Steve Jobs, 2007:

There is always change and improvement, and there is always someone who bought a product before a particular cutoff date and misses the new price or the new operating system or the new whatever. This is life in the technology lane. If you always wait for the next price cut or to buy the new improved model, you'll never buy any technology product because there is always something better and less expensive on the horizon. The good news is that if you buy products from companies that support them well, like Apple tries to do, you will receive years of useful and satisfying service from them even as newer models are introduced.

It's easy to be annoyed when a newly released piece of software doesn't work on your not-yet-old device. I'm looking at you, iPad 1 owners.

Unfortunately, there's normally a reason for it.

As Marco points out, when the original iPad shipped in early 2010, it ran iOS 3.2 and supported very few background tasks. For this reason, the compromise of including just 256MB of system memory seemed fair at the time. However as iOS matured, the need for background tasks such as iCloud and third-party music apps has demanded more memory. Now the lack of RAM seems like an oversight; a poor design choice. "Why can't my iPad run iOS 6? Apple is trying to make me upgrade to a new iPad just to give them more money!"

It's important for gadget buyers to remember that the first generation of a new product is likely to have more compromises than later generations. With any version 1.0, creators put the fruit of their labours out into the world and watch everyone discover, explore and criticise the hard work that went into them. Whilst any company should always be learning from their existing products, I imagine the releases which teach creators the most are the 1.0s. These releases give the most insight into how the product is used, what works well and what needs to be improved.

A good test for this theory will be to see which changes are made when the iPad mini is updated for the first time. Will the screen be the big compromise of the first generation? Will it be the CPU? Something else?

It's important to note that buying products based on what they can do today is important. Don't assume your device will be updated for years to come. Don't buy a device because you expect an important feature to be coming in a future update: wait until the feature you need is available or find something else. This will lead you to be more content with the products you have. You'll worry less about devices you own being obsolete and focus more on enjoying what you own.

The technology world is always changing. Technology is like a piece of music; you enjoy it for the journey itself, not reaching the end.

Chasing Perfection 2.0 is here.

It's taken a while, but I'm incredibly proud to finally announce the redesign is complete.

There have been a lot of changes, both front and back end. Firstly, the font you're currently reading is Adelle, a truly beautiful slab serif, optimised for the web and high resolution Retina displays¹. Choosing a typeface is exceedingly difficult, however I believe I've made a great decision: the absolutely stunning italic glyphs of Adelle won me over. The back end of Chasing Perfection has been upgraded to Squarespace 6, and is running a custom template lovingly coded by Jamie Brittain. It not only looks great on different size displays, it loads faster, too.

This redesign is a large step in the direction I've wanted to take Chasing Perfection towards for quite some time. It has been humbling to have witnessed how my creation has evolved since its inception.

Please, if you spot any strange quirks or bugs with the website, let me know.

Thank you.

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1: Seriously, visit this website on a Retina display.

People have different tastes. The design of computers — namely the taste surrounding their creation — has changed significantly since their inception. I've noticed a similar shift in my own taste as I've matured and changed, too.

Only a few years ago, this computer would have appealed to my design sense: it looks powerful, exciting and intimidating. It's the alpha male of the gaming world. I was a nerd and a tinkerer. It looks like the kit-car of the computing world.

Whilst I'm still a nerd, I've fairly recently realised just how human I really am. All technology has to be interacted with. Therefore, all technology should be designed primarily with humans in mind. After all, we're the ones using it. That gaming rig is clearly primarily designed with zombie-geek-tinkerers in mind. It's a truck in a world of hatchbacks.

I don't want to fix my computer. I don't want to worry about it. If it breaks, I want to know it can be replaced quickly with as little hassle as possible.

Today, the computer which most appeals to my design sense is much less expensive and, interestingly, less powerful. Strangely enough, the computer I've recently been spending the most time using — and most time enjoying, isn't classed as a computer by some folks at all. And it's cheaper and less powerful again.

Technology shouldn't be intimating to use. It shouldn't have to be powerful — only if the situation calls for it. Technology shouldn't be just for nerds and gamers. Computers and technology should get out of the way and be easy to use.

Technology should be for everyone. Technology should be human.

