It seems obvious to me that RIM as a company is suffering from irrelevancy in the world of the iPhone and iPad. I understand the need for RIM to try and keep morale high for employees, customers and developers, however the ways in which they've gone about doing so seem completely absurd. Here are two recent examples.

RIM released a music video, Devs, BlackBerry Is Going To Keep On Loving You, in which members of the BlackBerry developer relations team literally sing a song encouraging developers to not lose faith in their waning platform. Their video description justifies it thusly:

We are going to keep loving developers at Research In Motion, all the way to BlackBerry 10 and beyond. We're Going To Keep On Loving You.

Why should a music video encourage software developers to continue developing for their platform? It's utterly absurd. It seems to me that RIM should have taken more of a proactive approach and invested in improving BlackBerry 10, rather than pleading developers to stick around by spending resources on an unnecessary music video.

Judging from the like/dislike ratio of the video on YouTube, I'm not the only person who feels this way.

Even more recently, The Official BlackBerry Blog posted an article entitled Black Sheep by Choice, in which Donny H, the Inside BlackBerry Blog Manager, veers dangerously close to propaganda in order to further motivate existing BlackBerry devotees to not abandon their sinking ship.

When it's got to the stage of promoting your own brand by calling users "Black Sheep", it must be fairly clear that you are not doing well. At least Piers Morgan is a BlackBerry fan, I suppose.

Turn it Around

I don't want this article to trash RIM; I enjoy watching the underdog turn around and become successful. From what I've heard about BlackBerry 10, it's actually not bad. One of the biggest challenges RIM faces is building their BlackBerry 10 platform. They need developers, apps, music and videos. This is where Apple excels.

RIM should focus on shipping a finished, polished and truly great product as quickly as they can. Developers and customers will come with time.

iTunes Match is a great addition to iTunes for the average music lover, but it does have some flaws. This article is mainly a guide explaining how I go about syncing my iPhone with my iTunes Library—and why.

When turning on iTunes Match, a lot of control over your music is handed to iTunes and simultaneously taken away from you. If you have a large music collection of imported CDs, when iTunes Match is first enabled it will attempt to find matches for these albums by comparing them to songs in the iTunes Store. Sometimes these matches are far from accurate, and this can lead to your iOS devices not having true representations of your iTunes Library.

Even if iTunes correctly matches a song, however, it will match it as a 256kbps AAC file—it'll be the exact version present in the iTunes Store. This can be seen as a great benefit if you imported your beloved albums at an extremely low quality years ago, however for audiophiles, this is a warning sign. Even Apple Lossless files will be transcoded down to 256kbps when iTunes Match uploads them.

Many of the albums I have imported into iTunes are remasters, live albums, and other rarities which aren't present in the iTunes Store. iTunes Match incorrectly matches these files regularly. Even if iTunes Match correctly matched them, I won't have access to my lossless files on my devices: all music in iTunes Match, when matched, is 256kbps. If the music in your iTunes Library isn't matched, it will be transcoded down to a maximum quality level of 320kbps and uploaded. For audiophiles dealing with lossless files, this isn't acceptable¹.

For most people, not having to worry about backing up a large music library or knowing the quality of every album you own is a feature. However, I find the control I lose over these details is not worth the added convenience. I'm not most people.

People care differently for different things. I consider myself more of a music enthusiast than the average person—I frequent audiophile websites, I've invested money in quality headphones and I care about the quality and experience of my entire music setup. This is why I've gone to lengths to perfect it.

iTunes Match is Awesome, Really

Even though this post seems very anti-iTunes match, I'm not criticising it. Far from it: I recommend it to family and friends regularly: it's a great service which is convenient, clever and solves real problems. Before turning iTunes Match off, I matched a lot of my albums, improving the quality of music I'd imported from CD a long time ago. iTunes Match boosted the bit-rate of a large chunk of my music library and I still enjoy those 256kbps AAC files today. If anything, I'm the problem here: my own obsessions and compulsions implore me to find a different way to sync music. A way which doesn't involve a loss of quality at any stage, or rely on my iPhone's data connection when I'm out and about². A way which I'm in control of.

