Here’s a cool and informative paper-letter animation about the history of fonts and typography.

Apparently money does not buy happiness because those birds are still angry.

Explaining App.net is actually a bit difficult. It’s like Twitter, but different. Here my friend, Jim Ray, does a good job conveying that a big part of what makes ADN different isn’t so much in what it does differently or similarly compared to Twitter, rather it’s in the attitude and the conversations that take place there.

Four great points from Dan Frommer, especially this one:

Anyone under the impression that old, simple problems — like accessing the weather — have already been “solved” is nuts. “Do we really need another weather app?” Actually, if it’s better, we do. Imagine if they’d stopped making new search engines after HotBot or new smartphones after the Samsung BlackJack.

And speaking of the Yahoo weather app, it really is incredible. I submitted a few of my Kansas City, MO and Castle Rock, CO photos to the Flickr group. Who knows, if you’re checking the weather in one of those spots, perhaps you’ll see my shot in the background. And something cool I learned: they don’t just pick random images every time you load the weather for a city. They are tagging the images with what type of weather they depict, and then try to show an image which matches what the current weather is. Pretty clever.

John Moltz, writing for Macworld:

So, while we might be flying blind right now, don’t assume that means Apple has nothing planned. And don’t assume that what is planned is anything you’ve heard as a rumor.

Fantastic article by Frank Chimero on the nature of problems and thoughts on solving them.

(By way of Cameron Moll, who added a fantastic quote from Neil Postman which you really should click through and read.)

I love this bit from Michael Lewis’ profile of Obama in Vanity Fair in which Obama gives Lewis some practical advice for a hypothetical situation that in 30 minutes they would switch roles and Lewis would become president of the United States:

You also need to remove from your life the day-to-day problems that absorb most people for meaningful parts of their day. “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits,” [Obama] said. “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.” He mentioned research that shows the simple act of making decisions degrades one’s ability to make further decisions. It’s why shopping is so exhausting. “You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can’t be going through the day distracted by trivia.” The self-discipline he believes is required to do the job well comes at a high price. “You can’t wander around,” he said. “It’s much harder to be surprised. You don’t have those moments of serendipity. You don’t bump into a friend in a restaurant you haven’t seen in years. The loss of anonymity and the loss of surprise is an unnatural state. You adapt to it, but you don’t get used to it—at least I don’t.”

Great piece by Paul Stamatiou on cutting out superfluous things in our lives simply to make some breathing room. I am a huge proponent of this mindset and lifestyle. One of the best pieces I’ve read along these lines was this article by Tony Schwartz for the Harvard Business Review on how automating (or eliminating) the inconsequential decisions of our day helps us to think clearer.

Jerry Seinfeld talked to Steve Inskeep about coffee and his awesome internet show, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, which is one of my favorite things ever:

After a lifetime in formal show business, I kind of had a theory that if you remove the structures of show business — the studio, the makeup, the microphone, the can we get you something to drink, the chair that you’re screwed into — if you remove that, you’ll get a different tone, a different dialogue. I wanted to get the dialogue that when you’re standing on the sidewalk and you’re kicking the curb and you’re with a friend and neither of you really wants to go home and you’re just standing there talking. That conversation, I thought, that’s a ‘talk show’ that I’d like to try and see if I can get that in a bottle.

(Thanks, Ben!)

Feed Wrangler is a brand new RSS service from my pal, David Smith. It’s $19/year and comes with a free universal iOS app. An OS X client is on the way and a full-featured API will be opened up in the next few weeks to allow 3rd-party devs to build their own Feed Wrangler apps.

I’ve been using the beta version of Feed Wrangler for the past month, and I love the underpinning functionality and goals for Feed Wrangler.

Federico Viticci wrote a review, and I agree with every word. Especially this bit:

Of all the Google Reader alternatives I’ve been trying, Feed Wrangler struck me as the one with a clear vision, some unique features, a reliable engine, and a simple business model…

It’s difficult moving from Google Reader’s familiar service and (unofficial) 3rd-party apps and going to a completely new service that’s less familiar, less mature, and a little bit rough around the edges. But Feed Wrangler’s Read Later integration and the Smart Stream versatility are exactly the sort of forward-thinking innovation I hope we’re going to see more of in a post-Google Reader world.

Rumor is, iOS 7 is getting a noteworthy design overhaul. And 9to5 Mac says it’s going to look “very, very flat”.

[T]he interface loses all signs of gloss, shine, and skeuomorphism seen across current and past versions of iOS. Another source framed the new OS as having a level of “flatness” approaching recent releases of Microsoft’s Windows Phone “Metro” UI.

When I think of some of the apps on my iPhone that have a “flat” design feel to them — apps without gloss, shine, or heavy skeuomorphism — I think of Twitterrific, Letterpress, and Day One. I consider these to be some of the most well-designed apps on the iPhone. If that’s the direction iOS 7 is going then I welcome the change.

A more “flat” design aesthetic doesn’t mean having to give up playfulness, whimsy, and personality.

Arrive in the office, make a cup of coffee, open up your email, and turn up your favorite song. We know how it goes.

Check out Steven Jengo’s new single, Summer of 2042.

Fresh tunes with a softly different touch; with that kind of familiar sound, simple and melodic, deep and lazy, freshly brewed for your listening pleasure.

Take care when driving at high volume. Find more at jengo.com.

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My thanks to Steven Jengo for sponsoring the RSS feed this week. Sponsorship by The Syndicate.

Trevor McKendrick:

I released my first app one year ago yesterday. It started as a small side project with the explicit goal of paying my rent.

As of yesterday it’s done $73,034 in net revenue, after Apple’s cut.

I’m a sucker for stories like this. Especially ones where the focus is on success through shipping and iterating — something I could use a reminder about every now and then.

(Via John Moltz and Harry Marks.)

A excellent guest post on 512 Pixels by Matt Alexander. Reminds me of a piece I wrote last year before heading out to Macworld.