Category: Design

The New York Times has posted a story about Marissa Mayer, Google’s Vice President of Search Product and User Experience. Here’s a bit from it:

“It used to be people would come over to my apartment and say, ‘Does your apartment look like Google or does Google look like your apartment?’ ” she says with a staccato laugh that has earned a following of its own in Silicon Valley. “I can’t articulate it anymore. I really love color. I’m not very knick-knacky or cluttery. My place has very clean, simple lines. There are some elements of fun and whimsy. That has always appealed to me.”

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From Engadget’s lengthy review of Amazon’s revamped Kindle e-book reader:

All in all, the hardware has been seriously streamlined, and the result is nothing short of gorgeous. Besides being evened out and pulled in, the Kindle 2 is also astonishingly thin – just 0.36-inches – which makes it a pleasure to carry, though we miss some of the bulk of the original for reading duties. It’s not a huge deal, but besides the frequent mis-tapping of buttons, we still feel the original more closely replicates the “book holding” experience. But ultimately, the question that will be nagging most people here is, “why didn’t they do this stuff the first time around?” and it’s a valid one. It’s amazing to consider how many (original) bad hardware choices have been overcome with this new design, but also somewhat vexing if you were an early adopter.

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Macworld’s Jason Snell recently test-drove a MSI Wind running OS X. In his two pages of ponderings on the little notebook, Snell does something that I found surprising: comparing the Wind to Apple’s MacBook Air:

While the Wind is not a terrible laptop, it most definitely feels cheap. Apple’s Aluminum-clad laptops all feel solid, and even the white plastic MacBook feels sturdy. The Wind’s plastic skin feels thinner and more flexible, especially on the bottom—it feels more like what you’d find in a clock radio or other cheap consumer appliance.

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I love retro computing, and I like well-done mods. RetroMacCast forum member option8 loves both, it seems. The hardware hacker has put a Mac mini inside a Apple Disk II case. Check out that link for photos.

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Gizmodo:

On this first touch, the keyboard felt cramped, probably a result of the screen size, which is smaller than the iPhone’s—which is the obvious soft keyboard reference, since it was the first one to implement a finger-touch software keyboard.

It’s going to be hard to beat the virtual keyboard on the iPhone.

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Yummy.

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Safari140 - a Safari plugin that adds simple tweeting to Apple’s browser - was released last night. It’s activated using Control+T and automatically fills in the title of the current page and a shortened URL, using the is.gd service.

After using it this morning, I do like how much smoother SAfari140 makess sharing a link, but I don’t see this replacing Twitterrific on my Macs. Go check it out - the price is right, at least - $0.

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The boys and girls on the Adobe “Adobe Installation and Licensing” team have started a blog:

In addition, we want to hear back from the Adobe community about your out of box experience. We’re under no delusion that the world of installers, updaters and licensing is just peachy. Some of you experience problems installing or updating Adobe software, particularly in enterprise environments. Likewise we have a few problems with the licensing technology for some customers. We want to hear about the problems you face and, hopefully, help to solve them. In addition, the information we get from you all through this blog will help us prioritize your needs so that we address the most important issues first, so please do respond in comments to the posts. We’ll do our best to keep up with you.

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ForkBombr reader John H. sent me this link to CNet’s product page for the 400Mhz Graphite iMac G3. Check out the manufacturer’s description:

iMac is, quite simply, an outrageously attractive, surprisingly affordable, and extraordinarily easy-to-set-up-and-use system. It comes fully loaded, but brings along none of the hassle you might associate with the word “computer”. Get ready for the excitement of swift, simple Internet access - your passport to a world of information. And the thrill of playing a game so richly detailed you actually feel like you are in another world. Then consider the fact that iMac delivers significantly more power than you would expect from a computer at such a great price. Whether you are a first-time computer user or a highly experienced one, iMac - with its powerful, state-of-the-art (and beyond) features and simplicity of setup and operation - is the ideal choice. It will let you do the things you want to do with a computer, and many things you may only have dreamt about.

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When Apple announced the revamped MacBook Pro line in the fall, arguably the biggest issues people complained about was the glossy display.

Apple argues that many users prefer glossy - for good reasons. The colors are richer, the blacks are darker, and the screen looks sharper.

But as will all good debates, the other side - the matte camp - has some very good points as well. Matte displays show colors closer to how they are in real life. The also look cleaner, since there’s no glass to smudge. Then of course, there’s the age-old issue of glare* - glossy displays have a nasty habit of showing awful reflections.

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Douglas Bowman, on the new buttons inside Gmail and Google Reader:

The buttons are designed to look very similar to basic HTML input buttons. But they can handle multiple interactions with one basic design. The buttons we’re using are imageless, and they’re created entirely using HTML and CSS, plus some JavaScript to manage the behavior.

It’s a lengthy read, but it provides a fascinating look into the care these guys put into simple buttons.

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Fraser Speirs is the developer for the wonderful FlickrExport tools for iPhoto and Aperture (I use the Aperture plugin every day) and Darkslide, an iPhone app that allows an excellent Flickr experience on the handheld.

When Apple announce iPhoto 09 was going to have a built-in Flickr exporter, I was worried. Often times, when Apple “adopts” a technology that was available as a 3rd party add-on, usually that 3rd party add-on goes away, but Fraser Speirs’ own look at iPhoto ‘09 may prove that sometime the 3rd party guys get it right:

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