Fresh Apple: Cult Of Mac (10 сообщений)

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UPDATE: Cult of Mac Blog HAS Moved
The Cult of Mac blog is moving to a new address. The blog can now be found at www.cultofmac.com. And we’re serious this time. We’re still part of the Wired family, just decamped to our own domain to make some mischief. We even have several posts from this week, if you’ve been wondering where we’ve been…

Here is the new RSS feed. We’ll see you over there.

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Boulevard of Broken iPods

Lots of iPods have bitten the big one over the last six years. But never before have I seen so many totally trashed “breakthrough digital devices” in one place as at the great Pile of Photos of Broken iPods. Head over. Grab some hankies. Mourn. Reboot.

Via Digg.

Technorati Tags: ipod, puppy

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Brilliant (and fake) iPhone Ad About New York

Kudos to Alec Sutherland, who has put together the best fake ad for a real product I have ever seen in the form of “iPhone New York,” a brilliant, professional spot that shows people of every language and culture raving about the iPhone. I almost teared up, and I’m all West Coast and stuff. Bonus points for use of “Young Folks” by Peter Bjorn and John, too.

I think Apple’s very demo-oriented “Here’s what it can actually do” campaign is perfect for the iPhone launch, but a treatment like this one could kill for a second phase. They should call Sutherland when the time comes.

Via Digg.

Technorati Tags: iphone, new york

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iPhone in the Wild Spotted On My Commuter Rail

Of all the weeks to need to drive my car. As widely reported on the Net, most notably at Engadget, we’ve got what looks to be a legit iPhone sighting, courtesy of a snap by Mark Trammell. And not just anywhere, but on Caltrain, the San Francisco to Silicon Valley commuter rail I normally ride twice a day. But this is what happens the second you stop watching for it.

The Boy Genius Report suggests the user in question might actually be Mike Matas, an icon designer. I’m not sure the resemblance is strong enough…

iPhone spotted in public? - Engadget

Technorati Tags: caltrain, iphone

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Mozilla COO Calls Jobs on Predatory Safari Plans

No matter what one thinks of Safari for Windows (which has already been patched three days after launch and still can’t render A LOT of sites), it’s nice to see Apple attacking Microsoft’s browser hegemony on its own turf.

Right?

Unfortunately, not really. As John Lilly, COO of Mozilla, points out, when Steve showed off a pie chart depicting his vision of Apple’s Windows browser marketshare, he didn’t depict MS losing any share at all. Instead, the image just eats up all the alternatives, including the still-rising Firefox. And while I have my problems with Firefox (it strikes me as a program only a software engineer could love), I only want to see Apple bite into Internet Explorer’s customers, not the folks who have already sought out an alternative.

The computer world is not the American political scene, and there is room for way more than two players. And so it should be. The more browsers we have, the fewer “browser-specific” features develop and the more readily standards get adopted across platforms. We all stand to benefit from a diverse, competitive markets. A shame that Apple reveals they have no interest in the same.

John's Blog » Blog Archive » A Picture's Worth 100M Users???

Technorati Tags: firefox, safari

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Joy of Tech: How Steve Lost His Mojo

The general consensus is that Steve Jobs’ most recent keynote speech did not measure up to his typical standard. I’m not anywhere near so down on it (maybe because I didn’t go and only watched the online feed during stolen moments at work). This Joy of Tech trip sums up the sentiment pretty well. But you’ll have to click through to see the source of Steve’s sudden suck. Clever, gentlemen. Clever.

Via Digg.

Technorati Tags: humor, puppy, steve jobs

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No, Economist. Apple is not a Network Innovation Company
With Apple sailing on an all-time high stock price and mere weeks from the launch of its absurdly anticipated iPhone, the serious business press is turning even more attention to the little-Cupertino-company-that-could than normal.

Take, for example, The Economist, which has placed Apple on the cover of its most recent issue for a story titled "Apple and the art of innovation." It’s a pretty good story, nothing careful watchers of Apple don’t already know. It does, however, get one aspect quite wrong, based on a simple misunderstanding of how Apple likes to work:

In fact, its real skill lies in stitching together its own ideas with technologies from outside and then wrapping the results in elegant software and stylish design. The idea for the iPod, for example, was originally dreamt up by a consultant whom Apple hired to run the project. It was assembled by combining off-the-shelf parts with in-house ingredients such as its distinctive, easily used system of controls. And it was designed to work closely with Apple’s iTunes jukebox software, which was also bought in and then overhauled and improved. Apple is, in short, an orchestrator and integrator of technologies, unafraid to bring in ideas from outside but always adding its own twists.

