Jeff Sheldon:
The original idea for the bag started over 2 years ago but it was a long process to finally see the finished product through. Each new product is a learning process and brings on new challenges, but in the end it’s worth the work.
I’m a sucker for behind-the-scenes stories like this.
I’m publishing this week’s episode of The Weekly Briefly a bit early, because of the holiday weekend.
In this week’s episode I talk about some different expressions of what investing in quality looks like. Not just from the common standpoint of what we buy, but also investing in making quality products and cultivating quality relationships.
Sponsored By:
Bellroy: Slim your wallet.
Dropzone 3: improve drag and drop and boost productivity on your Mac. Download a free trial.
My pal Chris Gonzales pointed this out on Twitter and it was news to me: when you’re browsing a list of login items in 1Password on iOS, if you swipe from left-to-right on an item then you get the option to “Copy Password”. Delightful.
Slim Your Wallet — it’s easier than you think.
No one wants a brick wallet weighing down their back. Here are some easy tips to slim down.
For wallets designed to make the most of these tips, visit Bellroy.com.
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My thanks to Bellroy for sponsoring the RSS feed this week. You can tell a lot about a man’s personality and taste based on the grill in his back yard and the wallet in his back pocket. I personally prefer the most slim and simple wallet possible, while also having some personality. I have one of Bellroy’s Note Sleeve wallets in my back pocket as I type this. I’ve had it for a couple of years now and I love it — the quality is top notch, and it’s full of personality. Highly recommended.
Speaking of July and summer, if you’re planning on grilling out this holiday weekend, I updated my backyard cooking just recently. It’s got a list of everything you need to make the best smoked ribs, beef brisket, hamburgers, and/or bbq chicken in town. That is, unless you live in my town. In which case you’ll be making the 2nd best, if you’re lucky.
Hello, July. Over on The Sweet Setup, we put together a short list of awesome apps that will help you get the most out of your summer.
By far and away, this week’s setup interview is one of my all-time favorites. For one, I’m a long-time fan of Jago’s illustrations (he’s the artist behind the Jesus Storybook Bible, which we love), so it’s awesome to see his setup on the site. But his interview is just fantastic — several great photos of his workspace and a lot of nerdy detail about the tools he uses and how he uses them.
But it’s not your typical use-case. Here’s just one example:
I couldn’t do without Dropbox. Through a combination of cunning and trickery, I currently have a 463Gb account, and I make good use of it.
As you know, Editorially (which was awesome), shut its doors recently. Over at The Sweet Setup, we used Editorially every single day — it was our ideal collaborative writing tool.
Jeff Abbott wrote an overview of what made Editorially so great and what some of the alternatives are. As he states, after trying just about every other alternative we could find, we’ve moved to Google Docs for our collaborative writing work.
This week, on my podcast, The Weekly Briefly, I talk about the connection between staying creative and building a delightful product. Both have the same “guiding principles”, in that they are expressions of serving others.
Sponsored by:
Backblaze: unlimited, unthrottled, uncomplicated, and just $5/month. Try it free now!
The awesome members of shawnblanc.net: Their support makes the work I do a sustainable possibility.
Two years ago, Google started bringing fiber to Kansas City. And it took them until today to make their way to my house.
In the 2 years between their original announcement and when service became available in my neighborhood, I thought quite a bit about if I was willing to let Google be my Internet Service Provider.
The biggest question I had to ask myself: will Google be using my online activity to sell me ads? The answer is: certainly.
So then I had to ask myself if I was okay with that. And the answer is: yes I am.
Google is already trying to sell me ads. They have been ever since I signed up for the Gmail beta back in 2006 or whenever.
Obviously, now that they’re my ISP, they will be able to garner more information about my house. Basically they now have visibility into anything we do online that’s not an encrypted transaction, such as the movies we stream from Netflix, the products we browse on Amazon, what songs we stream over Rdio, every website we visit, and who knows what else. It sounds creepy when you put it like that, but it’s also no different than any other ISP relationship I’ve had (AOL, Time Warner, Verizon, AT&T). It’s just that none of the others were in to Big Data as much as Google is.
