A fantastic, comprehensive, and thoughtful article on the iOS and Mac App Stores by Federico Viticci. He talked with many 3rd-party devs and writes about the past and present state of the App Stores. This is the sort of smart and in-depth piece you’d expect to find in Wired or The New York Times.

Shane Richmond, in his interview with Jonathan Ive, asks if he were to be remembered for just one of his Apple designs which one he would pick. Ive answers:

[W]hat we’re working on now feels like the most important and the best work we’ve done, and so it would be what we’re working on right now, which of course I can’t tell you about.

(Via Jim Dalrymple.)

John Gruber:

For the sake of argument let’s take it as a given that the next iPhone will sport an 1136 × 640 display, with the same 326 pixels-per-inch resolution as the iPhone 4 and 4S, the same width, but an extra 176 pixels in height, changing the aspect ratio from 3:2 to 16:9.

Let’s further assume that this new iPhone will not be announced until later this year, say, around October, just like the 4S last year. How might Apple get developers on the right track to support a new aspect ratio at WWDC next month while maintaining their standard radio silence regarding as-yet-unannounced products?

Ben and I, while recording The B&B Podcast live, were in the middle of talking about this exact issue when John posted his article. Ben doesn’t think there will be a bigger-screened iPhone this year, and I’m skeptical about it but, as John says, there’s an awful lot of smoke for there not to be fire.

Stills from The Avengers showcasing some of the User Interfaces that Jayse Hansen designed for the glass screens on the Helicarier and the visuals Tony Stark had in his new and upgraded Iron Man suit.

Reminds me of the UI design work for Tron Legacy, in that both were done with great skill and care and both played a huge role in making the film seem more realistic.

Glad I’m not the only one who was thinking this while watching the movie. (Via John Moltz.)

And in additional science-fiction economic nerdery, have you read about how much it would cost to build the Death Star?

Joey Devilla points out that, according to StatCounter, Chrome just overtook IE as the world’s most-used browser. Here at shawnblanc.net headquarters we use Safari. (Via Jonathan Christopher.)

A way to link to a specific part of a YouTube video:

WAIT… CAN’T I DO THIS MYSELF BY ADDING THAT BIT AT THE END?
Yup.

THEN WHY IS THIS HERE?
A) Not everyone knows about it yet, B) even if they do, they forget how to do it, and C) laziness.

It’s funny in this case, but great inventions, products, and services are often born out of a desire to help with forgetfulness and/or laziness. See also this chart: Geeks and Repetitive Tasks.

Horace Dediu:

[C]apital spending has provided reliable foreshadowing of iOS device production. This is itself because Apple invests in the equipment used in the manufacturing processes for its devices. The more spending on equipment, the more production capacity is brought to bear and the more units are produced. Since iOS devices tend to be supply constrained, the more units are produced then the more are sold.

It’s one thing to have a hot product, it’s another thing to be able to (mostly) keep up with such high demand while also turning a crazy profit.

The pieces are in place for continuing the existing rate of growth.

Success breeds success. And in this case, the more successful Apple is the more successful they can continue to be.

Marco Arment was a guest for the latest episode of On The Verge. I enjoyed the whole 20-minute segment but I have to say that it gets especially great when Marco and Joshua start bantering about Android and iOS.

And here’s another video interview with Marco from the summer of 2009. He answers a lot of the same questions that come up in On The Verge, but this was back when Marco was still working full-time as the lead developer at Tumblr, there was no Instapaper for iPad (because, you know, there was no iPad).

While you hold your breath for Coda 2 and Diet Coda, here’s a link to my review of Coda 1:

Coda is a text-editing, CSS-styling, WebKit previewing, file-managing, FTPing, terminal-accessing, web-site-building and publishing application for the Macintosh.

And, Coda has no duct tape.

I wrote the Coda review over 4 years ago, and Coda has been my only text editor ever since.

Because, oh, you know, Coda 2 and Diet Coda.

My thanks to JetPens for sponsoring the RSS feed this week. I’ve been buying my pens from these guys for years — they have only the best pens that you can’t find anywhere else.

One-of-a-kind writing instruments and office gear from Japan that you can’t find in your local office store.

Everything from gel pens so fine they can write on a grain of rice to carbon fiber fountain pens.

Free shipping for orders over $25.

Find out what makes Japanese pens so special at www.JetPens.com…it’ll be love at first write!