One of my favorite Apple product announcements happened on September 7, 2005. In an Apple music event announcement, Steve Jobs got on stage, gave the usual state of the business update, and then he did something I’d never seen before. He killed a wildly successful product. The iPod Mini was one of the most popular… more
There’s been lots of buzz on the topic of whether or not you should learn to code. As an engineer, I don’t have unbiased thoughts on the matter. I tweeted Jeff Atwood’s piece because, well, I agree that it’s pretty silly to think that the world is going to be a better place if the… more
You wake up in a small, enclosed glass cube. There’s a bed, a toilet, a radio playing music, and other bare essentials, but no door. You have no idea why you are here or what’s going on. After a few minutes of looking around your tiny space, a calm yet creepy electronic voice begins speaking.… more
April 2012 represents the 10th anniversary of Rands in Repose. I don’t normally celebrate these occasions, but serendipity has given me something to talk about. As you might have noticed, I’ve recently made a few design changes to the site. I’m honored to participate in Hoefler & Frere-Jones private beta for their forthcoming web fonts… more
Back in the early 90s, Borland International was the place to be an engineer. Coming off the purchase of Ashton-Tate, Borland was the third largest software company, but, more importantly, it was a legitimate competitor to Microsoft. Philippe Kahn, the CEO at the time, was fond of motorcycles, saxophones, and brash statements at all-hands meetings:… more
Apple is maintaining a difficult balance with the iPhone and the iPad. On one end, they appear to want to release each product yearly. The first four iPhones were either announced or arrived in early June, until the iPhone 4S was announced in early October with initial shipments two weeks later. So far the iPad… more
I am told that the manner by which others understand that I am busy is when my writing coherence suffers. This primarily occurs in email when whole words are dropped, sentences become jumbled, and logic falls on the floor. Rands, I literally did not understand what you were asking in that email. Poorly written emails… more
My introduction to Scott Berkun was his amazing talk at Webstock 2008 on the Myths of Innovation, based on one of the three books he’s published in the last decade. I remember his talk not only because of the compelling content, but because he eschewed the traditional get-to-know-you slides in his presentation – he jumped… more
A few years ago I wrote a piece that romanticized the state of the sky falling. The article is not about fixing disasters, it’s about preventing them, but no matter how much you prepare, disasters happen. The romance surrounding disasters is history speaking. When the disaster shows up and you see it, no one but… more
For a word that can so vastly change the fortunes of a company, it’s worth noting that no generally accepted definition of the word design exists. This means when your boss stands up in front of the team at that all-hands and says, “We’ll have a design-centered culture,” there’s a good chance he’s saying nothing… more