This approach, known as "network innovation", is not limited to electronics. It has also been embraced by companies such as Procter & Gamble, BT and several drugs giants, all of which have realised the power of admitting that not all good ideas start at home. Making network innovation work involves cultivating contacts with start-ups and academic researchers, constantly scouting for new ideas and ensuring that engineers do not fall prey to "not invented here" syndrome, which always values in-house ideas over those from outside.

Well, yes and no. Apple has largely gotten over its opposition to "not invented here" technologies, sure. Macs now use motherboards and chips found in virtually every PC on the planet. But it is a shocking mistake to claim the iPod is essentially a leveraged version of off-the-shelf hardware. At a component level, the iPod is quite obviously made up of chips and boards that Apple just buys. But throwing those components into a bag does not an iPod make.

Apple is a pure design-driven company. By that I mean that they rarely produce an idea that is truly new, but when they launch a product or service, it tends to be so much better than existing products in the category that it comes off as legitimately innovative and create new markets. Personal computers existed before the Apple II, but they sucked. The Macintosh was not even Apple’s first attempt at a computer with a graphical user interface (that was the Lisa), let alone the first ever (the Xerox Alto). The iPod was far from the first Mp3 player, the AppleTV is not the first living room media set-top box, and the iPhone is about as far from the first cell phone as you could get.

Yet each product has been or could prove to be truly ground-breaking. Is it because Apple continually looked out to the world and saw a great solution in the world they could buy, brand and ship, as P&G famously did with the Crest SpinBrush? Of course not! The Microsoft Zune is a much better example of Network Innovation than the Apple iPod — the Zune is simply a Toshiba media player with a slightly different interface, new software and Zune branding. The iPod was invented whole cloth, even if it used individual pieces of tech that existed in the world.

This is where Apple excels. They take ideas that people have invented — adequate functionality, a modest market of hobbyists — and turn them into innovations by fitting them into what people need. No matter the nascent market, once Apple gets there, their solution will be simpler, prettier and just more lovable than existing ideas in the market. And that’s about building a better mousetrap, something Apple does better than anyone in the whole wide world.

It’s awesome. But it’s not a primary strategy of Network Innovation.

Via Endless Innovation.

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Delicious Library 2 Wins Apple Design Award

Delicious Library 2, which has a snazzy new UI based on Core Animation, wins an Apple’s 2007 Design Award for Best Leopard Application. Still no screenshots of it though.

For discussion of Core Animation and how it might change interfaces, see here: Kiss Boring Interfaces Goodbye With Apple’s New Animated OS.

The other winners are:

Best Mac OS X User Experience: Coda. Panic.

Best Mac OS X Developer Tool: CSSEdit 2.5. MacRabbit.

Best Mac OS X Game: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade 2.0. Blizzard Entertainment .

Best Mac OS X Scientific Computing Solution: Papers 1.0. Alexander Griekspoor and Tom Groothuis.

Best Mac OS X Dashboard Widget: BART Widget 1.0. Bret Victor.

Best Mac OS X Student Product: Picturesque 1.0. Zac Cohen.

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Pure Digital Claims it Will Sell Unlocked iPhones

If you’re among the many people in the United States who either can’t use AT&T/Cingular or choose not to use the carrier’s services based on negative experiences, take heart — there still might be a way to use an iPhone without the company’s blessing. The iPhone ships in four weeks. And though Apple is officially keeping the device exclusive to AT&T for five years, never underestimate the black market for unlocked phones.

According to Ars Technica, Pure Mobile is now claiming it will sell unlocked iPhones for an undisclosed (read: EXORBITANT) rate almost as soon as the devices hit the market. As a T-Mobile user, this is very heartening news, but I can tell you there is no way I’m going to spend $1,000 or more for an iPhone. Maybe when the iPhone nano hits in two years, and someone unlocks that…

Anyone willing to take the unlocked plunge?

Technorati Tags: iphone, unlock

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First iPhone Web Apps Available

For all of the complaining that has tripped down the wire about Apple’s total lack of an SDK for the iPhone, a couple of entrepreneurial developers have already created iPhone apps to try out in Safari.

Shown above is David Cann’s alternate interface for Digg. It’s quite fun, and I actually find it a better way to navigate Digg than the real site. (Sorry, Kevin!) I especially enjoy the way it implements the “grab and fling” interface for the rest of us.

The other contender is OneTrip, a quick (though very elegant) grocery list program put together over-night by Neven Mrgan. Both apps are really nice and fairly clear evidence that sophisticated programs suited to use on the iPhone are possible. I think the new Apple strategy of “the web is the new SDK” is actually a wonderful one. They’re pretty unlikely to crash, and really powerful development is a possibility.

Anyone want to lay money on how long it will be until Google issues a version of Reader optimized for the iPhone?

Via Digg. Twice.

Technorati Tags: iphone, software, thirdparty

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