Now & Sooner

I Told You So

Paul W. — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 15:31:07 +0000

As has been expected since the announcement of the iPad a few months ago, newspapers have been clamoring all over it for their future vessel of distribution. The NYT and WSJ are the best examples of how they are probably going to look (Popular Science has a great take on it as well).

And, if you recall, I said that newspapers need to format their version on the “tablet” like their print version. It’s what people like (not the shitty website variant). And they did.

WSJ's iPad App

New 2D Action Game for iPhone OS

Paul W. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 17:58:31 +0000

My brother’s vision of a 2D action game, paying homage to the greats from back when we were growing up, is beginning to come into its own. He’s just posted to Pixel Road, his game development blog. Plethora of nuggets on development, UI, design choices, and badassery.

iPad: New Era of Computer Interaction

Paul W. — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:10:43 +0000

Great overview of new multi-touch gestures demonstrated by the iPad keynote.

I’m convinced the new gesture language presented here will change computing on a very fundamental level. These examples are from the iWork software that was completely redesigned for the iPhone OS. And as you can see, it’s brilliantly aligned with the input (your fingers).

Also take for instance the Photos app and its layout of “stacks”: think about applying the pinch out (to open a stack) and the pinch in (to close a stack) for folders. You have a bunch of document folders and you pinch your way down sub-folders until you get to your document. You can apply this gesture “language” to a bunch of stuff, as Luke points out; the gestures can easily translate to the smaller screen on the iPhone.

Think about what was demonstrated in Numbers — the holding and pulling out of pie chart elements. The resizing of images in Keynote with helpful alignment guides and pixel measurements. Intuitive word-wrapping of images in Pages. Masking images. Adding charts. Moving data. Dragging formulas. Everything has been translated and everything seems easier.

Apple is taking us away from mouses and bringing us organically closer to what we do with computers by employing our fingers.

Mag+ Predicts the Future of Reading

Paul W. — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 20:35:10 +0000

Awesome videos prototyping the potential of reading with future technologies. Instead of the complicated, website-like projects being spun by Conde Nast, the gentlemen at Berg and Bonnier R&D have envisioned a purer segue from paper to screen. And I completely agree with their approach: focus on the design elements of paper periodicals and deliver them to the screen. I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly enjoy reading periodicals on websites in the browser default font, with animated Flash ads littered everywhere. I’d rather view things like they used to be, and I’ll bet most other people would, too.

Slate Dissects Publications on Tablets

Paul W. — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:24:03 +0000

Not entirely sure they are correct in assuming the digitization of periodicals for this generation is equivalent to the digitization back in the CD-ROM days, but it is at the very least a condemning perspective on otherwise over-hyped expectations.

(The Tablet Hype )

The Future of Web UI

Paul W. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:17:10 +0000

None of this matters.

Instapaper Parser Gets Update

Paul W. — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:33:48 +0000

One of my favorite iPhone apps received a solid improvement yesterday. Instapaper’s text parser can more intelligently remove text likely unrelated to the body content of a page, and also will include some inline images. The “Read Later” bookmarklet can be updated with this new parser via an Accounts setting.

(via Instapaper Blog)

Ibis Reader & Book Shelf

Paul W. — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:28:20 +0000

The Ibis Reader fantastically uses HTML5 (particularly offline storage), works well with the ePub standard, and should operate just fine on any mobile device whose browser supports HTML5.

Helvetica Man

Paul W. — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:33:21 +0000

Oh the Helvetica Man.

End the Madness

Paul W. — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:55:33 +0000

Andy Kessler’s Why AT&T Killed Google Voice article is definitely worth reading — it touches on a number of important telecommunications items (the Google Voice app issue notwithstanding), especially the state of the industry in terms of data. Sure, AT&T is a business, hosts a massively expensive wireless infrastructure, and should charge whatever they want in a free marketplace. But when we look at their pricing structure, it makes no sense — no sense, in particular, to how the rest of the computing world operates: in data transfers.

My favorite:

As any parent of teenagers knows, text messages are 20 cents each, or $5,000 per megabyte. After the first month and a $320 bill, we all pony up $10 a month for unlimited texting plans. Same for Internet access. With my iPhone, I pay $30 a month for unlimited data service (actually, one gigabyte per month). Is it worth that? The à la carte price for other not-so-smart phones is $5 per megabyte (one-thousandth of a gigabyte) per month. So we buy monthly plans. Margins in AT&T’s Wireless segment are an embarrassingly high 25%