What I Want

I have some quite tough requirements for the way I want to manage and listen to music. This list covers them:

• I want to choose which songs are stored on my iOS device on the device itself, without having to connect it to my Mac—at least not regularly. I would like to be able to add or remove an album or song from my iPhone without sitting down at my Mac.

• I do not want to be limited by audio quality. If I rip an album in Apple Lossless on my Mac, I want to have that exact ALAC file on my iOS device too.

• I want full control over metadata, album art and audio files themselves. I want the true version of my iTunes Library to be the one present on my Mac: one I control. I'm aware this makes me more vulnerable to issues such as data corruption, data loss or even theft, however I have a sturdy backup plan which should³ prevent this from being a great concern.

• I do not want to rely on streaming music, or even my iPhone's data connection. iTunes match heavily relies on a data connection and streaming in order to play music from a Library in the Cloud when away from Wi-Fi. I want to have my most important tracks on my iPhone, playable even when in Airplane Mode.

The Setup

What follows is a step-by-step guide, detailing what I believe to be the most convenient way to manage music on an iPhone without iTunes Match enabled. I am using an iPhone 5, running iOS 6 and a Mac running the latest version of Mountain Lion and iTunes 10. As I write this, I am performing each step myself: everything should be correct at the time of publishing.

Disclaimer: This article was written before iTunes 11 was released. It still holds true, however. Some of the screenshots may have changed slightly in this major new version of the software, but I still manage my devices the same way, and it works fine.

• Grab your iPhone. Ensure iTunes Match is disabled. To do this, navigate to the Settings app, then Music > iTunes Match. The checkbox should be in the off position.

• At this point, if you have a copy of all your music on your Mac, it will be a good idea to delete all the music on your iPhone(even if iTunes Match is disabled, already downloaded music will remain unless manually deleted). This can be done by launching the Settings app, navigating to General > Usage, swiping on All Music and tapping delete. The Music app should now be empty.

I recommend powering off and rebooting your iPhone after this step. If iTunes is running, I recommend quitting it whilst your iPhone is powered off, too. This is because iTunes may still think iTunes Match is activated on your iPhone—a reboot should force both the iPhone and iTunes to re-check and update accordingly. This may only be a concern if you were previously syncing with your Mac, with iTunes Match enabled on your device. I was.

• Connect your iPhone to you Mac and launch iTunes. On the Summary tab within iTunes, ensure "Sync with this iPhone over Wi-Fi" is checked. Don't press Apply yet. For now, keep your iPhone connected to your Mac.

Important: Before pressing Apply, navigate through each tab at the top of iTunes and ensure only the items you want to sync are checked. For instance, everything on the Info tab is taken care of by iCloud for me, so every checkbox remains unchecked. I manage apps on my iPhone and do not sync them with my Mac, so under the Apps tab, "Sync Apps" is unchecked. In fact, the only options checked for me at this point are Tones and Photos. If you connect your iPhone to your Mac regularly, you may already have some of these turned on. If this is the case, ensure they are all as you want them. I do not know how you want them, they may very well differ from mine.

When one of these checkboxes is unchecked and a user checks it and presses Apply, all the data related to that checkbox is erased from the iPhone and replaced with the chosen data on your Mac. For example, if you have lots of books on your iPhone from your time downloading from the iBooks Store, but have never synced your iPhone with your Mac, checking this box, if unchecked, will replace all your iBooks on your iPhone with the iBooks on your Mac. Effectively, this will delete all the iBooks on your device. Be careful out there.

I recommend keeping Music unchecked at this point—we're going to enable it soon. If it's already checked, uncheck it, press Apply, disconnect your iPhone and follow the steps above to erase all music from it. You should have a copy of all your music on your Mac, so deleting music from your iPhone shouldn't be a concern.