The first feature touted on Android 4.1's official website is that the OS is now "fast & smooth":

With buttery graphics and silky transitions. We put Android under a microscope, making everything feel fast, fluid, and smooth. Moving between home screens and switching between apps is effortless, like turning pages in a book.

Too late, Google. This is a feature Apple shipped with iPhone OS version 1.0 in 2007.

Every opportunity I get, I pick up an Android device and scroll through a large list—sometimes these are contact lists, sometimes they're within the music app on the device. A consistent trend happens when I do this: the device doesn't scroll smoothly. It kills me.

I hope this changes with Android 4.1, for the sake of the users. A laggy interface causes a disconnect between the device and the user. It makes the person using the device aware they're using a device: it breaks the magic of interacting with a touchscreen. When I use my iPhone or iPad, I forget that I'm interacting with a computer—it feels like I'm directly manipulating the content on the screen. Losing this amazing human-computer interface experience is a major problem.

And when there's a problem with an interface, there's a problem with your product. As Jef Raskin famously said:

As far as the customer is concerned, the interface is the product.

A Shift

The announcement of the Microsoft Surface shows the biggest change Microsoft as a company has ever made. They now directly sell hardware which runs their own software.

This is a sign that Microsoft is backed into a corner and willing to do a lot to get out of it. Gruber sums up the change well:

Microsoft this week showed itself willing to do what was once unthinkable: design and sell its own PC hardware. This is a profound change of direction for Microsoft and the entire PC industry.

When big companies are pressured into making radical moves like this, exciting things happen. The Surface looks extremely interesting — I'd actually love to play with a Metro-only version of the device. The Touch Cover looks like it could be great to type on, too.

Having said that, the Intel powered versions of the Surface show us that Microsoft is terrified to move into the future too quickly. I can't see any reason to buy an expensive, overpowered and overheating version of the Surface. It's interesting to note that Microsoft doesn't mention the two distinct versions of the Surface, even on its official page. The only one which is shown is the Windows RT version.

Interaction

Being able to run "traditional" desktop style legacy Windows applications is being touted as a feature of the Intel powered device, but I see it as a drawback.

All traditional desktop computing software is designed to be interacted with a mouse. Apple is currently slowly transitioning to a much more gesture based input method on OS X, partly due to laptops being the most popular Macs and partly because many features of iOS are being taken back to the Mac. Microsoft is forgetting that almost all desktop applications are meant to be interacted with using a keyboard and mouse and shipping a device which will be unpleasant to use.

A device being enjoyable to use is a feature.

Imagine using Numbers or Pages for OS X via a VNC app on an iPad. It would be slow and frustrating to use. Numbers and Pages for Mac are designed to be interacted with using a keyboard and mouse — not touch input. This is a fair comparison to what it'll be like using desktop apps with Surface. It'll be awful.

Microsoft's "no compromises" approach — running Windows RT apps and full Windows 8 applications on touch-based Windows tablets — is the biggest compromise of them all.

1. Keep good company.
2. Notice the ordinary.
3. Preserve the ephemeral.
4. Design not for the elite but for the masses.
5. Explain it to a child.
6. Get lost in the content.
7. Get to the heart of the matter.
8. Never tolerate “OK anything”.
9. Remember your responsibility as a storyteller.
10. Zoom out.
11. Switch.
12. Prototype.
13. Pun.
14. Make design your life… and life your design.
15. Leave something behind.

Via Swiss Miss.

Look at the technology we had 200 years ago. Now look at the iPhone in your pocket today.

Realise that this massive technological advancement is only increasing. At an increasing rate.

It's incredible.

To steal a line from Jason Silva, one of my favourite inspirational speakers, we really don't need time lapse photography to see the amazing changes happening in our world today.

The iPhone in your pocket is a thousand times smaller, a thousand times cheaper and a thousand times more powerful than a billion dollar supercomputer from the 1960s. That's over a billion-fold increase in price and performance.

That is not stopping.

And yet, here we are, worrying about the market share of a mobile device or whether Apple or Google ships a 3D maps product first.

Why don't we just suddenly snap out of this trance we're in and realise that we're living in the future, today? We can talk to our phones, read newspapers on portable panes of glass and pay for coffees by touching a piece of plastic to a screen.

