Incidentally, I’m taking a short break from work and decided to leave my Blackberry at the office.
Instead, I went and got myself a nice phone with a dark, polished display framed in a rounded metal bezel.
It runs a WebKit-based browser, opens PDFs, syncs perfectly with my MacBook, and… has HSDPA.
Could the announcement be imminent? Or is he toying with us?
Technorati Tags: Apple, gadgets, iPhone, phones, technology
But to look at the iPhone as a laundry list of features and bugs is to miss the point (though if you did, the former would commandingly outweigh the latter). The iPhone isn't just the gadget du jour, it's a fresh new platform, an exceptionally powerful mobile computer that's still in its infancy. There's a full version of Apple's desktop operating system in there. The Palm and the Treo, et al., were merely harbingers of the era of true walk-around mobile computing that Jobs has just inaugurated. Hail to the chief.
For the doubters, this is particularly instructive:
Apple and its partners are just beginning to figure out how to develop for this thing. Look at the iPods of five years ago. That monochrome interface! That klunky moving touchwheel! They look like something a caveman whittled out of a piece of flint using another piece of flint. Now imagine something that's going to make the iPhone look like that. You'll have one in a few years, and it'll be cheaper, too. If you're not ready to think different, then think ahead.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Computing, Future, gadgets, iPhone, Mac OS X, phones, Software, technology, Transformative, UI
Side tone is how you hear your own voice when you are on the phone. So you can hear yourself speak, handsets inject a small amount of your captured voice back into the speaker. If they inject too much, your voice sounds too loud and you start whispering. Too much, and you start yelling. The ideal is about -18 decibels, but the iPhone seemed to have a problem here: we measured the side tone at -8.8 decibels. That's pretty high, so you might find yourself whispering a bit when you use the iPhone.
Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, phones, Product Design, technology, Telephony, Usability
Overall day one impression: the iPhone is 95 percent amazing, 5 percent maddening. I’m just blown away by how nice it is – very thoughtful UI design and outstanding engineering. It is very fun.
That's the short version of course. Read the full thing for a lot of detail, particularly on the UI. Make sure to check out Gruber's Flickr stream for pics too.
Technorati Tags: Apple, gadgets, iPhone, Mac OS X, phones, Telephony, UI
But even in version 1.0, the iPhone is still the most sophisticated, outlook-changing piece of electronics to come along in years. It does so many things so well, and so pleasurably, that you tend to forgive its foibles.
Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, phones, reviews, technology
vMac is a Macintosh emulator that currently emulates a Motorola 68000 based Apple Macintosh Plus. A ROM image from a Plus is required, we plan to implement other 68000 machines, such as SEs and II series. Currently System 7.5.5 is the latest vMac can boot, which is the latest System a real MacPlus can boot. vMac runs in black an white, a larger screen and color is the next thing we are working on.
7th Sept: Stockholm, China Theatre
8th Sept: Oslo, Sentrum Centre
9th Sept: Copenhagen, Royal Theatre
12th Sept: Dublin, Vicar Street
14th Sept: Manchester, Bridgewater Hall
15th Sept: Glasgow, Royal Concert Hall
17th Sept London, Royal Festival Hall
18th Sept: Birmingham, Symphony Hall
20th Sept: Brussels, AB
21st Sept: Paris, La Cigale
That's just a selection, but if anyone wants to buy me a ticket for the Paris date as a birthday present, feel free. Of course, Scott Walker doesn't seem to have much time for Sylvian, as evidenced by his complete omission from the role-call of fans in the Scott Walker documentary, yet so many people who admire Walker admire Sylvian too. Strange, but apparently true.
Technorati Tags: Music, performance
Photos are everywhere on the web. From sharing with friends, to editing, printing, buying, selling, searching, remixing and free hosting, we’ve lined up a plethora of resources for photo fiends.
