iPhone

What to Get for That Nerdy, Design-Savvy, Coffee-Loving, Snowboarding, Person in Your Life

Nerds are hard to shop for. We know precisely what we want, but we’re curiously passive about letting you know. Instead, we want you to know what we want without us having to say anything. Furthermore, the trick to being a great gift giver is to get someone the thing that they didn’t even know they wanted until they open it. Therefore, you’ll find below a list of gadgets, trinkets, and power tools.1

Except for that iPhone dock you see below, and the classic thermos, I own and use everything on this list. Each of these are great gifts, and I’d be proud to give any one of them to my other nerdy, design-savvy, coffee-loving, snowboarding friends or family members.

Nerdy

Nerdy Stuff

  1. Wooden Log iPhone Docking Station: $68

  2. Twelve South BookArc: $50

  3. Star Trek (2009 DVD): $21

  4. Media Temple Web Hosting: $100

Design-Savvy

Design-Savvy

  1. Pilot 0.40mm Gel Pen: $16 / dozen

  2. Levenger Circa Notebooks

  3. 1-Year Subscription to HOW Magazine: $30

  4. Field Notes Colors Subscription: $129

  5. Gotham Typeface: $199

Coffee-Loving

Coffee-Loving

  1. Chemex Coffee Maker and Filters: $50

  2. A few pounds of Peets: $15

  3. Stanley Classic Thermos: $34

  4. Breville Conical Burr Grinder: $100

Snowboarding

Snowboarding

  1. Ride Concept Snowboard: $750

  2. Burton Lifeline Snowboard Mitt in Mocha: $80

  3. Spy: Zoe Black Gloss Sunglasses: $140

Miscellaneous Stocking Stuffers

Miscellaneous Stocking Stuffers

  1. The Little Red Writing Book: $10

  2. J Crew Magic Wallet: $22

  3. Dewalt Heavy-Duty Compound Miter Saw: $210

  4. J Crew Argyle Socks: $15

  5. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations: $32

  6. Ticket to Ride: $38

  7. WoodWick Candle: $15

  1. This list may also come in handy if you end up getting one of those Snuggie blankets with sleeves and after you’ve returned it don’t know where to spend the money. ↵
What to Get for That Nerdy, Design-Savvy, Coffee-Loving, Snowboarding, Person in Your Life

Tweetie 2.0  →

What Loren has done in his design of Tweetie 2 is similar to what many of the best authors do in their writing. Some authors lay out plainly points 1, 2, 3, and 4, so we, the readers, are sure to be with them when they reach the height of point 5.

But, in my estimation, only the best writers have the skill to skip 2 and 4 while still bringing us to 5 — their prose alludes to the missing pockets of plot just right so that we figure it out on our own. And this they do without us realizing, because though we were actually led by the writer, we feel like smarter readers.

It is in this regard that software developers are not unlike writers. But instead of a plot they have a feature set, and instead of prose, a UI. The developer can lay out the whole of their feature set before the user with menus, sub-menus, and more. Or they can hide pieces of it hoping that each feature will be discovered, but knowing that perhaps they won’t.

But ignorance can still be bliss, because in my book a simple, well-written application that delights is far better than a feature-rich one which overwhelms. And this is why Tweetie 2 is not just my favorite Twitter application on any platform, period, it may also just be my favorite iPhone app.

Tweetie 2.0

“Luck. Quality. Marketing.” [iTunes Link]  →

Nice and lighthearted presentation by Loren Brichter on the success of Tweetie for iPhone at Stanford’s iPhone app class. When one of the students asks about charging for upgrades, Loren answers:

You actual can’t charge for upgrades. It’s something I’ve been talking to Apple about. Right now all the point-upgrades have been free, but if you want to charge for an upgrade you have to release a whole new app.

And there’s no upgrade path for people, which stinks. Cuz I would like to release Tweetie 2 and charge ninety-nine cents for it. But either I release it completely for free and don’t make any money, or charge $2.99 for everyone.

That was six months ago.

“Luck. Quality. Marketing.” [iTunes Link]