We're all human beings living on the same planet. Yet we're exploring space — even tweeting from The International Space Station.

We have the world in the palm of our hand and yet we don't seem to realise it.

So, today, I beg of you: stop to think about where you've been placed in the time and space of our universe. Realise what we have around us is mind-blowingly unbelievable and fantastic at the same time. And make the most of everything you do.

I don't like social sharing buttons on websites. They're ugly.

In fact, when I redesigned this very website a few weeks ago, I made the conscious decision to not include any.

Today, iA's Sweep the Sleaze blog post was making the rounds. Marco Arment's comments on the article resonate with me:

I don’t embed any sharing buttons for one big reason: they look cheap and desperate. They would devalue my voice and reduce my credibility.

For me, every other issue — clutter, load times, scrolling speed, privacy, security — is secondary to that.

If people want to share my work (which I absolutely adore), they will find their own way to do it. It is not difficult to tweet a link to a webpage.

I fail to see any compelling reason to include social sharing buttons, besides shoving down your readers' throats just how many times your post has been shared.

This is the story of how I met Bruce Dickinson. He gave me a flying lesson.

If you're not familiar with his work, he's the lead singer of Iron Maiden, a songwriter, airline pilot, fencer, broadcaster, author, screenwriter, actor and former marketing director. He's been busy.

Iron Maiden

I remember when I was first introduced to Iron Maiden. It was entirely thanks to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. This game (one of my favourite titles of all time) included Iron Maiden's song "2 Minutes to Midnight" in an in-game radio station, VRock. It's safe to say that this game moulded me into who I am today - 2 Minutes to Midnight was stuck in my head the entire time I was playing GTA, as well as most of the time I wasn't. It just so happened that I was humming the chorus one day at school when an unknown kid said "Hey, man, you're an Iron Maiden fan? Awesome!" to me. He'd later become one of my best friends.

I was never brought up around music. At the time this happened, almost ten years ago, I didn't know what an album was. My only introduction to music was Top of the Pops on television combined with the rare Now That's What I Call Music CD I'd receive as a present. I understood what singles were, but I didn't realise that a bunch of individual songs combined on one record was called an album. I had so much to learn.

Luckily, this unknown kid turned out to be Victor. He taught me what I needed to know about music. And so much more, besides. Thank you. From that day onwards, Iron Maiden have been my number one band. I've never looked back.

Flying

Aeronautical engineering fascinates me. Always has. I studied maths, physics, product design, ICT and economics during my A-Levels. Then I studied product design at university. I've wanted a private pilot's license(PPL) for as long as I can remember. As much fun as it's possible to have with remote control cars and planes (hell, even real cars), nothing quite compares to soaring through the air in a real plane. I love it.

Bruce loves it, too. That's why he obtained a PPL in the 1990s, shortly followed by a commercial flying license. When the company he flew for (whilst still a frontman for Iron Maiden, mind you) commercially closed down last year, he started offering a limited number of flying lessons in a $10,000,000 Boeing 737 flight simulator. Needless to say, I was one of the first to know.

I booked a lesson with my hero.

Convergence

I met Bruce Dickinson. We shook hands. We taxied down the runway. Then we took off.

Even though my lesson was scheduled to last one hour, we almost flew in the simulator for twice as long. I had multiple attempts landing the plane without any autopilot assistance. My landings were a little bumpy, but I managed. It was not easy. Bruce landed them perfectly, with one hand on the controls – whilst talking to me. Every time.

We talked about trains, planes, technology – even radar systems and engineering. Music was never brought up. Today was about flying, not singing. We did a flyby of London city whilst discussing how primitive some of the technology in aerospace still is, even today, agreeing that sometimes it doesn't matter how fancy something is so long as it works. The man is incredibly intelligent.

I'm still working towards my own PPL. Maybe one day I'll be in a position to give lessons to an inspired fan of airplanes – just like I was given this incredible experience. Thank you, Bruce.

I don't want to write to a deadline. I want to write because I enjoy it. I want to write for me.

The disturbing notion of chasing pageviews can damage the quality of writing on the web. I don't want to fall victim to it.