Of course all this does is remind me that I need a 23" Cinema Display, and a faster Mac to run Aperture on. Curse you Swissmiss, curse you!
Technorati Tags: photography, Software, tools, Web
With composer Scott Walker setting the scene for a sinister and primal ball, Rafael Bonachela’s choreography cuts through the space, pushing the dancers into extreme connections, entangled in each others bodies, throwing their partners into flight, only to catch and grab and throw again and again and again.
What with an album, a movie and a dance score in 18 months, Scott's in danger of overexposure, by his standards at least.
Technorati Tags: Art, dance, Music, performance, Scott Walker
The future has enourmous possibilities. There might be a video camera in a future iPhone that would allow the user to instantly upload to YouTube. Eventually, major content agreements that bring TV to Google/YouTube could spell trouble for Joost.
It might already be there. What's the betting that the image handling chip in the iPhone can already do video? Direct to YouTube could be a firmware update away.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Google, iPhone, Microsoft, phones, technology, video, YouTube
Apple announced on Monday that its much-anticipated iPhone will offer eight hours of talk time rather than the previously announced five. On Wednesday, Jack Shafer mocked journalists for lavishing attention on this tiny morsel of news. Even so, that clever bit of Apple PR got Explainer wondering: How do you make a battery last longer?
Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, phones, technology
When I first came to your planet and demanded your homes, property and very lives, I didn't know you were already doing so, willingly, with your own government. I can win no tribute from a bankrupted nation populated by feeble flag-waving plebians. In 2008 I shall restore your dignity and make you servants worthy of my rule. This new government shall become a tool of my oppression. Instead of hidden agendas and waffling policies, I offer you direct candor and brutal certainty. I only ask for your tribute, your lives, and your vote.Thanks to Katrocket.
iPhone has a special YouTube player that you can launch right from the home screen. So now you can access and browse YouTube videos wherever you go. And when you find a video you want to send your friends, iPhone can even create an email with the link in it for you.
Technorati Tags: Apple, gadgets, iPhone, Media, video, YouTube
Technorati Tags: Computing, Future, humour, iPhone, Microsoft, tables, technology
3. Do not attempt to do everything yourselves: link to other high-quality sites instead. Your users will thank you. Use other people’s content and tools to enhance your site, and vice versa.
I lost count of the number of clients I told that to, both in the early days and more recently too. "Not Invented Here" syndrome is alive and well.
Apple machines are in widespread use among graphics professionals, and the operating system supports color encoding schemes that are called profiles and are standardized by a group called the International Color Consortium (ICC). Safari checks to see whether an image is tagged with a particular ICC color profile and displays it accordingly, tuned to work with the user's monitor.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Design, Graphic Design, Mac OS X, Web, Windows
I'm just waiting for some enterprising person or persons to create on top of Flex (or Laszlo, or some other flash derivative) a clone of Hypercard. Perhaps a Flex-lite which only does a few things like a button, an image, and a few form elements.
What wouldn't I give for a true Hypercard replacement? I very much doubt that Adobe are the company to deliver it though, as they seem increasingly invested in complex development solutions that tie people into their expensive tools. Remember, Hypercard was free and bundled with all new Macs at the insistence of its creator Bill Atkinson (Daniel Eran's latest article provides some great background). I toyed with the notion of Keynote getting some useful interactivity framework to complement its slide-based metaphor, but gave that one up after 20 minutes thought. Right now I think the best chance we have is something built from a combination of WebKit and Dashboard Widgets. The 'stack' concept isn't that far from Widgets, and they might slot right into the Dashboard layer, the iPhone (via Safari) and the Apple TV (surely I'm not the only one to think that Dashboard is a shoe-in for the living room's 10-foot interface?).
Technorati Tags: Apple, Apple TV, Future, iPhone, Mac OS X, puppy, Software, technology, UI, Web
This is a t-shirt for which the wearer designs what goes on the front, a further experiment in how to design low-tech systems that are open enough to allow for other people's designs yet specific enough to provide an intriguing starting point. It's often difficult to design on a completely blank canvas, so this t-shirt provides a matrix of pixels that can be coloured in with a black felt-tip pen in order to turn them "off".
