On MacSparky:
How many times a day do you use your iPhone?
Whatever the maximum amount is.. I’m +1 on that.
Aren’t we all, Michael? Aren’t we all?
Idsgn’s August Design Roundup →
Nice roundup of some notable design sites, articles, and other miscellany from last month. The 7-minute episode on Typography by PBS Arts is definitely worth watching.
The B&B Podcast, Episode 25: WhaatsAaaapp? →
A fun show with Ben and I as we unknowingly talked about the Amazon Kindle tablet just a few hours before MG Siegler posted his scoop.
Seth Godin: The Shower of Data →
What happens when something goes from scarce to surplus.
Put This On: Season Two on Kickstarter →
Put This On is one of the best things on the Internet. I’m backing season 2 — which promises to be significantly more exciting than season 1 — and you should, too.
[Sponsor] Saver: The Easiest Way to Track Your Expenses →
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Garrett Murray’s Sweet Mac Setup
Who are you, what do you do, etc…?
I’m Garrett Murray. I’m the Founder and Creative Director of Karbon, where we design & build awesome, award-winning iOS applications. We’ve worked with Google, Yelp, Condé Nast and ING Direct, among others.
I’m also an actor and an award-winning filmmaker. You may remember me from Forever’s Not So Long or Maniacal Rage TV.
What is your current setup?
My primary machine is a 2011 Thunderbolt 27-inch iMac with 16GB of RAM and the SSD+HDD option (250GB/1TB respectively). It’s the best computer I’ve ever owned — it has only one cable, it’s beautiful, and most importantly, it’s amazingly, mind-blowingly fast. I use the standard peripheral fare (Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, Wireless Keyboard), and I play music at my desk through Bowers & Wilkins MM-1 speakers. Everything rests on a Herman Miller Airia desk and I sit in a Herman Miller Mirra chair. When not at my desk, I use a 13-inch MacBook Air.
In the office I’ve got a nice comfortable couch (that folds down to double as sleeping room for guests), dimmable lighting via a floor lamp and a cube lamp (that also doubles as a table for the couch), as well as a book shelf with all my various testing iOS/other devices, a wireless printer, and my FW800 Drobo. My wife and I share this office space so we’ve also got her desk and Cinema Display, as well as a media center that holds a TV, video games, and a Mac Mini for TV and video streaming.
Why this rig?
I’ve struggled for years to decide whether I want a laptop or a desktop, and this year I finally came to the conclusion I need both. When I’m sitting at my desk, I want a fast, large-screened computer. The iMac is that and then some. But when I’m away from the office I want a light, capable machine. Thankfully, the MacBook Air suits those needs very well. These days I basically live off Dropbox, so sharing data between the two computers is trivial.
What software do you use and for what do you use it?
- I design and build iOS applications using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, Xcode, Unretiner and Hues
- I edit photos and video using Adobe Lightroom 3 and Final Cut Pro X
- I develop web stuff using TextMate, CSSEdit and Transmit
- I manage Karbon with GitHub, Basecamp, Campfire, Billings, TestFlight, Fantastical and Dropbox
- I do everything else with Safari, Sparrow, Reeder, iA Writer, Alfred, Skype, CloudApp and Twitter for Mac
I recently reinstalled OS X from scratch and it presented a great opportunity to re-think what I installed. I kept the number of applications far lower than in the past and now my computer is less cluttered and faster.
How does this setup help you do your best creative work?
I spend most of my time these days designing interfaces, so it’s very important that my work space be clean, well-organized and functional. There’s nothing worse for me than trying to make a pixel-perfect UI with a mess in my peripheral vision. I’m a bit obsessive, so order helps me focus. Of course, comfort is also very important. I like to play music while I work, so good speakers are a must. And I tend to spend the last few hours of the day listening to NPR while catching up on email and project management. It’s nice to be able to dim the lights in the evening and relax while closing out the day or working late.
When we moved to LA, we decided to make the larger bedroom a shared office, so now my wife and I can work in the same space and interact more during the day. That in addition to Campfire chat with the Karbon guys makes working from home feel surprisingly social.
Being surrounded by vibrant colors, art and prints, comfortable furniture — it all helps fuel my creativity. Whenever I’m stuck, I can usually look around the office and find some color or design element that will inspire an idea.
And it doesn’t hurt that the iMac is a fantastic beast.
How would your ideal setup look and function?
