A great central repository for alternatives to Google Reader. It’s a smart concept: people vote on Twitter for their favorites and the list is generated accordingly, with the most popular options listed at the top. So far I’ve been heavily testing Feedly, with planned later forays into Newsblur and maybe Bloglovin.
The development agency Monterail wrote a cool post recently talking about how great Trello and a Kanban methodology works for project management. I’m not a PM at my current day job, but I’ve found for both my work and personal workflow that Trello is pretty awesome. My usage is so simplistic it’s pretty hard to argue that in my case it’s only a step or two above glorified to-do list, but for me the big difference is the visuals. I can easily see if I’m getting slammed with priorities or what’s left at a glance; I’m never losing context and sight of the big picture.
Cloud based solutions like Dropbox take care of 90% of my cross file sharing between my Macs and my iOS devices. But sometimes I just want to send a quick audio file, video, or pdf to my iPhone. Or there’s a select photo I just took on my iPhone that I want to get to my Mac, and Apple’s iPhoto/Camera Roll workflow is just too slow or cumbersome.
That’s where the new Instashare app works really well. Dead simple UI on your Mac, iOS devices, and as long as the app is open on both sides and you’re on the same wifi (or Bluetooth), you’re good to go. Crazy fast transfer speeds too.
It’s a free download in the App Store, and only a buck to remove ads from the iOS version, a no brainer if you find it at all useful.
Interesting take on the Surface tablet from Penny Arcade illustrator Mike Krahulik. Overall, as a multifunctional computer that is both a relatively slick, pressure sensitive sketch device along with baseline gaming device, he liked it.
Core gamers had high expectations on this week’s PS4 keynote and for good reason: it’s been seven years since the XBox 360 launch, the longest gap ever between game console generations. But gaming has been redefined by social media, mobile games on smartphones and tablets, along with a resurgence in PC gaming on Steam. Can consoles placate core gamers while still bringing a more mainstream audience into the fold?
In light of this challenge, Sony did a great job this week addressing the core fan base, but there’s some unanswered questions and problems with their approach for the overall public.
Let’s start with Sony’s core audience. It’s a smaller group than seven years ago, but it’s still important. You want a strong base of early console adopters for that first “lean year” when there’s fewer release titles and developers are still grappling with how to program effectively on the device. Overall, Sony appears to have learned from the major mistakes they made with the PS3: system updates, a major PS3 annoyance, will be taken care of in the background. With 8 GB of fast RAM and a x86 processor, development should be easier than on the PS3 Cell chip. The PS4 incorporates streaming technology for quick demos and live spectating on friends games, an innovation a lot of the hard core audience wants and will actively use to share clips on Facebook, YouTube and other social media. Add in flashy demos from big traditional gaming houses (e.g. Activision, Ubisoft, Square Enix), combined with two huge newcomers (Bungie, Blizzard) makes for a strong showing for those already sold on traditional console gaming.
But there was a troubling amount of PS4 content that felt very much like something we saw back in 2005 but with much flashier graphics. Did Sony really have to open their gameplay demos with a six minute clip from another, tired first person sci-fi shooter? Why were there so many game demos sequels or small variants of existing IPs?
I think the biggest area Sony and Microsoft have to address is a very potent middle tier gaming market comprised of mostly smaller, indie developers who would price content generally in that $5 to $40 sweet spot that neither iOS or AAA game publishers generally cover. Granted, Sony’s PSN has a few much lauded indie titles (e.g. Journey, Limbo), and the PS4 nabbed acclaimed Braid developer Jonathan Blow for The Witness. The PS4 keynote even opened up with Sony’s Andrew House stating “PSN supports free to play” right off the bat. But PSN has a long way to go to match the open nature of Steam or the iOS App Store. A healthy indie market would give Sony the diversity it needs much more than just a console’s expected $60 AAA sports and shooter games. Imagine a big library of accessible casual games you could easily find and download for a few bucks each on PSN – much larger and more diverse than what we see today. It would be more than what you’d pay for your average iPad game (who’s race to the bottom market has effectively killed off games north of $3), but in return you get exponentially more engrossing graphics and gameplay depth.
I’m also concerned about the price tag on this device. There’s a lot of expensive sounding hardware and features, including a DualShock 4 that clearly took the kitchen sink approach (touch screen, movement tracking, headphone jack) without justifying a “why” behind it. Anything much more than $400 for the base console I think is dangerous territory for the holiday 2013 launch.
While you can’t place final bets until at least a year from now, Sony has clearly evolved from its last place PS3 finish in the previous round of console wars. But even with that correction, the PS4 could languish by failing to address the very different, mobile friendly gaming landscape of 2013.
Sacha Grief is already a designer I’ve kept my eye on for a while – prolific on Twitter, creator of the amazing Sidebar – but he’s outdone himself with this very long post on the future of web and app design. Loved this line:
When you have a high-definition display and screen-optimized fonts, you quickly realize you don’t need much else to create beautiful work.
As I’ve noted previously here, a great design and development working relationship is essential. Developer Derrick Ko writes a great post on how to make that possible:
Plan your sprints with both engineering and design present. Give both sides a chance to be heard when deciding the priority of upcoming feature work. There’s a lot less friction when the team understands the tradeoffs at play.
Once things are prioritized, stick to it.
This article by The Verge‘s Laura June has gotten a lot of buzz online, and deservedly so. There’s so many bits of information I had no idea about (pinball was banned in NYC until 1974?!). The page layout is stellar as well, with pull quotes in big typography against a parallax-style background.
Every few episodes the Iterate podcast team add an extended roundtable discussion to the mix with generally great results. No exception here: host Rene Ritchie gathers a mix of mobile app developers to predict where the iOS and Android app economy will shift in the long run.
Legendary photographer Steve McCurry (probably best known for his National Geographic ‘Afghan Girl’ shot) was given the last roll of Kodachrome film ever produced. He took a trip around the world to shoot those last 36 frames.
If there’s any sign of technology’s rapid progress, it’s in the switch in photography (and now film) from analog to digital. But McCurry’s shots highlighted here – from New York to India – are powerful, and still illustrate the warmth of ‘real’ film that will be gone forever.