Technorati Tags: Art, Design, fashion, Graphic Design
“With 8 hours of talk time, and 24 hours of audio playback, iPhone’s battery life is longer than any other ‘Smartphone’ and even longer than most MP3 players,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve also upgraded iPhone’s entire top surface from plastic to optical-quality glass for superior scratch resistance and clarity. There has never been a phone like iPhone, and we can't wait to get this truly magical product into the hands of customers starting just 11 days from today.”
Technorati Tags: Apple, gadgets, iPhone, phones, technology
Apple will be offering a new type of software for Macs this summer called "games" (pronounced "gaimz"). The new genre, being supported in a big way by publisher EA, will allow "players" to enter virtual worlds and take part in contests of skill.
Actually it's pretty funny. Hardly any of the Mac users I know care about the lack of Mac games, but I guess there's a bunch of folks who simply walk away when they see how few games come to OS X, and how long they take to arrive. Perhaps Apple should just give a Wii away with the iMac and be done with it.
The size of the conference has been growing steadily over the last few years, but this one was a big step — a very big step. For the first time since the conference has been in San Francisco, it was clear that there was a large influx of new energy and fresh ideas. From what I can see, WWDC — and really the platform in general — has truly cut ties with the past and started out on a new course. Maybe it's a little dramatic, but that's the only way I can describe the feeling.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Conferences, Mac OS X, Software
Platform newcomers, as well as developers in a hurry to get solutions to market, will find that Leopard not only provides unique and highly innovative facilities, it exposes them in ways that welcome developers of all stripes. As a result, Leopard's new features will be taken up extremely rapidly by developers, extending the transformation of the Mac platform from the OS all the way up end-user applications.
This is a must-read. I know a few people who'll be especially excited by the integration of Quartz Composer and Core Animation:
The relative ease with which this can be done paves the way for unimaginably beautiful, knowledge-dense, and productive user interfaces and information displays, not to mention the value in entertainment and consumer electronics software.I can't wait.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Apple TV, Computing, Mac OS X, Software, technology, UI, WWDC
I call it the Obi-Wan Kenobi defense. I put on my brown robe, turn off my light saber, and just let the bad guys attack me. It's a necessary part of the story. The story needs me to fail now, to suffer, so that then I can come back in even greater glory. It's like Jesus -- no crucifixion, no resurrection. Media whores, listen to me: If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Actually, there's a spot-on comment from someone called Jim:
next stop on the train, of course, will be the iPhone launch. We will get the "lines out the door... how can you possibly get one of these things" coverage on the 29th and 30th, then within a couple of days the media will be full of stories knocking the thing down. The screen scratches when I forcefully dig my car keys into it, the battery life sucks and it doesn't feed my cat like the nice man in the AT&T store told me it would. The thing will go from being the greatest advance in the history of communications one day to a shameful flop within 48 hours.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Computing, humour, iPhone, Media, puppy, technology
By the end of the summer it will be pretty clear what was in the mind of Steve Jobs all those months ago when the collision with the studios made him rethink his vision for an Apple digital video future, but already it is starting to take shape, and the image is both ominous for operators and rival TV technologies and threatens to be more far reaching than outsiders ever imagined.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Apple TV, Film, iPod, Mac OS X, Media, technology, Television, video
Technorati Tags: photography
Here’s a short list of stuff that would make me run out and buy a new Mac:
Graphically rich ways of visualizing my data (all that Tufte stuff).
Really tiny, portable hardware.
Motion detection.
Eliminate the application / file model.
Written language comprehension.
Pattern recognition. Realize I’m doing a task repeatedly and create a scheduled task. Basically, a computer that learns.
