notes.husk.org

"[Apple] holds itself above the fray. It seems to believe that such discussions of meanings and..."

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 22:16:26 +0100

“[Apple] holds itself above the fray. It seems to believe that such discussions of meanings and consequences do not matter, because it is in the design business, and so its primary relationship is with the user, not with the society. This may be what some parochial designers thought about themselves until the 1970s—but today the advent of design that is critical, value-sensitive, and participatory has exposed the great moral void of the rigid functionalist paradigm. But Apple, alas, remains stuck in the most conservative, outdated, and bizarre interpretation of the Bauhaus, which was, ironically, a movement that flaunted its commitment to social reform and utopian socialism.”

- Evgeny Morozov for the New Republic: Steve Jobs’s pursuit of perfection—and the consequences (via timoarnall)

"The Labor Department has no authority to release [diversity] reports for companies that aren’t..."

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 03:13:33 +0000

“

The Labor Department has no authority to release [diversity] reports for companies that aren’t federal contractors. That knocked out 10 companies: Amazon, Facebook, Groupon, Hulu, LinkedIn, LivingSocial, Netflix, Twitter, Yelp and Zynga.

But even contractors may block the release of their data. Apple, Google, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Microsoft all submitted written objections, successfully petitioning the Department of Labor for their data to be excluded on the basis that doing so would cause “competitive harm.”

”

- Julianne Pepitone for CNN: Diversity in Silicon Valley - black, female, and a Silicon Valley ‘trade secret’ (via).

That excuse is almost on the “my dog ate the homework” level. Sigh.

"The Maps app is important because it is an essential phone feature, a feature that almost everyone..."

Sat, 29 Sep 2012 02:03:00 +0100

“The Maps app is important because it is an essential phone feature, a feature that almost everyone uses. Insofar as users have expectations, it’s shaped by how much they’ve come to rely on the app in their daily lives.”

- Raging Thunderbolt, in John Gruber Is A Smart Guy (Or, Maps).

He’s not wrong to state this, but a little historical perspective: at this point five years ago, the only phone that came with a mapping application installed was the iPhone, with its Maps application (coded by Apple, data from Google). Nokia at this point had begun to offer mapping applications (and built-in GPS), but my memory of trying to install one on an N73 (after they’d stopped charging for the app) was one of failing repeatedly.

If you go back just another five years, the state of the art was Streetmap and Mapquest, both of which had interfaces with what seems now to be startlingly primitive indirect manipulation: if you wanted to look a tile to the right, you clicked on the little arrow to the right of the maps. If you were very lucky you had a big enough screen to expand to a 5x5 view, instead of the default 3x3.

Nonetheless, maps are now essential. It doesn’t matter that this is a change that took less than five years; whether or not we deserve to feel entitled to them, we definitely miss it when they’re not there.

"Due to sensitivities over government and military installations, only 11 companies in China have..."

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 17:46:32 +0100

“Due to sensitivities over government and military installations, only 11 companies in China have licenses to do comprehensive mapping, and half of those simply exist to support the government.”

- WSJ: Lost in a Sea of Black: Apple Built Special Version of Maps for China. Previously: Baidu Maps and the Edges of the World.

Michael Zhang at Petapixel: Apple Moves One Step Closer Toward...

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 23:45:09 +0100

Michael Zhang at Petapixel: Apple Moves One Step Closer Toward Location-Based Camera Disabling (via)

U.S. Patent No. 8,254,902, published on Tuesday, is titled, “Apparatus and methods for enforcement of policies upon a wireless device.”

From jocochrane, the cover of g2 containing Oliver...

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 20:51:00 +0100

From jocochrane, the cover of g2 containing Oliver Burkeman’s excellent article on how Google and Apple’s digital mapping is mapping us. Some choice quotes:

In an era of previously unimagined opportunities for exploring the far-off and strange, we want mainly to stare at ourselves.