Honestly, this is very close to my ideal setup and to how I imagine working for several years to come.
My pipe dream is an iMac with an external slot for an SSD drive and a MacBook Air with the same feature, so I could simply move one single drive between them easily. That would cut down on data duplication and make it effortless to work with either machine at any time. Thankfully, until that exists, there’s Dropbox and iCloud.
A 35-inch display might be nice, too. My eyes aren’t what they used to be.
More Sweet Setups
Garrett’s setup is just one in a series of sweet Mac Setups.
Wren in Full-Screen Mode →
Who says full-screen mode has to mean “use up the whole screen even if you have nothing to put there”?
“The Entire Personal Computing Industry is Aligned With His Vision.” →
Great piece by Dr. Drang on the legacy of Steve Jobs:
> In a sense, you’re using a Steve Jobs product whether it has an Apple logo or not.
([Via Viticci.](https://twitter.com/#!/viticci/status/109445231929327617))
August Recap
In the tech industry August is usually a slow month. This year we saw a slew of new product launches as well as some historically significant industry news.
Here is a look at some of the highlights and notable moments of the month.
August 1: iCloud Web Beta.
August 1: Apple TV software update 4.3 adds support for accessing previously purchased TV shows.
August 1: Adobe launches Adobe Edge
August 2: Push Pop Press acquired by Facebook.
August 8: Apple briefly passes Exxon Mobile as the most valuable company in the world.
August 10: Amazon’s Kindle Cloud Reader.
August 11:The Last Rocket.
August 14: Elements 2.0.
August 14: Adobe launches Muse.
August 15: Google buys Motorola.
August 17: AT&T announces new text-messaging plans.
August 18: HP acquires Autonomy, decides to spin off its PC business, and ceases support of webOS devices.
August 19: HP TouchPads go on sale for $99, nerds everywhere gobble them up.
August 22: Glassboard.
August 24: Steve Jobs resigns as Apple CEO, becomes Chairman of the Board, and is succeeded by Tim Cook.
August 30: HP announces they will make a few more TouchPads to fulfill the final unmet demand. Seriously?
August 31: The U.S. Government sues to block AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile.
August 31: And just before the buzzer, someone, once again, seems to have lost an iPhone 5 prototype at a bar.
Do I Need to Know How to Code? →
Frank Chimero:
The mental leap in coding HTML and CSS is to learn the particular tags necessary to define the structure, hierarchy, and aesthetics. My belief is that learning them is a short step if a designer already understands typographic hierarchy, knows nesting relationships from producing outlines, and grasps separating aesthetics from structure by way of Styles in other software.
Over the years I have refused to allow myself to use a default WordPress theme or to hire an outside designer or developer to work on my site. If there is a certain look, design element, or functionality that I want but which I don’t know how to implement, then I will search out and learn how to do so.
Sure, some people have absolutely no desire to do design work or to learn to code because it’s simply not in the cards them. But for those of you who do think you could learn to code, I think the most important pre-requisite is curiosity.
Actually, that pretty much goes for any venture in life. You can do whatever you set your mind to.
The Future of Technology
The future of technology is this: extreme usability coupled with extreme simplicity.
The more we learn about technology — and the more we learn about ourselves — the more we discover and realize how technology can serve us best and make our lives better. As the industry progresses we grow in our understanding of how to make things more usable and simple.
Technology wants to be usable and simple. This is the natural path it will take. It is a rocky road, but an inevitable one. Inevitable for two reasons: (1) the industry will learn how to build more usable devices (both hardware and software); and (2) as users living in a digital age, we will learn how better to use the technology around us. From the development aspect and from the user aspect, technology is sure to become more usable and more simple.
But there is a third element that is not a surety in the future of tech. And that is emotion. Or: a device that delights.
We know that delight matters because there is a market for Ferraris. And even soda pop. If the utility and practicality of an item was all that mattered, then people would only ever drive Honda Accords and drink water. The function of a Ferrari is the same as a Honda: get the driver from point A to point B. However, a Ferrari gets you there with a bit more delight than the Accord. Likewise, a Coke tastes better than a glass of water even though it has no nutritional value.
And so, as the future of technology marches on toward increased usability and increased simplicity, the successes and breakthroughs will be marked by those who also imagined ways to incorporate delight into their products.
