via Modern Mechanix

Continuing my thoughts from last month on the Unified Mobile Platform.
I’ve been thinking about standards and standardization, theory vs practice, and relevance.
Ok, first off, let’s think what would happen if we took the premise of the Unified Mobile Platform (if you want to know what a world of ‘unification’ looks like, check out that beautiful site) and moved it to another industry, say – automobiles.
Suppose all the car makers in the United States banded together ‘for the common good’ in order to create a standard car-type and engine-type. An ‘open ecosystem’ in which all car makers could create cars that whose parts would be compatible with all the other car makers’ parts.
Yeah. It sounds great but it’s bullshit.
It’s bullshit not only because it would never work, but it’s also extremely boring and flies in the face of how innovation, art and expression happen.
Sure, a world full of ‘Ferrari-types’ sounds great, right? Everyone is driving different ‘flavors’ of Ferarris. That’s the ideal scenario, but if this were to really become a reality, and if we know anything about US car makers, we’d most likely be stuck with a country full of Ford Escorts.
Do I really have to say this? Variety is the spice of life. (UGH)
The truth is, even if we lived in a world of Ferraris some people would still be unsatisfied. That’s why we have Lamborghinis and Audis and Porsches and Bugattis and Toyotas and Volkswagens and Jeeps and Chevys and Fords and the dozens of other makes.
Even when we do have alliances and open standards, things don’t always hold together like people envision. Case in point – WebKit. WebKit is the ‘engine’ that power MobileSafari on the iPhone as well as the browsers for Google’s Android OS and Palm’s WebOS.
Actually, here’s a list of browsers that use WebKit. If you notice from that link, the only browser that passes the Acid3 test 100 percent is MobileSafari. So even when you have adoption of open standards, things still diverge and become customized. That’s how humans work. Think about our workspaces. We surround ourselves with plants and lights and figures and pictures and books. At least those of use who are creative do that.
Depending on your point of view, open systems can fall victim to fragmentation, as some say is the case with Google Android …
OR
Open systems can mutate and evolve into different ‘flavors‘, as is the case with the open source operating system, Linux.
The only way to ensure a system neither fragments nor mutates is to have it controlled by one company. Case in point: Apple’s iPhone OS as well as their proprietary DRM technology formerly used on music and currently still in use on their video content. Like it or hate it, Apple has succeeded in creating a completely consistent and stable operating system with iPhone OS because they control (and don’t license) the technology as well as the hardware.
What we’re seeing with the Unified Mobile Platform isn’t a initiative done out of good will and progress, but one done out of fear.

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.

Nokia’s new mobile chief, Rick Simonson, on his predictions for mobile growth (via mocoNews):

I can even make a prediction for 2010: In Latin America, we will grow faster than (RIM). By 2011, our efforts will start producing results, as we will be at par with Apple and RIM in smartphones. Not only we draw level with them, we will also win the war because, in addition to email, we will be adding content, chat, music, entertainment and several other features, which will soon become very critical for success of any company in this space.

There’s 2 reasons I think this quote is awesome.
One, the fact that one of the global leaders in mobile phones is predicting when it will be ‘on par’ with an entrant (Apple) who’s only been in the game a little over 2 years.
And two, they’re making predictions, which is always dangerous – especially in an area like consumer electronics and entertainment. All the points Simonson notes – content, chat, music and entertainment – Apple is leading the way with thanks to iTunes, the iPod Touch and the iPhone. As Om Malik has pointed out, it’s the iPod Touch, running the iPhone OS, that is Apple’s “ace up it’s sleeve“. Nokia has no such ace. Maybe they’ll get one?
It took them 2 years to launch the Ovi Store and that didn’t fair too well.
It’s certainly possible for Nokia to take over Apple’s incumbency in mobile music and entertainment, I just don’t think they can do it.

