from the King of Comedy
You know, someone like Rupert Pupkin, who can live at home with their mother in Jersey, wait on lines for days upon end for things, people, events. Detached from reality. Just replace his autograph book in this scene with an iPhone.
Rupert says it perfectly in the scene above:
“What’s so funny about that? A man can get ANYTHING he wants as long as he’s willing to pay the price! Crazier things HAVE happened…”
This is real simple and doesn’t require a long-winded explanation.
The iPhone is the floating car we imagined we’d be driving in the future.
The Jetsons, Star Wars, Blade Runner, Minority Report …the iPhone is that touchscreen gadget they all used (metaphorically speaking) to communicate with. As John Gruber points out (so obvious we all didn’t catch it), the iPhone is the first mobile device being promoted for its interface, not hardware.
… and like any good science fiction movie – it’s about the theatrics. The experience. The motion. The transitions. The atmosphere. What the iPhone does is as important as how it does it.
RealPlayer beta released: no Mac, iPod support (yet) – Does anyone still use RealPlayer?
“Maybe” is one option too many – Zeldman’s right about getting rid of Maybe on sites like Evite, but I’m not down with his argument for 4 star ratings being a better alternative to 5-star ratings.
I’m also not buying his argument, E-mail is not a platform for design. What’s smart is using services like (or adopting practices like) Campaign Monitor that allow you to create HTML and plain text versions of your messages.
This is only interesting to me, but it looks as though this site’s feed is getting picked up by Sphere, who syndicates content for WSJ.com. I discovered this when I noticed I was getting referrals from this WSJ article. I must be an ‘official’ blog or something.
I know the tension in the air is so thick you could cut a knife with it regarding the iPhone launch next week (at least it is in Manhattan), but I have one more thing I have to ask:
Is typing on the iPhone’s on-screen QWERTY keyboard going to be THAT much more difficult than what it takes to squeeze out a message on a standard 12-digit cell phone?
I don’t know if its because I’ve had a Treo for 3 years, but I just HATE having to type out text messages on a keyboardless mobile phone like Motorola RAZR. The whole process of shuffling through three letters per number digit is torturous.
I bring this topic because of these headlines I’ve seen:
Will the iPhone be undone by its keyboard?
Apple iPhone: All Eyes on the Keyboard (Or Lack Thereof)
Keyboard iPhone not good enough
The iPhone will flop because of the keyboard
Ok I’m done. Enough of this speculation.
The Mill – Showreel 2007 (via theFWA) – Like, wow. Nice stuff.
The New Disruptors (via Business 2.0)
The Minister of Information (via Kottke)
Microsoft’s PowerPoint software is an all-conquering monster of crumminess, a threat to life as we know it. Most of all, if you are making a presentation, you can probably say everything you need to on a single folded sheet of eleven-by-seventeen copy paper, and you ought to.
IA’s are History (via Design View) – true?
Information Architects are often put on the defensive by spears flung by peers and brethren in elated disciplines. In taking the accusations seriously and accepting the truths within them, Grant Campbell reveals our greatest strengths – shallowness, insularity, and being “relegated” to history.
Everything I Know About Design I Learned from The Sopranos
On professional behavior:
“You don’t think. You disrespect this place. That’s the reason why you were passed the fuck over.”
(this is more of a stream-of-consciousness entry than it is a well-structured essay, so I apologize if I jump around a lot)
There seems to be an inverse relationship to the natural evolution of a company on a progressing path and the perception of this company by the public.
I think people are funny, what they complain about, what they react to.
Why are the vast majority of agencies looking merely for people who know how to use certain tools? Why aren’t they looking for people who know how to produce modern product and truly functional results?
Adobe Launches AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime), the artist formally known as Apollo (via TechCrunch).
Adobe has also dropped Flex 3 Beta (via MacNN) – this makes sense since it kinda ties in with their whole AIR product, letting developers create cross-platform RIA’s in browsers and on the desktop.
Microsoft is (read: wants to) going head-to-head with Flex/AIR with Silverlight. That’s great Microsoft, we’re up to version 9 of Flash and you decide to get into the RIA game. Flash has over 95% penetration and you’d like to to switch to your Silverlight plug-in why?
Video: Aero (Vista) vs. Beryl (Linux) – Ignore the crappy techno music and check out this amazing GUI for Linux. The 3-D rendering of application windows in particular blew me away.
I don’t think I want to post any news items relating to the iPhone. The tension in the air is so thick you could cut it with a knife.
Today Microsoft announces the release of a new multi-touch screen product/technology called Surface. It allows you to interact with a screen in a very natural way, by dragging objects on the screen around with your fingers and using various gestures, not with 1 finger, but with many fingers on both hands.
Why Apple’s iPhone is Not the Next iPod:
Additionally, the potential success of the iPhone could be dampened by its price. If looked at as three devices in one, the price isn’t unreasonable — buying a 4GB iPod Nano and a BlackBerry 8700c (which acts as a phone and Internet device) separately for instance would set you back about $500. But when looked at as simply a phone, which is the way many people perceive the device, it’s just plain expensive. People may not be willing to pay $499 to $599 for a cell phone that does not function any better as a phone per se, in that it makes calls as well as the next phone.
Bullshit.
Other devices priced around $500 when they debuted:
Making the leap to ActionScript 3.0 – It feels like yesterday I was learning AS2. Good thing I’m an art director and not a Flash developer. What sounds cool to me? No more _root in the syntax.