Here’s a first-look overview of InDesign CS6 by Mike Rankin, based on the public beta. Of the creative suite apps, InDesign is perhaps my favorite and the CS6 update looks like it brings a lot of great new features. It’s not just for print-design anymore (well, it hasn’t been since CS5).

Adobe Creative Suite 6 is now available. The Photoshop CS6 beta has been out for a while, and I have yet to read or hear one negative thing about it.

I’m still rocking CS3 Design Standard from my previous life as a print designer, and this is the first update to the creative suite family that has me considering an upgrade even though I have no reason to.

If you’re jumping on the “access trumps ownership” bandwagon (cf. Netflix, Rdio), then you may be interested in Creative Cloud. It’s a $50/month subscription service that gives you complete access to the latest version of every app in the Master Collection, as well as a handful of cloud-centric services such as file storage, over-the-air sync, a Typekit subscription, and more.

My thanks to The Escapers for sponsoring the RSS feed this week to promote the just-released version of their web-design app, Flux 4. Flux is both a text editor and a WYSIWYG editor for building and designing web sites.

The hallmark feature of Flux 4 is what’s called FreeCode. FreeCode is the Flux text editor that stays un-touched by the WYSIWYG editor. If you’ve ever done WYSIWYG editing you know how mangled your clean code can get. Flux leaves the code you write intact if you switch between the text and the visual editor. Additional new features include: support for MAP and AREA tags, so you can visually edit image maps, code completion, support for TextMate themes and Coda plugins, an all new FTP/SFTP engine, and more.

Flux is available direct from The Escapers website or via the Mac App Store.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if more companies took cues from Amazon in this regard?

I am continually befuddled at what a company does with all the information I give them between the time their automated system requests it and the time I’m transferred to an actual customer service representative. Usually, the rep asks me all the same questions I just answered.

Perhaps the only thing that worse is when a company spams their own customers.

It’s nearly the same breakdown for me except I have a much higher percentage of apps that I should just delete, and the ones I actually use are also the ones I generally demo (such as Instagram, Launch Center, OmniFocus, and Simplenote).

When I first got an iPad back in 2010 it was Safari that I usually used to show off the device — Showing them a familiar thing (a website) in a new context (9.7-inch touch screen device) was the easiest way for people to instantly get a foundation for how awesome the iPad was. Now that most people I encounter are pretty familiar with the iPhone and iPad, if they don’t own one already, they want to see demos of the apps I use on a regular basis.

Dustin Curtis breaks out all the raw, relevant numbers from Facebook’s most recent S-1 filing.

Ads, duh.

The Wall Street Journal on Facebook’s amendment to their S-1 that they filed yesterday:

Facebook Inc. pulled back the curtain on how much it thinks it is worth, targeting a valuation as rich as $96 billion in what would be a record debut for an American company. […]

Currently, the largest valuation for a U.S. company at the time of an IPO was United Parcel Service, in 1999, at $60.2 billion, according to Dealogic.

Long-time readers of this site know that I have never had an interest in Facebook. I’m not anti-Facebook, I just don’t personally have any desire to have a Facebook profile. Mostly because I see it as being just another time sink. But, as Facebook inches towards going public, I’m getting more and more interested in the network as a company.

Cool video demonstrating a concept for easier granular control of the cursor: swipe left or right across the keyboard to move the cursor respectively, and more.

The tap-and-hold bubble is neat but can be very frustrating and slow at times, especially when trying to fix one letter. In fact, a not-insignificant reason to use a Bluetooth keyboard when doing a lot of typing on the iPad is for easier eding of the text. It’s why all these iOS text-editing apps (Byword, iA Writer, Writing Kit, et al.) have dedicated cursor mover buttons.

Some fascinating charts by Chris Sauve breaking down the market share of the entire tablet market.

This week’s episode of The B&B Podcast Ben and I talk about the Samsung Galaxy S III (which was announced during the show), Paul Miller’s decision to leave the Internet for a year, and thoughts on the ethics of linking to a Kickstarter project which you are not a backer of.

Eric Migicovsky, creator of the latest runaway Kickstarter project, the Pebble smart watch which I’m sure you’ve all heard about by now, shares a little bit of the funding and development story.

I haven’t yet backed the Pebble. If I did it would be for science rather than for my personal desire for the watch. While I do think an iPhone-connected smart watch could be very cool, it would need to be more than a “read-only” device. Other than accessing the Music app, the Pebble can do little more to control your iPhone. It can’t answer your phone calls, reply to your text messages, dismiss a Twitter DM notification, tell you the weather, etc.

The Pebble is certainly on the right track. Their Kickstarter project alone proves that there is a market for watches that connect to our phones. And, the Pebble is useful without a smartphone to connect to as well, due to its built-in functionality and SDK. But for those picking up a Pebble so they can pair it with their iPhone, I can’t help but wonder if the Pebble will prove to be more novelty than utility.