from Electronista:

Microsoft plans to release at least one more Windows Mobile 6 version to tide users over until a more meaningful upgrade, a leak says today. The company is purportedly so disappointed with Windows Mobile 6.5 sales since launch that the company is rolling out a 6.6 update in February. It would primarily add native support for capacitive touchscreens, which would give it much more finger-friendly input than the resistive-only 6.5.

Just slap some capacitive touch capabilities on your mobile operating system. That should fix all your problems. Don’t worry about whether you’ve taken the time to integrate multi-touch into the applications and core OS.
Details aren’t important.

playMUJI – I was just introduced to this brand by my coworker Jenna. Very UNIQLO-ish in the presentation of their products.
From their message section:

MUJI is not a brand. MUJI does not make products of individuality or fashion, nor does MUJI reflect the popularity of its name in its prices. MUJI creates products with a view toward global consumption of the future. This means that we do not create products that lure customers into believing that “this is best” or “I must have this.” We would like our customers to feel the rational sense of satisfaction that comes not with “this is best,” but with “this is enough.” “Best” becomes “enough.”

A rational sense of satisfaction. I love that.

There’s something I’ve had swirling around my head for a while regarding Apple “fanboys” – a group I consider myself part of and most my friends would agree.
The thought is, the sales of the iPhones far outnumber how many supposed fanboys there are. Mac owners have always been a minority in the world of personal computers, but Apple ceased to be just a computer maker a decade ago. The iPod is best selling MP3 player in history. While the iPhone doesn’t have those bragging rights, as of Q4 2009 it sold over 33 million units.
People besides Apple fanboys are buying iPhones.

Adam Richardson over at frog design talks about Why Google had to take control of Android with Nexus One.
I agree with Adam, that this move by Google to make it’s own phone is its attempt to ‘do Android the right way’. But is Google going to make any progress with the Nexus One? I’m not convinced they will.
For one thing, the Nexus One doesn’t sound like it’s much different than any other Android phones on the market (Boy Genius Report, NYTimes, WSJ, TechCrunch). Secondly, I don’t see how Google producing their own phone is going to stop fragmentation of the Android market.
Adam concludes:

The lackluster success of the early Android phones has surely made Google realize that they need to take a much stronger role in order to bring all the pieces of the experience together. The catch-as-catch can approach they’ve had to far just isn’t going to cut it. Fragmentation is a death knell for a product like this at this stage of maturity. Google needs to lead the charge with an integrated platform until the experience gap is fully closed.

Ironically, it seems possible that the better Google’s Nexus One gets the more fragmented the Android platform could become as partners such as Motorola and Samsung continue to improve their ‘flavors’ of Android.
Google wants to have their cake and eat it too. They want to be like Linux, open source and customizable and simultaneously like Apple, closed and consistent across devices.
Google, honey-baby, you can’t have both.

via Twitter

Do not fear mistakes. There are none.

• Miles Davis

I’m going into my second year with Roundarch and with the end of 2009 comes our annual reviews.
When managers conduct our annual reviews, they project our ‘one sheet’ on the wall for all the other managers to see. The point is to be creative, whether you’re a designer or not. I wrote about my first one sheet last year.
This year I decided to base it on the oldey timey WANTED posters, but update it and make it a more edgy and add some technological flourishes like the QR code (which actually works if you download a QR Code reader app for your iPhone, Blackberry or Android unit).

Designers like to consider themselves badasses when in reality the only thing they usually push around are pixels.
Guilty as charged.

Official Google Blog: Our new approach to buying a mobile phone:

The first phone we’ll be selling through this new web store is the Nexus One — a convergence point for mobile technology, apps and the Internet. Nexus One is an exemplar of what’s possible on mobile devices through Android — when cool apps meet a fast, bright and connected computer that fits in your pocket. The Nexus One belongs in the emerging class of devices which we call “superphones.” It’s the first in what we expect to be a series of products which we will bring to market with our operator and hardware partners and sell through our online store. [emphasis mine]

Superphones. What bullshit. So this is where Mossberg got the term. Shame on you Walt.

