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
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 do this talk called “The Engineer, The Designer, and The Dictator,” and it’s about the things I love. It’s a little bit about the nature of engineers and why I think we might have more power than we deserve. I talk about designers, the creators of art, and how I want the engineers and… more
When it comes to working at your computer, there is only one rule: context switches are horrifically expensive. Let’s talk about the Zone once more. You’re either sitting down with your computer to futz around with something or you’re attempting to get in the Zone. This is that magical place where you’ve managed to fit… more
Hands up if you use Dashboard on Mac OS X. I said hands up. Hello? As for me, I installed Mac OS X Lion, discovered where they shoved Dashboard, and immediately turned it off. Good riddance. Like iChat AV before it, Dashboard was one of those features in Mac OS X that I loved to… more
It is both professionally and personally satisfying to randomly discover that an Apple store is being opened in your home town. This store is 2 doors down from the coffee shop where I’m written most of the significant letters in my life. It is also 25 doors down from the dive bar which serves the… more
HEY YOU. I’m going to be @ WWDC all of next week. If you happen to be there as well, WE SHOULD HANG. Drop me a line and we’ll have a drink.
Around the release of Internet Explorer 4, Microsoft released a new TrueType symbol font called Webdings. The font is collection of symbols, icons, and pictograms and I’ve been using the fonts, even in Mac OS X land, for various tasks for years. Let me get this out of the way right now, I love glyphs.… more
The release of the iChat beta which provides integration with the Windows AIM client has changed the look of my buddy list. I’ve gone from an average of five to ten folks with video conferencing ability to twenty to thirty. At this very moment on a Saturday evening, there are nine folks with available camera… more
I’ve been toying with dock placement on my two desktops for the past few days and have discovered that even with very similar set-ups, I’ve ended up with very different Dock placements. At home, I have two flat panels (20″, 17″). The larger panel is straight in front of me with the smaller being on… more