26 posts tagged apple

The Sketchbook of Susan Kare, the Artist Who Gave Computing a Human Face The genius of Steve Jobs, Jef Raskin, and the rest of the Mac team was recognizing a huge untapped market for home computing among artists, musicians, writers, and other creative weirdos who might never have cared enough to master the arcane complexities of a command-line UI or blow a fortune on hulking digital workstations. The challenge of designing a personal computer that “the rest of us” would not only buy, but fall crazy in love with, however, required input from the kind of people who might some day be convinced to try using a Mac. Fittingly, one of the team’s most auspicious early hires was a young artist herself: Susan Kare.

The Sketchbook of Susan Kare, the Artist Who Gave Computing a Human Face

The genius of Steve Jobs, Jef Raskin, and the rest of the Mac team was recognizing a huge untapped market for home computing among artists, musicians, writers, and other creative weirdos who might never have cared enough to master the arcane complexities of a command-line UI or blow a fortune on hulking digital workstations.

The challenge of designing a personal computer that “the rest of us” would not only buy, but fall crazy in love with, however, required input from the kind of people who might some day be convinced to try using a Mac. Fittingly, one of the team’s most auspicious early hires was a young artist herself: Susan Kare.

The Apple-fication of everything

One of the best things about Steve Jobs’ return to Apple — which will live on and benefit society long after Jobs’ death — is how he basically spent the last 14 years teaching thousands of Apple employees to have incredibly high standards and to build amazing products.

Perhaps more importantly, through Apple’s products, Steve also taught hundreds of millions of consumers to expect and demand amazing things.

(Source: daringfireball.net)

Apple's iPhone 4S commercial

Watching commercials like these really makes me aware of how far computing and engineering have come and will eventually go. I can’t imagine how amazing this kind of stuff looks to regular everyday folks who aren’t on the web everyday of the week or work in technology.

Thanks Steve. “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.” [The Wall Street Journal, May 25, 1993] Great anecdote on Folklore.org capturing the way he thought. Always wanted to delight the user and add a bit of magic - http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Mister_Macintosh.txt

Thanks Steve.

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.” [The Wall Street Journal, May 25, 1993]

Great anecdote on Folklore.org capturing the way he thought. Always wanted to delight the user and add a bit of magic - http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Mister_Macintosh.txt

An Epic Conversation Between Steve Jobs And Developers From WWDC '97

parislemon:

Great, great stuff.

Three things:

1) Early on, his talk about Apple spreading their great engineers too thin, having the company trying to do too much, sounds a lot like Google today. 

2) He essentially spells out iCloud — 14 years ago.

3) “If somebody would just make a little thing where you’re connected to the net at all times and you got a little keyboard like an eMate with a modem in it. My god, I’d love to buy one.”

One of my favorite quotes from this:

The day we started Apple computer, IBM was far more powerful in the computer industry than Microsoft and Intel are today. Because they controlled not only controlled the technologies - they controlled the customer - they had direct contact with the customer. So, we should’ve just given up. I should’ve just nudged Woz and said “Hey.. forget it. We don’t have a chance.” But we were too stupid to know that. We hadn’t gone to business school. We didn’t read the [Wall Street Journal] — we didn’t know what the Wall Street Journal WAS! And I think that served us well.

Ten apps is all I need - 37signals

Nokia’s new N9 phone based on MeeGo looks wonderful and according to Engadget, it’s a delight to use as well. But supposedly it’s dead on arrival because it’s not going to have a massive platform. Excuse my french, but fuck the platform.

For all the 200,000 apps in Apple’s app store, I use two on a regular basis: Echofon and Bloomberg. Once in a while, I use Instapaper and play Civilization. And yet I use my iPhone all the time. It’s my favorite piece of technology and has been for years.

Mostly agree with David’s points. I have at least 30 apps on my iPhone. Of those, I use 5-6 on a regular basis, half of which were developed by Apple and came pre-installed.

The endless variety of the app store is impressive, but there’s so much cruft in there it’s beginning to feel more like an app Walmart. A large fraction are either redundant or slapped together to make a quick buck.

I’d trade the majority of my apps just to have more seamless interaction with those aspects of this device I find most useful; the camera app in particular. It’s perplexing that Apple has just now decided to allow us to use a volume button as a shutter. I’ll forgive that on the basis of the brilliant decision to add a camera shortcut on the lock screen — that is an example of the type of improvements that really make a difference in the everyday utility of these incredible pocket machines.

Whoever masters the art of making it easy for a five-fingered hand to effortlessly soar through those fundamental functions it’s difficult to imagine being without (phone, messaging, browser and camera in particular) is who will ultimately earn my dollar. /raaant

Macbook Power Supply Little features like this make my day.

Macbook Power Supply

Little features like this make my day.