Om Malik used a great word in a post from a few weeks ago – Androidification. He was talking about how every hardware maker, save for Apple, is coming out with Android models for their phones and other portable devices.
Three thoughts come to mind about this reaction to Android:
1) Google is really becoming the new Microsoft – run by engineers, business-focused, doesn’t focus on design and experience (well, maybe a little more design focus than Microsoft)
2) Great mobile software solutions are non-existent and hardware makers are hungry for something better than Windows Mobile
3) In light of thought #2 above – if HP, Motorola, HTC, Samsung and Dell are all building Android models, what’s the difference?
It just seems to me that all these hardware makers are like different car makers creating their cars on the same assembly line with the same engines. Sure, they’re all modifying their units so they can claim they have a unique value proposition and they’re better than each other, but at the end of the day, they’re all really pretty similar.
I’d like to say that Android is the BMW 3 Series (very popular in the modder community) of mobile OSs, but after inspecting a few of my coworkers Motorola Droids and having watched enough demo videos, I’ve come to the conclusion that Android is more like the Honda Civic of mobile OSs. This is not a bad thing. The Honda Civic is one of the most popular cars on the planet. They’re well built, get great gas mileage and are easy to customize – but the Honda Civic has never had the attention to detail and focus on design that a BMW 3 Series has had. That’s just a fact.
David Pogue confirms what I’ve seen myself in his review of the new Nexus One:

Finally, the Nexus just doesn’t attain the iPhone’s fit and finish. The buttons under the screen (Back, Menu, Home, Search) are balky, often ignoring your finger-presses completely. One of the animated wallpapers freezes the phone with a message that says: “Sorry! The application Android Live Wallpapers has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again.” (Note to Google: I did. The same thing happened.)

As well as Walt Mossberg (see my post from yesterday for a breakdown of Mossberg’s contradictory review):

In addition, the Nexus One, and other Android devices, still pale beside the iPhone for playing music, video and games. The apps available for these functions aren’t nearly as sophisticated as on the Apple devices.

I’ve read posts pointing out the fact that because so many vendors are making their own ‘flavors’ of Android, that there’s the potential for the platform to fragment and with fragmentation, comes the chance that applications built for Android won’t work correctly on all these ‘flavors’. The iPhone doesn’t suffer this because while there are newer and different models, they all run the same iPhone OS.
The Register quotes Sanjay Jha of Qualcomm, who says Google wants fragmentation.
From the post:

If mobile devices converge on one or two platforms, then developers will decide it’s worth porting native applications only to these platforms – as in the desktop world. But with fragmented environments Web 2.0 technologies become the only effective way to create mobile applications. These are the kinds of applications at which Google excels. Launching a new platform, and putting considerable resources behind it, is an effective way of preventing platform consolidation.

If it’s true that this is Google’s strategy, it makes a lot of sense, and will further ensure that no hardware vendor will come out on top.
Perhaps hardware vendors are fine not selling the most units. Perhaps they’re happy sharing the same OS with their competition. Perhaps they openly admit they don’t want or know how to make their own software.
Just don’t expect your Civic to stand out from the pack of other Civics on the road, It’s never going to be a 3 Series.

*note – I know my analogy of iPhones-to-BMW’s isn’t entirely accurate. From a design standpoint it is, from a cost standpoint, it’s not, and that’s a good thing (you can get an iPhone for $99)

Sherlock Holmes was a really good movie. It helps that I’m a fan of Robert Downey and ‘bad good guys’ that he plays (and happens to be off camera). I’m also happy to see that Guy Richie (Snatch, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) might be back on his A-game now that he’s ditched Madonna.
Film aside, one of my favorite parts was the closing credits, done by Prologue Films. They were comprised of sort cuts from the movie that transitioned into beautiful sketches on parchment paper, complete with stains, smudges and ink blotches.
Simply gorgeous.







Check the video on YouTube.

I’ve been reading a handful of posts and tweets out on the tubes about the Nexus One and a clear picture is forming as to what this phone is really like.
Walt Mossberg’s piece at the WSJ is titled, Google’s Nexus One Is Bold New Face in Super-Smartphones.
So it’s a bold new face in super-smartphones? Hmm. Super-smartphone. This sounds like a ridiculous new category, but maybe Walt will prove me wrong.
So Walty, tell me what’s super about the Nexus One?