Image recognition. Can’t the computer realize half of my photos are of the same cat and label the rest based on a couple of initial tags?
Voice recognition.
Programming for anybody.
I say: Careful what you wish for Jason. There are at least 5 of those that Apple are delivering or developing with Leopard/iPhone/Safari-Web Kit/Mac hardware. It's all coming together quite nicely.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Computing, Future, iMac, iPhone, iPod, Mac OS X, technology, UI
I hereby predict (with a pretty good chance of being right, I think) that Safari 3.0 will become the Trojan Horse that will bring a bazillion Windows developers on board the iPhone platform, now that all the fuss about the iPhone SDK has been well and truly settled.
Well said, especially in the pay-off:
I can’t wait to see the third-party apps scene a year from now, Google or no Google.
And right on time, here's the first.
Technorati Tags: Apple, futureofwebapps, iPhone, Mac OS X, Software, Web, Windows, WWDC
The new 8" Darth Vader figure features a die cast body that was crafted in collaboration with Ootsuka Kikaku, popular for its 1/10 scale moveable body figure. Ootsuka Kikaku has extensive knowledge of alloy toys, coalescence and articulated toys. With a height of approximately 8-inches, over 20-points of articulation, and numerous detailed parts that combine to make the final figure, this new collectible is unlike anything else that has been offered in the world of Star Wars collecting!
Like I said, it's a design thing.
It's not very clear in this bad copy, but that's a nice clean head on picture of the HD DVD crack code published in a Birmingham newspaper. Mission accomplished :)
Technorati Tags: Birmingham UK, Computing, Open Source, robotics
According to Neil Ticktin, CEO of Xplain, the Westlake Village, Calif., publisher of MacTech, a Mac developer journal, "In order for iPhone customers to have the quality of experience that Apple wants, [Safari] has to have enough market share. It's not about bringing the Apple experience to Windows customers. Jobs said [Apple] wants a bigger browser share—it's not like they're going to get revenue from it." (emphasis added)
Now the last time I looked, my copy of Safari had a search field that leads to Google.. KERCHING!
Technorati Tags: Apple, Computing, Google, Internet, iPhone, Software, Web
Those are the type of plans that tend to get noticed within Microsoft headquarters, notes JupiterResearch vice president and research director Michael Gartenberg. “I fully expect some sort of a response from Redmond,” he said. “We are definitely looking at another generation of browser wars. It was a brilliant tactical move on Apple’s part.”
Technorati Tags: Apple, Computing, Mac OS X, Macintosh, Software, technology, Web, Windows
rPhone combines three delightfully diverse products into one awkward and cumbersome handheld contraption -- a revolutionary steam-powered satellite phone, a stylish French musicbox, and a vibrasonic multi-purpose tool that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a Sonic Screwdriver.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac OS X, Macintosh, technology, UI
At the D conference, I ran into one surface-computing believer whose opinion counts for quite a lot. "It'll be built into every desk eventually, but it's going to take a long time," said a confident-sounding Bill Gates as he hobnobbed with attendees after his joint onstage interview with Steve Jobs. You could dismiss his prediction of pervasive surface computing as self-interested hype. Then again, this is the man who founded Microsoft based on the far-fetched notion that every desk would one day have a personal computer. If Gates is right about the computer migrating into the desk, the mundane tasks that today's Surface will perform are nothing more than a warm-up act."Your desk has encountered a fatal error and cannot continue." What can we crash next? Your carpet?
