Steve Jobs’s longtime friends Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and Ed Catmull, president and co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios and president of Disney Animation, remember the late Apple CEO.
This video by Microsoft nicely demonstrates the problem and sets the bar to jump – 1 ms.
Via TechCrunch
Not much organized but just scroll through these nuggets and I bet you will find something interesting.
This piece of work by Zurb may come in handy.
They haven’t released the whole interview yet but there are more short videos on D10 page. Once they put out the whole interview I will replace this highlights one with it. Meanwhile, you may be interested in the transcription of the whole thing.
Good templates for wireframing in Keynote for iPad, iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Facebook, general web app, Windows 7, Windows 7 Mobile and OS X.
Via @BerkaUX
By now you’ve probably seen the promotional video of the Leap, which created quite a stir last week all over internets. But just in case, here it is.
It definitely is cool. I just have a problem with the Leap being positioned by the producer in a “We are changing the world” and “Say goodbye to your mouse and keyboard” way.
I would like to see better interface for our desktop and laptops as much as the next guy but I rather doubt that it would be the Leap. Here is why.
Desktop-class OS metaphor itself
Whether we like it or not, the desktop + windows + files metaphor currently used in OS X, Windows and other operating systems is built to be used with keyboard and mouse. It does not matter how good the Leap is, it will not be better for the current operating systems.
We see it on the touch devices like iPhone or iPad that for the new interface method to be better for some tasks, it required completely different OS.
So, if you saw the video above and thought “Wow, this is how I want to control my computer”, forget it, not going to happen. Not the least because controlling something with virtual touch is one abstraction layer more than using the touch we already have coming in full swing.
Accessory you need to buy
OK, so what if there are going to be applications developed for the Leap that run on the classical OS’s? That is definitely possible, but as it requires user to invest $70 on the top of the app price, we could predict, it will be interesting proposal for very limited number of apps.
Yes, I know, producer of the Leap says they are in the talks of integrating the technology right into notebooks but even if we give this the benefit of doubt, we could be sure it will be on very small number of the total market for some time. Who would develop his application for such a constrained niche? Chicken and egg, anyone?
Revolution? No. Useful? Could be.
I will tell you who maight. For example someone who wants to wow his target audience. Showrooms of car dealers, jewelleries, booths on trade shows and such.
Or highly custom applications for many areas such as 3D modeling and there are surely others.
The Leap could be useful, but it definitely will not be revolutionary.
I believe that many Apple observers have been too invested in picking off the low hanging fruit of obviously out-of-touch commentators, columnists, and analysts. Apple is winning. It’s fun to pick on the idiots, and we do tune in for the affirmation that engenders, but that’s not insight. It’s a tag team wedgie patrol. It takes a clever intellect to dismantle bullshit but, ultimately, it often just ends up with pantsing the dumb guy. Rather than doing that let’s aim to pants the A-grade quarterback.Here are the top three problems I believe Apple faces in the near term.
To his list I would add the problem of filtering signal from noise in all the Stores – App, iBooks and iTunes. For starters, Apple must get better with suggesting new stuff based on past purchases.
Via Daring Fireball
Thought provoking 15 minutes speech by Joe Kraus (you may find transcription of the speech there).
I agree that we have to fight back distractions. It was Einstein who famously said:
It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.
I strongly believe that focusing on a given problem for a long time is the only way to great solution.
Via @jakubnesetril
“Where to Draw the Line” is a clever post by Des Traynor of Intercom.
So much is written about the pursuit of simplicity these days but often there is a confusion. There is a fundamental difference between making a product simple, and making a simple product.
I like the advice to focus on user’s workflow in its entirety. It circles around the jobs-to-be-done approach of which I am more and more fan.
Via @jasonfried
Google’s doodly tribute to Moog synthesizer is really something. Here’s a guide for the UI in JPG.
Of course, what interests us is that it’s done with HTML5 technologies only. I hope someone digs through it and writes about it.
Well, “free” as in “give us an email for it”, but if you haven’t read it yet, you definitely should. Getting Real is one of the best books not just for anyone who wants to build a web application.
wysihtml5 is an open source rich text editor based on HTML5 technology and the progressive-enhancement approach. It uses a sophisticated security concept and aims to generate fully valid HTML5 markup by preventing unmaintainable tag soups and inline styles.
Via @ViliamKopecky
Nicely delivered point, that resonates with jobs-to-be-done approach.
It seems very likely to me that there’s something simple and beautiful lurking inside the browser platform that will hit the greatest 80/20 point in software history. But I’ve been thinking that for a decade or more, now.
– Browsers and Apps in 2012, Tim Bray
Well, from my point of view, there will – in foreseeable future – be area of problems that only native apps could solve. In the same way, there is and – in foreseeable future – will be area of problems that web apps solve better than native apps. I personally think the latter area is bigger in terms of money to be made off but it does not matter much as both are huge and growing fast.
And that’s all not speaking about the “gray” area of mutant native apps using some form of browser integration or web apps using hardware API of the mobile device.
That’s at least Chris Coyier’s advice in article SASS vs. LESS.
“Which CSS preprocessor language should I choose?” is a hot topic lately. I’ve been asked in person several times and an online debate has been popping up every few days it seems. It’s nice that the conversation has largely turned from whether or not preprocessing is a good idea to which one language is best. Let’s do this thing.Really short answer: SASS
Don’t worry this is just the beginning, he does more reasoning than that ;-)
Via @zdenekkostal
Perfect set of tutorials by David DeSandro. A bit of theory and then great examples. Nicely presented too.
Source The Verge
What’s in the new ‘320 and Up’?Five CSS3 Media Query increments: 480, 600, 768, 992 and 1382px
Design ‘atmosphere’ (colour, texture and typography) separated from layout
Bootstrap styles for buttons, forms and tables
Font-based icons from Font Awesome
Modernizr, Selectivizr, responsive type tester and design tester
LESS mixins and variables