And it’s not dangerous. All our most sensitive information is still safe because it’s transferred over encrypted connections (emails, passwords, iMessages, SSL encrypted sites like my bank, et al.).
All that to say, I am comfortable with Google as my ISP. Because in exchange, I now have internet speeds that are 20 times faster than the fastest I could pay TWC to provide. And it’s for the same price of $70/month.
In many ways, the faster speeds won’t have a huge impact on my day-to-day life. Just because I have 20x faster internet doesn’t mean I will get 20x more work done. My Rdio songs won’t sound any better, my emails won’t send or receive all that noticeably quicker, etc.
But Netflix will stream in higher quality. My daily podcast now uploads in one second (literally). Safari will connect to websites and servers quicker thanks to the fantastic ping rate with Google Fiber, and media-rich sites will load sooner. Big file downloads will be noticeably faster. And who knows what else.
Moreover, it seems worth mentioning that the entire signup and installation process for Google Fiber was incredible. Believe it or not, Google was extremely organized, friendly, clear, and efficient. All of the automated systems they had in place for contacting me when Fiber became available, and for helping me schedule the installation were clear and easy. The technicians who came to my house to run the lines and set up the network box were very friendly. And the one time I had to call customer service to re-schedule an appointment, the lady I spoke to on the phone knew exactly what she was talking about. So far, I’ve been impressed with the whole process and service.
Awesome breakdown by Brian Lovin on all the little details and interactions in Path.
Path is such a well-designed app. I used for a while back, and very much enjoyed how it works as an app, but as another social network it never stuck for me. I also had considered using it as my personal journal of sorts, but Day One is just so much better suited to that.
There are a lot of things that make Path, as an app, truly great. But how long will they be around? In all seriousness, assuming Path gets acquired and shut down one day, or just flat out shuts down, what will become of its inspirational design and engineering?
Certainly the best-looking smartwatch out there. I’m still a bit blown away by the fact it’s a round display. But: Price? Battery life? How does it charge? How many people will be using (and still enjoying) their Moto 360 in a year from now?
Sean Madden, writing for Wired on the fine line between “magic” and frustration:
The average smartphone user interacts with his or her mobile device over 100 times per day, and the majority of those interactions fall into just a few categories: opening an app, selecting from a list, bringing up a keyboard, and so on. If each of them is imbued with too much visual whiz-bang, using your phone becomes the digital equivalent of eating birthday cake for every meal.
It’s a great article, and what Sean talks about is exactly what Ben and I hit on in last week’s episode of The Weekly Briefly.
In short: whizbang features are cool and they look especially delightful in a press release. But the hallmark features of our gadgets are nowhere close to the most used features. How fast do apps launch, how easy is it to navigate the device, how smooth is the scrolling? These “boring” features are the ones we interact with a hundred times per day. And that’s why you’ve got to get the fundamental stuff right, because that is what ultimately defines the user’s experience as delightful or not.
And so, if you get the fundamentals wrong — by being poorly engineered or over-designed — then it’s like gluing a piece of gravel inside your customer’s $650 running shoes.
P.S. I literally wrote a book on this subject. It’s called Delight is in the Details and as we speak I’m up to my ears in a big update. If you want to follow along with the new work I’m adding to the book, you can learn more here.
Jim Dalrymple:
The ABC channel will feature live, multi-streaming video and on-demand content, entertainment news, live hourly updates, original programming and video highlights.
PBS Kids is only available in the US and will feature full-length episodes and clips of popular shows including Curious George, Dinosaur Train, Peg + Cat, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, Arthur, Wild Kratts and Sesame Street.
Nice! Maybe the PBS Kids channel can help me reclaim my Netfilx recommendations.
Also on the update, is a new Flickr app that has just about all the same functionality of the iOS (er, iPhone) app.