Technorati Tags: Computing, Future, Microsoft, technology
I keep thinking about that story in the Journal about how Bill prepared his Harvard speech. It just strikes me as so symbolically perfect for how Bill operates and for what ails all of Microsoft. I mean, it's a commencement address. You're asked to speak to a group of graduates about your life, your hopes, your dreams. You try to speak from the heart, to be honest and candid and frank. You try to inspire them. How else can you write this speech but alone? Bill turns it over to a team that slices and dices and iterates. Then he wonders why nobody finds it inspiring. It's the same with Microsoft products. There's no artistry, no individuality, no passion.Amen. FSJ doesn't just say what RSJ can't, he says what we all feel, deep down in our hearts.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Creativity, Design, humour, Microsoft
Technorati Tags: Art, Creativity, photography
MacScoop has it that Apple's .Mac is about to get a helpful hand from Silicon Valley buds, Google. According to their sources, Apple's neglected .Mac service is set for a Google infrastructure overhaul which includes updated pricing, more services, and an increase in storage. The revamped offering is expected to offer free Google services bundled with traditional .Mac offerings at variable pricing schemes but similar levels of integration with OS X. Of course, it's only a rumor but it certainly seems plausible. After all, Google's cloud offerings have rapidly matured since Apple's .Mac launch in 2002.A full-on integration with Google's services would certainly please Jonathan Green, who's really buzzed about the mobile Google Calendar and GMail browser. I'd settle for parity on storage capacity (I'm not a fan of GMail's 'never deleted, always ad-sponsored approach), some better integration of the standalone Mail app and the online (when I'm behind a firewall is there any reason Mail app can't just use a .mac API to do my mail stuff over port 80?), Google Calendar and iCal working properly together (and the respective chat programs too, for that matter), and some Apple-like innovation along the iTunes Store lines. Let me pay for .mac services like I pay for iTunes content, as I need it, and give me something like iTunes in iWeb to manage all my content and the links to desktop apps.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Computing, Internet, Mac OS X, Macintosh, Google, technology, Web
The device that stands to benefit most from the launch of an Apple VOD service is Apple TV, however. The box allows content downloaded from iTunes to be viewed on a normal TV set. The company has not disclosed Apple TV sales but reports have suggested the product is struggling.That could change once there is high-quality content available to download and rent. “VOD gives the Apple TV box a lot more utility,” says one senior Hollywood studio executive. “Right now it’s just a way to move stuff from iTunes to your TV but it will end up becoming a way to directly order a movie to your TV.”Does anyone think this wasn't the Apple TV plan all along? The 'DVD player for the Internet' line is both a smokescreen and an early shot across Walmart's bows at the same time. The first big target has to always have been the rental business.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Apple TV, Business, Internet, Media, movies, technology, video
International sound artist Francisico Lopez will give aThen the following week, as part of the New Generation Arts festival, the ever-inventive JG is up to more of his music and technology tricks. Recommended:
'Total Darkness' performance in Birmingham on 17/06/2007 www.franciscolopez.net
The audience will be required to be lying down, or seated, in
darkness, to promote 'profound listening and immersion into the sound
matter'. Blindfolds will be provided. Tickets: www.modulate.org.uk
Invented Instruments Concert by Jonathan Green: A concert for electronic invented instruments as part of the New Generation Arts Festival on 27th June at 6.30pm in the Entrance Foyer in the Department of Art, UCE Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, Margaret Street. Free entry. The short concert will include "Piece for Large Metal Sheet and Video Projections" and "Space Bar" for motion sensors.http://www.ensembleinterakt.co.uk/
Technorati Tags: Art, Birmingham UK, Events, Music, technology
"Is it really profitable for them from a hardware perspective?" asked Andrew Rassweiler, iSuppli senior analyst. "The question we have is, is this a case, like printers, where the business model isn't to make money on the printers, but the inkjet print cartridges?"
Completely off, other than (a) the margins on the Apple TV are currently slim, and (b) market domination is the goal. SJ wasn't kidding when he called it a hobby, but you can bet he takes his hobbies pretty seriously too.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Apple TV, Business, Media, movies, technology, YouTube
So we’re left in the faintly ridiculous situation that editing video is today harder than it was a couple of years ago. We’ve a plethora of mutually-incompatible formats, excessive render times even on the beefiest of desktop PCs, and still not many cameras with proper microphone inputs.