It’s Not Over
It was a sad moment when HP killed the TouchPad. I know that many of us, myself included, were hopeful and expectant about the future of webOS. Though the TouchPad’s hardware was left wanting (and some claim that it was the hardware itself that hindered webOS’s performance), the software of webOS 3.0 was clearly showing signs of potential.
When HP made the decision to cease their support of webOS devices and to have a national fire sale of all their TouchPads, many people claimed that the tablet race was officially over. With HP throwing in the towel and no other worthy contender in sight, then it meant Apple had won. K.O.
And maybe that’s true. Maybe the iPad will never be beat. Perhaps it will be the king of the hill for the next 20 years and set the standard for where personal computing is going. And, in a way, I think it is true.
Though where personal computing is going is not the iPad as we know it today, nor the competition that Apple is facing today. The mobile computing industry of tablets and smartphones is still in its infancy. Even the PC industry could still be considered young by comparison to its peer markets. PCs are just a few decades old — younger than some of you reading this paragraph.
Almost 30 years ago, the revolutionary Macintosh looked like this:
Today:
In the past 30 years computers have evolved to become significantly more simple, more affordable, more powerful, and more usable. We now have beautiful displays with graphical user interfaces, improved mouse and trackpad technology, and connectivity through the Internet.
After all the maturing computers have done in the past 30 years, imagine what they will look like in another 30 years. If they even exist as we know them today…
Now imagine what tablets and smartphones will look like in 30 years. We have no idea.
In 2007 the iPhone changed everything. Now there is a new game and a new industry of smart phones and mobile computing. But it is by no means in its final state. Those familiar with the iPhone and iOS can instantly spot the advancements between the first iPhone and its operating system and the ones we use today. Someone just coming in, however, — especially if they are not tech savvy — wouldn’t see much of a difference. There is still much to improve upon, much to innovate, and much to invent.
I think that Apple is just now finishing the first step of what it began in 2007. I think that the past four and half years have been one single, epic product rollout for Apple.
The iPhone, iCloud, iPad, iTunes, OS X Lion, Apple TV, and the MacBook Air are, in a way, one single product. And they are today’s quintessential example of technology that is extremely usable, extremely simple, and evokes great delight.
This next season of Apple product releases will mean the drying of the cement that is the foundation for where Apple is headed. The sky will be the limit.
As innovation and adaptation advance we will no doubt see an increase in usefulness and simplicity across all technological markets and industries. The race is no longer about who can make the most useful product. Now the race is about who can make the most delightful product at the most affordable cost.
Apple knows this. It’s why they’re not afraid to cannibalize their own products. It’s why we’re seeing the amalgamation of OS X and iOS. It’s why the iPhone and the iPad are so wildly successful. It’s why the Apple developer community is thriving — because others get it too.
But even Apple — though they are closer than anyone else — isn’t there yet. Nobody is. There is still a long and bright road ahead.
Helvetindex Cards →
A dream come true for users of index cards.
Sweet App: Hues for Mac
This Sweet App review is the first in a new type of post I’ll be writing for the site: short, mini-reviews of apps that come across my path. I’ve had it in my head that the only valid software reviews I shall ever publish to shawnblanc.net are ones which exceed 3,000 words. Moreover, I shall only write about apps which have become an integral part of my day-to-day computing life.
Well, that’s baloney. What about the apps I like but which don’t change my life? What about the apps I want to talk about but don’t have 3,000 words for? The weekly Sweet App review is the answer to these conundrums. Enjoy.
Hues
Hues is a simple and useful color finding tool for your Mac. I came across this app when its developer, Zach Waugh, emailed me to let me know about it.
I like Hues because it has the familiarity of the built-in OS X color-picker tool, yet it with a few special modifications of its own:
- It gives you the HEX, RGP, and HSL values for any color you pick. Since I design live in a browser having a light-weight app that helps me find colors and their HEX values is super helpful. I’m embarrassed to admit that used to launch Photoshop for the sole purpose of finding a color I liked and copying its HEX value. Needless to say, Hues is much more economical for that purpose than Photoshop is.
- It has 5 rows for saved swatches instead of one. (Update: news to me is that if you click and drag the little dot underneath the swatch palette you can adjust how many rows of saved swatches are visible.)
- In the app’s preferences you have the ability to remove any of the color pickers from the toolbar that you don’t use. I, for instance, only ever use the color wheel, so I removed the Sliders, the Palettes, and the Crayons.
- It works, looks, and feels just like the native color picker, just better.