Drew Breunig:

But when Ford launched Model T, […] one manufacturer dominated an industry where 75 had previously thrived.

(Via Michael Mulvey.)

Agreed. Once you’ve spent any time at all typing with one of the custom keyboards found in apps like Writing Kit, iA Writer, and Byword the default keyboard begins to feel a bit antiquated. Heck, I’d love it if we just had left and right arrow buttons.

Speaking of which, in Writing Kit the left and right margins of the app are tap targets to move the cursor to the left or right, respectively. This is a feature that first appeared in the app, Writings. And it’s akin to Pull to Refresh, in that it instantly feels natural and once you’ve used it you notice that it’s missing in every other app.

Nicholas Coldicutt recounts his trip to Irukaya, Hiroshi Kiyota’s coffee café in Tokyo, where you are allowed in only with a reservation, no groups larger than 2 are permitted, and anyone who uses a cell phone, smokes a cigarette, or talks to Kiyota while he’s making coffee is asked to leave.

(Thanks, Jorge.)

So long as we’re on the topic of wonderful and old tools, here’s a piece from the shawnblanc.net archives.

C.W. Gusewelle, writing for The Kansas City Star from his typewriter:

I scarcely can express what pure joy it is to return — if only temporarily — to the instrument upon which I depended for the first 30 years of my working life.

Let’s face it, we’re heading into the worst time of year for getting work done. Everyone is getting ready for [insert holiday of choice here].

It seems like Janice is always out of the office. Bob’s coming in late every day. And if Kelly sings [insert holiday song of choice here] one more time, you’re going to go insane. But you can’t work from home — your shared drive is locked down and your VPN is just. so. slow.

This holiday season, ask your boss for a cloud-based collaboration platform. You’ll be able to securely work from home and your coworkers will love the built-in social tools. They can share updates about what they’re working on, and you can ignore the cat videos. Your boss will love your increased productivity.

‘Tis the season for an intranet you’ll actually like. Try Igloo.

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My thanks to Igloo Software for sponsoring the RSS feed this week. Sponsorship by The Syndicate.