Technorati Tags: Film, Media, technology, Television, video
Kiss Boring Interfaces Goodbye With Apple's New Animated OS :
Shipley predicts that Core Animation will kick-start a new era of interface experimentation, and may lead to an entirely new visual language for designing desktop interfaces. The traditional desktop may become a multilayered three-dimensional environment where windows flip around or zoom in and out. Double-clicks and keystrokes could give way to mouse gestures and other forms of complex user input.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Computing, Design, Mac OS X, Software, UI, Usability
Coming up with a solution is often the most straightforward part of the design process. That isn't to say that creating the solution is easy, or doesn't require a deep knowledge and honed skill set. It's just to say that when you have a set of requirements and a well defined problem, you know where you stand and where you have to get to. It's mostly straightforward. Much harder is the implicit problem of figuring out exactly what the problem is in the first place. If the problem is vague or ill-defined, the design solution will be too.An excellent piece by Aza Raskin on paper plane design as an illustration of how reframing the design brief is crucial to iterative design practice. Recommended reading, and great fun to follow the instructional videos!
Technorati Tags: Creativity, Design, aeroplanes, puppy, video
So we headed down to the Watarium and, sure enough, there were two unlocked bikes outside. Strange beasts they were too. One was a slim racer with odd curly handlebars and no brakes whatsoever. The other was a weird massive tandem hybrid, a sort of long low drag racer with a wooden surfboard platform at the front. We decided this was the one to take, and climbed aboard.
Technorati Tags: Art, Cities, Creativity, Music, Momus
Technorati Tags: Apple, gadgets, iPhone, iPod, Mac OS X, phones, Ads, technology, Television
Steve Wozniak’s design did many things right: it incorporated a user-friendly keyboard in an era when most machines offered a baffling front panel of lights and switches, it included bit-addressable color graphics, supported low-cost floppy drives, and included a good BASIC language interpreter.It's hard to remember how revolutionary this was, and the fact that it sold (with modifications) for 20 years or so is amazing, in these days of 6-month product refreshes. It's still a wonder to behold, and if anyone has an original Apple II monitor they want to get rid of, please move it in my direction.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Computing, Design, technology
It's true... when you buy an Adobe product, be it Illustrator or the entire Creative Suite, Adobe brazenly stores important personal information about you right on your hard disk.I agree Wil, absolutely shocking. Next they'll be putting names on driving licenses, credit cards, everything. Where will it end?
Technorati Tags: Apple, Computing, Media, Music, puppy, Software, technology
YouTube will soon be encoding videos in the H.264 streaming-efficient compression format preferred by Apple TV, and that all new videos submitted to YouTube as of the mid-June launch of the AppleTV update will be playable by the device. From then until fall, YouTube will be encoding its entire back-catalog in H.264 format, adding videos in chunks until everything is accessible to Apple TV users.Yep, this is bigger than the news that Apple TV gets YouTube videos, and is a real boost to H.264 in the mobile space (wait until the iPhone and the iPod get access too). Is there a bigger Flash video site than YouTube? Soon I might not care that I can't buy movies from iTunes in the UK.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Apple TV, Internet, iPhone, Macintosh, movies, phones, YouTube, puppy, technology, video
In short, the main reason Jobs might want to delay allowing third-party software to run on the iPhone isn’t technical (bringing down the phone network or crashing the phone), but aesthetic. Let users grow accustomed to what true iPhone-style apps feel like to use, and they – the users – will demand that developers write true iPhone-style apps when development is eventually opened up, in the same way that Mac users demand true Mac-style apps.Thank heavens for that, say I. Java apps are a nightmare, and most 3rd part stuff for phones is a long way from the kind of apps Apple will ship with the iPhone. Now if we could just get a consistent look for OS X Widgets on the Mac please.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Computing, gadgets, iPhone, Mac OS X, phones, Software, technology, UI
