This is pretty darn slick. (Via Phil Coffman and Cameron Moll.)
Linked
Link Posts
The condescending UI →
Paul Miller, on The Verge:
My problem with many modern UIs is that they never get past the telling phase. They’re always dressing up their various functions with glows and bevels and curves, and in the process they somehow become overbearing to my senses. “Did you know you can click this? Don’t forget there’s a save button over here! Let me walk you to your control panel.” Imagine a car that verbally explains all of its various knobs and levers the first time you get into the car. Wonderful, right? Now imagine that car explaining all of these various functions every single time you get in the car for the next five years, until you finally snap and drive it off a cliff.
I’ve never been bothered by the animation of a window minimizing into the Dock, but the new UI of Address Book drives me bonkers. Not only is it ugly, but worse, it is far less usable. There is surely a market for a “Address Book Pro” that harkens to the app of yesteryear and allows us to manage our contacts once again.
Stuff →
Speaking of simplicity, this essay from Paul Graham is right along the same lines as Matt wrote about. Graham’s article is (as always) a great read and definitely worth coming back to once and a while.
Simplicity →
A great piece by Matt Gemmell (whose writing has been on fire lately):
Above all, I enjoy simplicity. I’m willing to pay more, and do more, to get it.
Bring a Trailer →
The guys behind this website find and feature great vintage cars that are for sale around the country so you don’t have to scour eBay. It’s a fun site even if your not in the market for a “Barn find, rally car, or needle in the haystack”. (Thanks, Randy.)
Dave Caolo: What’s new in iBooks 1.5 →
Finally! A light-on-dark color scheme for low-light reading. (But seriously. Finally.) Also, full-screen mode gets rid of the illustrated fake book pages on the right-hand side of the screen.
Kid History →
How Thunderbolt Devices Affect Each Other When Daisy Chained →
James Galbraith, the lab director at Macworld, did an ultra-nerdy analysis of read/write speeds for different external drives when daisy chained via Thunderbolt in various patterns and with or without additional displays attached.
No Choice? →
Seth Godin:
Remarkable work often comes from making choices when everyone else feels as though there is no choice.
On Kickstarter: iPen Is a New Type of iPad Stylus →
For those who’ve really been itching for a great stylus for their iPad, this may be it.
While I don’t agree with their opening statement that the iPen “transforms the iPad into a content creation device, not just a content consumption device”, this is the first iPad stylus I’ve seen that uses new technology to ignore touch input from your palm when writing with the iPen. Though, worth noting, is that it only works with certain apps right now — it won’t work with any and every iPad app.
In Defense of Connect and Discover →
Sean Sperte:
Are the connect and discover labels really going to stop people from tapping on them? If anything, I’d argue that they do the opposite. If “Find” were used (along with the traditional magnifying glass icon), it’s likely some users would just skip that tab on their first experience of the app. They would assume they knew what the tab includes.
The B&B Podcast, Episode 37: It’s Old School, Bro →
I’ll give you one guess as to what Ben and I talked about this week.
And this month’s fine sponsor, Instacast, is doing a giveaway. Check out the show notes for details.
John Gruber on The New Twitter →
This article by John Gruber about the new Twitter for iPhone app design expresses my thoughts almost exactly. I too switched to Tweetbot in April of this year and so the new design doesn’t bug me so much because I don’t use Twitter for iPhone. However, the new design also says a lot about the direction Twitter as a company is going. And that is what’s interesting.
Oliver Reichenstein on The New Twitter →
Oliver Reichenstein:
The problem I can see from outside is that the management set requirements that were impossible to solve.