I was catching up on a few of the TED Conference podcast videos this weekend, one of which was, Steven Cowley: Fusion is energy’s future. It’s a great (and scary) presentation on why nuclear fusion will be one of our only solutions to the fossil fuel crisis. One part that grabbed my attention was where he he explained one of the easiest methods of creating a fusion reaction:

There is one reaction, that’s probably one of the easiest fusion reactions to do. It’s between two isotopes of hydrogen – deuterium …and tritium. These two nucleii, when they’re far apart, are charged. And you push them together and they repel …but when you get them close enough together, something called the Strong Force starts to act and pulls them together. So most the time they repel, but you get them closer and closer and closer and at some point the Strong Force grips them together.

That sounded like a great metaphor for some relationships I know, but prior to the fusion clip, I watched James Geary, metaphorically speaking, so maybe that had something to do with it.

“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big.”

— Daniel Burnham, Chicago architect. (1864-1912)
(via Daring Fireball)

I love competition. Actually, everyone does. Even if you don’t think you’re competitive, if I spend enough time with you, I’ll find that thing you’re passionate about and exploit it.
An area I’m extremely competitive and passionate about is Apple products and mobile computing. I enjoy Apple vs Microsoft arguments and Blackberry vs iPhone arguments and iPhone vs Pre arguments.
But when it comes to the iPhone, I want real competition, not what we have in the United States. The bullshit exclusivity walls need to come down so that everyone on every carrier can pick whatever phone they choose. I understand that when Apple started building the iPhone, they had to partner with just one carrier in order to have it see the light of day.
While there are genuine Palm Pre fans on the Sprint Network and geniune Blackberry Storm fans on Verizon, there’s also iPhone fans on those networks that are choosing Pre’s and Bold’s for no other reason than that’s the closest they can come to an iPhone without switching carriers.
I want to see all the contenders on equal ground. I think the iPhone stands a chance of beating them all – Palm Pre, Blackberry Bold, Nokia N97, Motorola CLIQ – if they were all offered on all the networks.
What I’m suggesting is we treat all the networks like Apple is treating AT&T – a dumb, fast, reliable pipeline (and AT&T can’t even manage to do that).
I’m happy to see other countries like Singapore and Canada have access to the iPhone on multiple carriers, I just wish we could have that happen in the States.
When people don’t have to compromise, let’s see who they think is the best.

A big thank you to my office mate and friend John Gist for schooling me on this.

You know when your Photoshop file is all fucked up and has all its groups expanded and the layer styles are all exposed below their layer?

Like this:

Well, if you hold down OPTION when you click the arrow to close a layer group, when you re-open it, all layer syles and groups within it will be collapsed and hidden.

Like this:

From ReadWriteWeb:

Yesterday, Palm released an update of the Pre software, webOS. While most of the reporting surrounding the new OS involved the important update which brings paid applications to the Pre’s App Catalog, another under-reported feature is actually just as (if not more) important. The Pre now lets you download over-the-air from Amazon’s MP3 Store.

Let’s hope Jon Rubenstein stops acting like a douchebag with the Pre-masquerading-as-an-iPod trickery with iTunes.
A clever man once said, if you don’t like the rules of the game, change the game.
While I understand the convenience of being able to sync your Palm Pre with iTunes, the reason the Pre is a great product is for all the ways it’s different than the iPhone.

Little belated shout out to my friend Promila on her site, Still Life.
She’s quite the curator of design and art.

Influencer:

2003 Land Rover Range Rover
Influenced:

2010 Ford Flex

I’ll definitely survive if they haven’t addressed this in Snow Leopard, but it’s something that has bothered me for a while now.

