A thought regarding to the news that Sony plans new mobile initiative to take on Apple.
First off, for the millionth time – don’t tell us what you’re going to do, if you’re going to try to beat Apple, just do it. Pre-announcements have a bad track record of not coming true.
But my main point is this, Sony cannot even entertain the idea that it’s possible to give Apple serious competition within the mobile sector when they’re creating all sorts of peripherals and docks specifically designed for iPhones and iPod Touches.
This is like you and your neighbor trying to sell your houses at the same time, and you go over to their house every day to paint, mow their lawn and work on their landscaping.
Sony can’t continue to feed Apple’s product ecosystem if they want a chance at making a bigger dent in the PMP and mobile markets. I know, there’s a ton of cash in the peripherals market for Apple products but that’s something that Sony will have to sacrifice if they want to get back to the Walkman days.

Bloomberg has teamed up with MLB.com to create Bloomberg Sports Fantasy Tools.

I’m like a kid, if you want me to take interest in something, just turn it into a game. Like my addiction to Wii Sports, Push Ups Dojo is a another game to get me off my ass.
Case in point: Push Ups Dojo
The gist: put your iPhone on iPod Touch on the floor in front of your face and tap your nose to the screen as you do push-ups.
It might sound silly, but it makes the push-ups I’ve already been doing for 9 months that much more enjoyable. I don’t have time to go to a gym, nor do I want to pay for a gym membership.
My only complaint is that there looks to be only 4 levels to unlock on this and not to pat myself on the back, but I’ll have the 50 reps level unlocked by Wednesday.

Giving a linkup to my boy Victor’s impressive 2010 portfolio redesign. I first linked up to Victor’s site in 2007 while I was working at Schematic. Two weeks after my linkup, by sheer coincidence, he’s interviewing with my design team and gets hired. Fast forward 3 years and we’re good friends and working together at Roundarch.
So what’s so impressive about this redesign?
Well Vic has managed to tame the beast that is @font-face so you should see custom fonts throughout the site for all the headers, titles and global nav. Mind you it’s real HTML text, and it’s not being rendered with sIFR.
In addition, he’s unified his blog and portfolio on a custom install of WordPress. Sure, this trend might not be new, but he’s taken the time to treat every section of his site differently, in a way that’s appropriate for the content type so the only section that feels like a blog is the actual blog section. A lot of big agencies haven’t even gone that far with their own sites.
…and, he’s also working on some great generative art experiments in Flash.
Big ups.

I don’t have the luxury of being able to write on as much as I’d like so many times topics and theses on my mind end up scattered into separate posts and tweets.
So back to my proposition that Adobe take Flash to it’s logical end and have it function as the core operating system for their own mobile device(s).
It’s important that Adobe make this move because the best examples of Flash are not mere videos players on otherwise HTML-rendered sites. The best examples are those that take over the browser and go fullscreen, where Flash controls the seemless experience from beginning to end. Take a look at the amazing commercial and personal sites on theFWA to see what I’m talking about.
The artists, designers and developers that make the most out of Flash don’t treat it as a plug-in – they treat Flash as their medium.
It’s been very easy for Adobe and the rest of the tech press to point fingers at Apple and their control freak tendencies, claiming that Apple is going to cause Flash’s demise.
It’s in times like these that companies like Adobe need to stop crying like fucking babies, strap a set, and change the rules of the game. Whether or not Steve Jobs called Adobe lazy, I’ll have to agree. Adobe has great opportunities in front of it. Make no mistake that if Adobe does decide to build their own Flash-powered phone, they’ll be taking a huge risk, but a risk well worth the time and money invested.
With so many companies still not understanding that it’s all about having great software, it’s Adobe’s time to shine and not try to compete or try to beat Apple, but just to provide a great product and platform for people to develop for.

I just received this link from Nicolas Felton on the progress of the Annual Report I ordered.
I can’t wait.

I’ve been reading, thinking and talking a lot about the iPhone and iPad and their lack of Adobe Flash. My problem, as always, is that I see both sides of the argument.

The Argument Against Flash

First, I see Jobs’ point of view – Flash is processor hog, buggy and hasn’t been optimized for mobile devices. I also can’t think of one Flash site that would work well when viewed on my iPhone. Youtube helped Apple launch a ‘Flashless’ video application for the iPhone in 2007 so the most popular place for online video was covered from the start.
The other online content not viewable on the iPhone is Flash games, and there are a lot of them. But to that I say native iPhone games are far superior to Flash games. They take advantage of all the native hooks and hardware that Flash games can’t like accelerometers, multi-touch, and OpenGL.
For the past 2 years of owning an iPhone I’ve never had one instance of wishing I had Flash installed. The way I use my iPhone is much different that how I use my MacBook Pro. Obviously Apple has shaped what I view to be a ‘superior’ mobile web experience, but I would argue that even if Flash were installed in Safari from the start, I wouldn’t be trying to view rich, Flash film sites or FWA winners.
The plug-in, a group to which Flash and Java belong, is dead as far as mobile web browsers. Sure, Flash 10.1 is coming to Android, but it’s still not going to be included on the upcoming Windows Phone 7 Series. Flash is actually not on very many mobile units at all (If you want a good laugh, see the amazing non-smart phones that support Flash Lite on Adobe’s site).

