09.14.12 |
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Dieter Bohn for The Verge:
Like Microsoft in the 90s and early 2000s, it is taking a very conservative approach to updating its core UI in the name of accessibility and consistency. Apple is keeping the iPhone in a very familiar and safe zone, but does it really need to? It’s risky, taking something that’s massively successful and trying something new and different with it. Most companies don’t do it, but Apple has a reputation built making those kinds of bets. Perhaps it doesn’t deserve that reputation anymore.
As Bohn himself states later in the article, Apple’s not close to the Microsoft Windows Vista fiasco state of Microsoft circa 2000. But do big Apple fans like myself have reason to be concerned? Certainly.
09.13.12 |
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It appears from this Digital Photography Review post that the iPhone 5 camera primary benefit is its speed, albeit with slightly greater light sensitivity.
08.24.12 |
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Writer/designer Craig Grannell:
I’m not of the opinion Nintendo should throw in its lot with Apple and other third parties, effectively becoming another Sega—yet. This is because Nintendo still has the potential to out-Apple Apple in the gaming space, through making games and hardware. This, note, is what Apple proponents rightly say sets Apple apart from much of the competition—it makes devices and operating systems, and so can mesh those things together far better than other companies. But Apple doesn’t do this in gaming.
An excellent point. More recently I had the opinion Nintendo should go the Sega route but I’m starting to move in Craig’s direction.
(Small logistical note: This is my last post before I head off to vacation through September 3rd. I’ll try to drop in with a few minor link posts, but expect content to slow during this period.)
07.25.12 |
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John Siracusa just posted his (canonical?) review of Mountain Lion to Ars Technica twenty minutes ago. Based on his past work, it’s going to be exhaustive, amazing, and well worth it for any Mac geek who wants to learn what’s different about the 10.8 release today.
07.10.12 |
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UX designer Juraj Ivan takes a look at what’s new for visuals with iOS 6. Not too happy with some of what’s coming, especially the “new” linen and more forecefully colored navigation bar.
07.02.12 |
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Tech writer Federico Viticci:
Apple will bring more iOS-inspired features to OS X. Or perhaps they will add OS X functionalities to iOS. The point is, in doing so, I have no doubt Apple will consider the unique traits of each platform, and they will develop the features accordingly. But splitting OS X in two just for the sake of easy profits (“It’s an iPad laptop!”) sounds like a step backwards and one towards fragmentation.
Agreed. There’s way too much speculation out there on the “merging” of iOS and Mac OS X. Yet they truly are two different markets with different use cases. Apple is too smart to move in the “one OS” direction that Microsoft has bet on. Both on a technology and consumer expectations level, we’re just not there yet.
06.28.12 |
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The New York Times’ David Segal:
By the standards of retailing, Apple offers above average pay — well above the minimum wage of $7.25 and better than the Gap, though slightly less than Lululemon, the yoga and athletic apparel chain, where sales staff earn about $12 an hour. The company also offers very good benefits for a retailer, including health care, 401(k) contributions and the chance to buy company stock, as well as Apple products, at a discount.
But Apple is not selling polo shirts or yoga pants. Divide revenue by total number of employees and you find that last year, each Apple store employee — that includes non-sales staff like technicians and people stocking shelves — brought in $473,000.
“These are sales rates for a consulting company,” said Horace Dediu, an analyst who blogged about the calculation on the site Asymco. Electronics and appliance stores typically post $206,000 in revenue per employee, according to the latest figures from the National Retail Federation.
Excellent article. It’s pleasing to see how treating your customers like decent human beings can double revenue per employee. Yet, as the article suggests, a lot more could be done for Apple Store employees. This problem is really more political than technical; Apple is far from alone on keeping their employee wages fairly low. Yet as with the Foxconn workers, I hold Apple to a higher standard. They can do more
06.19.12 |
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Exhibit A that “all content on a single scrollable page” is a huge web trend: Apple’s iOS6 preview page. Great layout and typographic hierarchy here.
06.14.12 |
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Tim Stevens likes it, but there’s a problem:
The primary Apple apps — Safari, Mail, the address book, etc. — have all been tweaked to make use of all these wonderful pixels. Sadly, little else has. While we got assurances that third-party apps like Adobe Photoshop and AutoCAD are in the process of being refined, right now, seemingly every third-party app on the Mac looks terrible.
Yes, terrible. Unlike a PC, where getting a higher-res display just means tinier buttons to click on, here OS X is actively scaling things up so that they maintain their size. This means that non-optimized apps, which would otherwise be displayed as tiny things, instead are displayed in their normal physical dimensions with blurry, muddy edges.
This is a serious issue, one I hope Apple makes easily correctable for Mac developers. A even bigger issue is web imagery; i’m seeing many designers on my Twitter feed complain about the sharpness of web images up against well defined text.
06.12.12 |
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There are many (too many) tech articles that summarize this year’s WWDC keynote news. If you read only one, check out The Wirecutter roundup first. All killer, no filler.