In most applications within OS X, when you click on the green jellybean button in the top left hand side of the window, that window will maximize to the full width and height of your monitor. I spend 97 percent of my computer time on a MacBook Pro, so I value that behavior (the other 3% is on an iPhone).
In iTunes, when you click on the green button, it gives you the MiniPlayer:

While I’ve grown used to this behavior, I still think it needs to be fixed. In every other program green means bigger and yellow means minimize-to-Dock. Then you have iTunes who rages against the machine.
Clicking on the green button again in the MiniPlayer brings you back to the full view of iTunes, in the dimensions you left it.
Perhaps iTunes warrants a special MiniPlayer button so that the usually universal behaviors can stay, well universal.
Whatever the right behavior might be, the current implementation ain’t it.
UPDATE: I’ve found a few other rebels in the fight against the green button – Photoshop and Preview. Clicking the green button in Preview does absolutely nothing while Photoshop trims the grey, outside-of-canvas area around your document.

I caught this story today: Customers Angered as iPhones Overload AT&T
From the article:

More than 20 million other smartphone users are on the AT&T network, but other phones do not drain the network the way the nine million iPhones users do. Indeed, that is why the howls of protest are more numerous in the dense urban areas with higher concentrations of iPhone owners.

Here’s how I see it in a nutshell – AT&T was happy to sign up as many iPhone customers as they could. Their mentality was probably very similar to gyms who sign up as many people as they can in January when everyone makes their New Year’s Resolution to lose weight. Gyms are packed the first few months after January but then there’s a drop-off in attendance, because people tend to slack off, so even though the gym might ‘overbook’ their spaces, it’s only being used by a fraction of the members. The gym wins – few customers to take care of and lots of profits.
This didn’t happen with iPhone customers. Unlike average customers with average cellphones that have small screens and poorly designed user interfaces who just use their phones for calls and occasionally check email – iPhone owners users integrate their iPhones into their lives. They surf the web, check their GMail, Yahoo and thanks to Exchange integration, their work email. Not to mention downloading applications, music and videos.
Oops AT&T, you done messed up.
You sold a bunch of Ferarris and didn’t think people would drive em.
Well, too bad, you gotta fix it.

A little over a month ago I came across an interesting thread on Brenden Dawes’ Twitter stream on the lifespan of iconography that I thought warranted a longer post: Brenden asks:

And:

These are very valid questions.

I think answer to the first question is that we’re not so much wed to familiar, analogue objects – they’re part of our iconographic DNA. We don’t have a say in the matter, we’re stuck with our analogue icons until our technology progresses far enough to render them obsolete, killing them off and forcing us to reference these extinct symbols through fossilized JPGs, GIFs and PNGs. Every generation is inherently transitional. What’s different with each successive generation are the specific things that are mutating, evolving, dying and spawning.

Horses to automobiles. Radio to television. Gas lighting to light bulbs. Even now, those previous three examples are could still be used be used as icons (the horse might come across a bit obscure and humorous, but I bet it would still work to convey ‘transportation’).

When we transition from one technology to another, this doesn’t mean the technology being replaced has run it’s course. Radio technology was invented in the late 1800’s but we still have it to this day (Hell, the Microsoft Zune still come equipped with FM tuners, god knows why). It is the reason the NPR iPhone app can use an old-fashioned radio to indicate their ‘radio’ programs and a radio tower to indicate their stations. We still understand what these things symbolize.

bottom row of icons on the NPR iPhone app

The bottom line is, for the time being, our icons of televisions, radios, cars, envelopes, paper pages and hardcover books are more than sufficient to represent their digital counterparts.

Beyond the Digital

Fine. As long as we have our living analogue ancestors around, our iconography can stay in place and mutate when some of them become extinct. We get it. Let’s stretch this out to it’s logical conclusion – there is no interface. We become the interface. The interface becomes us.

We’ll reach a point in the future where what Mr. Dawes is saying does come to be. People will no longer understand that bell telephone means ‘call someone’. Phones will become implants and we’ll simply say a person’s name to our interfaceless voice recognition system. We have HUDs in jets and cars, is it really a stretch to image an HUD eye implant?

Picture an iPhone without the iPhone.

Ironman without (or with) the special suit.

Given enough time, I could easily expand this post into a full thesis, but alas, I have to get back to work.

*in addition to Brenden Dawes tweets, I also found great thoughts by Samuel Cotterall here, here and here.