What Mikey’s Missing

Now as much as I might not want Flash on my iPhone, I’m also an interactive designer and developer. For the last 11 years, Flash has let me create websites that combine time, sound and motion that ultimately result in an emotional reaction and connection with the viewer. You can’t achieve this with just HTML and CSS (even if you add in JavaScript).
So now that Apple has kneecapped me, making it impossible to create immersive experiences without learning how to use their SDK, what am I do to? The whole beauty of Flash was that it let inexperienced designers create interactive animations, interfaces and applications without having to get a PhD in computer science.

Enter the Adobe Phone

This is the logical next step for Adobe. Over the years, they’ve gradually been giving Flash more and more robust functionality, expanding out from the mere animation realm and into the world of 3-D environments and applications (through Flex and AIR)
Why would Apple ever in their right mind allow Adobe onto their iPhone and continue on this trajectory?
Adobe wants people to continue to make Flash applications and Flash games and be able to deliver them via the web to as many people as possible – and they should, but if they want to see this dream become a reality, they’re going to need to build their own phone.
Over 28 years later, The words of Alan Kay are ringing more true than ever:

Remember, it’s all software, it just depends on when you crystallize it …People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.

—Alan Kay, Creative Think (computer industry seminar), 1982
We’re seeing this with all the major mobile players now – even Microsoft is cracking down on how customizable their new mobile OS is, and how particular the hardware requirements are.
I don’t know about you, but I can picture the Adobe Phone. It’s a phone that lets Flash have complete access to all levels of the unit, runs smooth, fast and doesn’t drain resources because it has no longer been relegated to a mere plug-in.
The Adobe Phone would also let interactive designers like me design, test and deploy our creations without application submissions and approval processes. I’ve been doing it for years on my own as a web designer with an FTP program and web browser. It shouldn’t be any different for mobile phones.
Apple has proven when you build a great platform, great things are possible from the community that adopts it. Adobe should know this first hand from the millions of people who create amazing games, applications and experiences with Flash – why not leverage that community on their own phone with their own platform?
The solution to the problem lies within the problem itself. Adobe, you don’t need the iPhone or the iPad to be a success. Make your own platform. Make your own phone. It could really be awesome.

I don’t really care about being right, I just care about success.

—Steve Jobs (via)

Why is John Gruber anti-Flash?

Why? At the core, because Flash is the only de facto web standard based on a proprietary technology. There are numerous proprietary web content plugins — including Apple’s QuickTime — but Flash is the only one that’s so ubiquitous that it’s a de facto standard. Flash is the way video is delivered over the web, and Adobe completely controls Flash. No other aspect of the web works like this. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are all open standards, with numerous implementations, including several that are open source.

And:

Apple, with the iPhone, is solving the chicken and egg problem. For the first time ever, there is a large and growing audience of demographically desirable users who don’t have Flash installed. If you want to show video to iPhone users, you need to use H.264. …Apple isn’t trying to replace Flash with its own proprietary thing. They’re replacing it with H.264 and HTML5. This is good for everyone but Adobe.

I concur with Ars:

We’re past the point where anyone can call the Nintendo Wii a “fad” with a straight face. Nintendo’s console outsold every other system combined, moving 3.81 million units. The Nintendo DS was close behind, with 3.31 million systems sold. The closest competitor? The PlayStation 3 with 1.36 million sold.

Back in 2007, I imagined what it must feel like to build an amazing piece of electronics only to have it loaded with a shitty piece of Windows software to run it.
With a lack of options and expertise in software development, PC vendors have to use Windows.
Now lets switch focus to mobile phones. It’s 2010, and Microsoft is nowhere to be seen. Sure, there’s word that they’ll be releasing Windows Mobile 7 by Q4 of 2010, but their current offering (WinMo 6.5) is an embarrassment.
Luckily phone makers have an alternative – Google Android.
Now I’m not surprised that phone makers have adopted Android. What I’m surprised at is the degree they’ve embraced it. I love Om Malik’s term for it – the Androidification of Everything.
LG plans to use Android on more than half its smartphones. Motorola Plans 20-30 Android Phones for 2010. And it’s no secret how HTC feels about Android.
If Microsoft has proven anything, it’s that they eventually get up to speed with the rest of the market. After 8 years of XP and the duds since (notably Vista), they’ve launched a solid Windows 7 and the Zune HD is a big improvement over it’s brown ancestor. It’s very likely that Windows Mobile 7 will be ready to compete with the big boys by Q4 of this year.
But this time around phone makers will have a choice.

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.