases that unlock recipe packs to compliment the free Taster Pack that comes with the app. The most recent addition is a bumper Christmas recipe pack - 2-Day Christmas Dinner, Rummy Lemonade, and tonnes more for £1.99 ($2.99). Steph and I are almost certainly going to be using some of these over the next week or so (though for Christmas Day itself, we’re going with a Nigella recipe). The app also has built-in voice control (a relatively recent addition): simply select a recipe, turn on the voice feature and you can progress the recipe steps just by saying “Next” & “Previous” - making the iPad version a great kitchen companion.

    The Jamie Oliver Recipes app has long been one of my favourites - especially as it came to the iPad a few months back.

    Whilst the app is free, there’s a number of In-App Purchases that unlock recipe packs to compliment the free Taster Pack that comes with the app.

    The most recent addition is a bumper Christmas recipe pack - 2-Day Christmas Dinner, Rummy Lemonade, and tonnes more for £1.99 ($2.99). Steph and I are almost certainly going to be using some of these over the next week or so (though for Christmas Day itself, we’re going with a Nigella recipe).

    The app also has built-in voice control (a relatively recent addition): simply select a recipe, turn on the voice feature and you can progress the recipe steps just by saying “Next” & “Previous” - making the iPad version a great kitchen companion.

    Saturday December 17th, 2011

  5. It looks like a human was involved in choosing what went where,” Marissa told them. “It looks too editorialized. Google products are machine-driven. They’re created by machines. And that is what makes us powerful. That’s what makes our products great.
    Marissa Mayer addressing Google designers, as quoted in “In The Plex” by Steven Levy — via Buzz

    Thursday December 15th, 2011

  6. ➶ iOS: A visual history

    Nice run-down by Dieter Bohn at The Verge.

    Tuesday December 13th, 2011

  7. ➶ Why Spotify can never be profitable

    Quite the read.

    Sunday December 11th, 2011

  8. … To many people, Facebook’s “frictionless” sharing doesn’t enhance sharing; it makes sharing meaningless. Let’s go back to music: It is meaningful if I tell you that I really like the avant-garde music by Olivier Messiaen. It’s also meaningful to confess that I sometimes relax by listening to Pink Floyd. But if this kind of communication is replaced by a constant pipeline of what’s queued up in Spotify, it all becomes meaningless. There’s no “sharing” at all. Frictionless sharing isn’t better sharing; it’s the absence of sharing.
    The end of social - O’Reilly Radar

    Sunday December 11th, 2011

  9. ➶ Google's Flipboard Competitor Currents launches

    There’s also a Producer app for content publishers (that requires Chrome, alas).

    Thursday December 8th, 2011

  10. ➶ Jawbone pauses UP production to fix bugs

    About time, given the scathing reviews. The full statement from the company is here.

    Thursday December 8th, 2011