One of my favourite improvements to Chasing Perfection, having moved the site to Squarespace, is the fantastic Squarespace iOS app. Unfortunately for me, the app makes it far too easy to see how much traffic I'm getting. This results in me needing to exercise great self control to avoid Chasing Pageviews instead of Perfection.

The idea of needing to keep up website traffic could actually be detrimental to its own goal, over time. trying to drive visitors to a website constantly results in a "boy who's crying wolf" scenario – think of the wolf as quality. If I keep sending out poor quality links on Twitter, people will eventually stop clicking on them. I try to avoid this. In fact, I actively strive for the opposite. I don't post a link to every post on this website, for example.

Trying to drive visitors to a website might work in short spurts, but it isn't a sustainable practice over time. Sustainability and natural growth are important.

For me, being sustainable is more important than having unplanned, crazy traffic for a single day. I'd rather have steady traffic in the form of a few thousand visitors per week than no visitors one week, followed by twenty thousand in one afternoon.

So, with this service announcement out of the way, let's get back to the regular schedule. I'm going to keep writing for me.

I kinda stepped in it yesterday.

I originally decided to not write anything about John Gruber's sudden departure from 5by5. But after I got blocked on Twitter by Neven Mrgan (coincidentally a host on a Mule Radio podcast — the network John moved The Talk Show to), I changed my mind. Things need clearing up.

I was a little on-edge regarding what happened with John's move of The Talk Show; I have a strange sense of loyalty to 5by5. That, coupled with the character limit of Twitter skewed what I meant to convey with my tweets. I'll try and explain my concerns again more accurately now.

I hate injustice. I hate it so much in fact, that over the years it's got me into a lot of trouble. Injustice is — quite simply — bullshit. My initial reaction to John's sudden departure from 5by5 was unpleasant, because it seemed as if Dan Benjamin had been unfairly subjected to injustice. My heckles were raised and I wanted to defend Dan. I felt he had been hurt by the move and didn't deserve to have been.

Before I could say something stupid, I decided to see what people I respect thought about John's move. Most of the people I respect are fortunately smart enough to not get themselves dragged into a battle about something like this, so they didn't comment much. I eventually ended up on reddit.

The comments I found there seemed to generally back up how I feel:

I think Gruber could have really done himself a favor by allowing Dan to make one last "send-off" episode wishing him well.

A lot of drama came from Mule Radio (via Mike) and give people a hard time for caring.

Now it's hard for me to take Mule Radio seriously.

From what I can gather, Dan Benjamin was treated unfairly in this move — but, despite this, he behaved with a level of class and humility far beyond what was necessary. I have great respect for him because of that.

I hope John invites Dan to be a guest on The Talk Show to discuss this amicably. The awkwardness which surrounds this situation would dissolve if that happened.

I had no right to say unfair things to associates of the Mule Radio Syndicate, and I regret what I said. I had hoped that Neven, being a Mule Radio host, may have been able to shed some new light on the situation, but I should have acted with more tact.

I'm sorry for acting inappropriately, Neven. I will try to think more before I tweet, like the smart people I follow did. I unnecessarily provoked you with my tweets and I'm ashamed of what I said.

Last night, I started (and finished) reading Free Will by Sam Harris. In it, he disassembles the concept of free will entirely, covering every argument for and against the concept, whilst keeping the book short(68 pages), witty and entertaining.

Some passages in the book are slightly more technical than others, but there is an overarching narrative which is perfect for newcomers to the topic such as myself. I plan to re-read it in a month or so. Highly recommended.

Here are a few thought-provoking excerpts from the book:

The only skills at your disposal are those inherited from moments passed.

Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.

You will do whatever it is you do, and it is meaningless to assert that you could have done otherwise.

The urge for retribution depends upon our not seeing the underlying causes of human behaviour.

If we could incarcerate earthquakes and hurricanes for their crimes, we would build prisons for them as well.

If we made sneezing illegal, some number of people would break the law however severe the consequences.

These lead to perhaps my favourite quote by Harris:

The illusion of free will is in itself an illusion.

If you're planning to buy a copy of this book, I'd appreciate if you'd use one of my affiliate links:

• Free Will paperback ($9.99)
• Free Will kindle edition ($3.99)

Thank you. I think you'll enjoy it.