The Apple Extended II

Dave Caolo, on his favorite keyboard:

First is the sound. That lovely wooden-stick-on-a-hollow-log “thonk” that announces each keystroke is yet to be duplicated. It’s satisfying in a way that affirms your productivity. Much like the jackhammer operator feels content at the end of a noisy day’s work, I feel that I got much accomplished with all that thonking and clacking.

[…]

I also love the keyboard’s feel. Apple’s Bluetooth keyboards are nice, but the keys barely move when pressed. In contrast, the Extended Keyboard’s keys just drop when pressed, providing wonderful tactile feedback. They then spring back with perfectly appropriate force. I’ve used some keyboards that either repelled my fingers on the upstroke or yielded like cold oatmeal when pressed. They’ve all made me long for the ancient artifact in my office.

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On Designing What You Love

Randy Rodriguez, designer of the Nissan 370Z, in an interview with Autoblog:

My very first car was a Datsun Z. My dad had a gas station and got this Z somehow. My older brother begged him for it and got it from him when I was 11. We worked on that when we were kids and then I wanted one badly. I was 14 when I got my car.

[…]

That’s why I decided to work with Nissan: because I have such a strong connection with the Z, and I think that car kind of made me want to be a designer. It’s the first car that I fell in love with, and I think that gave me an advantage when it came to designing the 370 because I knew so much about the car’s history.

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The CSS Keyboard

Chris Michel created an Apple aluminum keyboard out of nothing but CSS and HTML5:

I began with the function keys and thought I would just leave the icons out, just using the “F1”, “F2”, to keep it simple. But once I got that row done, I just had to take a crack at creating the little icons with some beautiful CSS. I started with the sound-off icon, and successfully rendered it close enough for what I was going for. That little icon started a monster, because some of these icons were quite tedious to design. I spent a couple hours just on the function row icons, after that things started to speed up. I mainly focused on Safari and Chrome for this, so those will render the keyboard most accurately.

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On Product Design and Web Design

Neven Mrgn:

Apple came out with updated Mac Pros and iMacs today. I’m an iMac man myself, so that’s what I checked out. Looks nice! Of course, The League of Internet Commenters is busy finding flaws and comparing it to similar offerings from Apple’s competitors. Hardware isn’t my strong suit, but I know half a thing about website design. So let’s look at the websites for Apple’s primary desktop computer, and the same from Dell and HP.

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White iPhone 4 Delayed Again

Apple PR:

White models of Apple’s new iPhone 4 have continued to be more challenging to manufacture than we originally expected, and as a result they will not be available until later this year. The availability of the more popular iPhone 4 black models is not affected.

How could Apple have not foreseen the manufacturing nightmare they are now in?

In other news, I’m pretty sure this is how vaporware starts.

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Gannet Centralizing Page Design

The Des Moines Register:

The Des Moines Register will be one of five regional design centers for Gannett Co. newspapers, the company announced Tuesday.

The announcement is expected to bring 35 to 60 jobs to Des Moines, said Carolyn Washburn, the Register’s editor and a vice president. Gannett hasn’t determined the timeline for the project, but it is expected to take at least two years.

The Des Moines center will design news pages for 21 newspapers, including the Iowa City Press-Citizen, and other locations in South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana.

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MobileMe Calendar Beta Offers Look Into Future of the Desktop Version of iCal and Other OS-Bundled Applications?

Chris Foresman at Ars Technica, on the new MobileMe Calendar beta program announced today:

The current Calendar looks very similar to iCal on Mac OS X. The new Calendar Web app gains new views for month, week, and day, as well as a handy list view. These seem to map very closely to the Calendar UI on the iPad. Along with the UI changes, Apple is adding private calendar sharing with other MobileMe users, public sharing via CalDAV and a read-only Web view, and event invitations with RSVPs. Like the new Mail, Calendar will also gain performance improvements as well.

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Apple’s ‘Refine Over Redesign’ Philosphy

Gruber hit on something in his iPhone 4 review that made me stop and think before I could get past it:

Apple seems very confident about the precise size and dimensions of the iPhone display: 3.5 inches, with a 3:2 aspect ratio. Not 3 inches. Not 4 inches. In fact, Apple seems very confident regarding everything it decided for the original 2007 iPhone. There are no new buttons, or even moved buttons. The Retina Display is emblematic of the iPhone 4 as a whole, both hardware and software: the same fundamental idea as the original iPhone, but clarified. It hasn’t really changed so much as improved — like the same picture in increasingly sharper focus.

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