The Nexus One finally has the right combination of hardware and software to give Android a champion that might attract more people away from their iconic iPhones and BlackBerrys. It has a larger screen than Apple’s phone, and is a bit thinner, narrower and lighter—if a tad longer. And it boasts a better camera and longer talk time between battery charges.

Awesome. Sounds great. Tell me more “super” stuff.

On the Nexus One, only 190 megabytes of its total 4.5 gigabytes of memory is allowed for storing apps. On the $199 iPhone, nearly all of the 16 gigabytes of memory can be used for apps.

Ew. ok. Well, tell me something positive.

In fact, the $199 iPhone 3GS has roughly four times as much user-accessible memory out of the box, though the memory on the Nexus One can be expanded via memory cards. Apple also has a more-fluid user interface, with multitouch gestures for handling photos and Web pages.

I know Walt’s saving all the super features for the end.

The phone also has handsome new visual features, including “live wallpaper,” with waving grass or pulsing colored lines

Wow. A wallpaper capable of animating. Sounds like a big productivity booster. Give me some more upsides to the Nexus One. Hit me!

But there are some downsides to the Nexus One. Like all Android phones, it relies too much, in my view, on menus that create extra steps, including some menus that have a built-in “more” button to display a secondary menu of choices.

So the software is sub-par. Seriously? I can’t believe that, coming from a company run by engineers, not designers. Crazy. But at least the hardware is solid, right?

I also found the four buttons etched into the phone’s bottom panel sticky and hard to press.

Shit.
Well, it sounds like they’re trying to attract the general consumer, as opposed to the business consumer, so the entertainment software must be good right?

In addition, the Nexus One, and other Android devices, still pale beside the iPhone for playing music, video and games. The apps available for these functions aren’t nearly as sophisticated as on the Apple devices.

Anything else, Walt?

Finally, the iPhone is still a better apps platform. Not only are there more apps, but, in my experience, iPhone apps are generally more polished and come in more varieties.

Wonderful. So it has a few solid features, but Google’s not taking it to a new level.

But, with its fresh phone and bold business model, Google is taking Android to a new level, and that should ramp up the competition in the super-smartphone space.

Walt, what the hell are you smoking?

There’s a great interview with Bruce Sterling at The Well (via NoahBrier.com).
It starts out:

For the eleventh time, Inkwell rings in the New Year with a visit from Well
member Bruce Sterling, to address the State of the World and Things Various
and Sundry. Bruce used to write novels when there were bookstores, and used
to write for magazines and newspapers when magazines and newspapers existed.
Nowadays he travels a lot when trains are running and when airports aren’t
clogged by security theater. [emphasis mine]

What first caught my attention, before I even hit the interview, was a word the interviewer used in reference to the bullshit we endure at the airport – security theater.
And that’s exactly what all those metal detectors, fluid requirements and jackets-and-shoes-off procedures are – theater.
Airports don’t provide security, but the appearance of security.

Delayed post – the boys over at Analogue launched this site a few months ago for the artist Ben Wisch.
Simple, elegant and immersive.
As usual.
Nice work guys.

From a few months ago (but the price is still the same), Palm Pixi one step closer to free, now $25 on Amazon.
Let me first say that I don’t know what profit agreement Palm and Sprint have for Pre and Pixi sales, but offering the Pixi for this low a price just smells like the Motorola RAZR all over again.
What I mean by this is when the RAZR rose to become the most popular clamshell phone of all time, Motorola continued to slash prices until they, as the Pixi now, started to approach zero. They had sold over 50 million RAZRs by 18 July 2006.
From Forbes, 20 February 2007:

Because Motorola has not recently had products that cellphone companies wanted to offer, it has sold tens of millions of Razrs and their offshoots by slashing prices. Margins have collapsed in the process.

I agree with John Gruber, the future of Palm depends on a genuine hit to keep the company alive, and I don’t see how slashing prices on their new models is going to help their business.