It’s hard to interpret the occasional aerial snapshot of your garden as a big issue when the phone in your pocket is assembling a real-time picture of your movements, preferences and behaviour.

What happens when we come to see the world, to a significant extent, through the eyes of a handful of big companies based in California?

"That’s probably not what new Penney CEO Ron Johnson had in mind when he decided to spend his..."

Tue, 29 May 2012 02:02:55 +0100

“That’s probably not what new Penney CEO Ron Johnson had in mind when he decided to spend his marketing budget on those witty DeGeneres ads. A former Apple Inc. executive who took the Penney’s job in November, he thought he was lifting the store out of the brutal commodity clothing market. He may ultimately succeed at that.”

- Bob Sullivan, in the Red Tape Chronicles: ‘Fair and square’ pricing? That’ll never work, JC Penney. We like being shafted. The story notes that the “massive, creative and aggressive new advertising and pricing campaign that promises simplified prices” “appears to be a disaster. Revenue dropped 20 percent for the first quarter compared to last year. Customer traffic fell 10 percent.” The reason? “If a firm tries to educate consumers on tricks and traps, and tries to offer an honest product, a funny thing happens: Consumers say, “Thank you for the tips,” and go back to the tricky companies, where they exploit the new knowledge to get cheaper prices, leaving the “honest” firm in the dust.”

The point of interest to me (and perhaps the sort of people who read this) is that when I noticed that this was Ron Johnson of Apple, I thought of the way that I’ve never wondered when the best time to buy hardware from them was, or who from. Apple’s pricing is amazingly consistent - there may be 10% off on Black Friday, but probably not on the thing you want, and anyway, it’s not worth waiting for - and that’s true even across stores. (Try finding anyone undercutting the list price on an iPad.)

The product release schedules have also, generally, been well flagged, if you care. The iPhone generally goes on sale in June, and although last year’s 4S was late, pretty much everyone who cared knew it was going to be. iPods are announced in September. Intel’s chip launches are usually followed by refreshed laptop designs (and these days, the advances tend to be incremental enough that missing a release by a month isn’t usually heartbreaking).

Compared to the simplicity and honesty of Apple’s offerings, though, I can imagine the JC Penney product lines, of clothes, shoes, and other household goods, all of which are available from multiple chains and for variable amounts of time, is just so different that Johnson may have to back down from a promise that consumers don’t want him to keep.

Red Light Runner: These unique Apple logo shoes feature the...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:52:16 +0100

Red Light Runner:

These unique Apple logo shoes feature the vintage Apple logo embroidered into the tongue and sides of the shoes. Distributed to Apple employees in the 90’s [sic]

Found in the depths of my old bookmarks, revived for your viewing pleasure.

Citymaps. Fast Co Design: CityMaps is a view of New York City,...

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 19:24:05 +0100

Citymaps. Fast Co Design:

CityMaps is a view of New York City, Austin, and San Francisco through its logos alone. Rather than using satellite images, Street View, or legends for schools and restaurants, the map uses branding in its purest form — along with offers for all sorts of corresponding coupons — to help you discover somewhere you’d like to go.

(via)

"[Android] it did well with dominant Web brands, offering 14 Yahoo apps to the iPad’s five and..."

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 22:13:06 +0100

“[Android] it did well with dominant Web brands, offering 14 Yahoo apps to the iPad’s five and seven Amazon apps to the iPad’s 4. There are 20 Google apps for the Transformer Prime and only eight for the iPad; Google+, most notably, is missing on the iPad.”

- Sascha Segan: The iPad Wins Because Android Tablet Apps Suck: An Illustrated Guide at PCMag (via).

I was interested by this section of the article. It seems that a bunch of web companies are either finding it easier to produce Android apps, or have decided that for business reasons their apps fit better away from Apple’s platform.

Whatever the reasons, this bias towards Android seems limited to Yahoo, Amazon, Google, and the like. Odd.