• Once you're satisfied you won't accidentally sync or delete anything you don't want to, press Apply.

• Once the sync is complete (it shouldn't take too long if your iPhone is connected via a cable to your Mac), ensure the Music app on your iPhone is empty. If not, follow the instructions above to erase all music. It should look like this.

• Now, we're starting the fun part. Create a new playlist in iTunes on your Mac. Name it something which you'll remember translates to everything on this playlist gets synchronised with my iPhone. I created a playlist called "iPhone". Add one small song to this playlist, so we can see whether the synchronisation works without waiting too long.

• Navigate back to the Music tab of your iPhone, within iTunes. Your iPhone should still be connected to your Mac. Check the "Sync Music" checkbox at the top of the page. Ensure "Selected playlists, artists, albums and genres" is selected below. I scrolled through each list on this page, ensuring the only checkbox which was checked was my "iPhone" playlist⁴. Ensure your playlist, which will show in the Playlists section of this tab, is checked.

• Press Apply, and wait as your iPhone is synced. If all goes to plan, you will now have one song on your iPhone: the one you added to your playlist.

• Disconnect your iPhone from your Mac. It's time for the really cool part.

• Install Apple's free iTunes Remote app on your iPhone. Make sure your iTunes Library is added to the app: this can be done either by enabling Home Sharing on both your iPhone and iTunes Library, or by tapping the cog icon in Remote and manually adding an iTunes Library.

• Select your iTunes Library in Remote, navigate to the Playlists tab and select the playlist you just created. The one song you added should appear there. Tap Edit, then press the plus symbol and navigate through your Library to add another song to your playlist. Tap done when it's added.

Now you've remotely added a song to a playlist in your iTunes Library on your Mac.

• Quit the Remote app on your iPhone and launch Settings. Navigate to General > iTunes Wi-Fi Sync. Tap Sync Now.

Your iPhone should search for your iTunes Library then sync with it, adding the song you just selected to your device.

Congratulations, you just synced with iTunes on your Mac without using the Mac at all.

It's not all Sunshine and Roses

It's worth noting that Wi-Fi music syncing can be quite unreliable at times: it's not uncommon for me to connect my iPhone to my Mac just because it stops the frustration of having to work out why my iPhone won't sync. Furthermore, iTunes Wi-Fi Sync works best when the iPhone is connected to power. Luckily, I have enough power cables around my house that this isn't a problem.

Syncing a large number of songs can take a very long time over Wi-Fi: it may be a better idea to temporarily disable Wi-Fi Sync, copy over all the music you want using a cable, then re-enable Wi-Fi Sync to make smaller changes in the future, rather than try and sync hundreds of tracks in one go. That's what I'm about to do.

I can now enjoy manual syncing and managing of songs on my iPhone without iTunes Match.

The Home Sharing Cherry on Top

Initially, this approach of only syncing certain songs to your iPhone can seem like a handicap. When walking around the house, you may want to listen to a song which isn't on your iPhone. Luckily, Home Sharing solves this problem well. Simply go into the Music app on your iPhone, navigate to More > Shared, and select your iTunes Library from the list. You now have Wi-Fi streaming access to your entire iTunes Library from your iPhone, so long as iTunes is running on a computer which is connected to the same Wi-Fi network as your iPhone. I tend to leave iTunes open on my Mac, which is almost always running, so this is a great solution for me.

The handicap of certain songs being unavailable on my iPhone when I'm away from my house is outweighed by me knowing the quality, metadata and control of my music is all in my hands. I also do not need to rely on my iPhone's data connection or the matching of iTunes Match for my music.

Not Enough? Enter iPod Classic

If you're a true audiophile and want all your music with you at all times, still under your control, I highly recommend the iPod Classic. When I started using this method to manage my iTunes Library, I accepted that I would never have all my music with me on my iPhone, so I chose a "Best Of" approach and bought an iPod Classic to hold everything—even the songs on my iPhone. I discussed my reasons for the iPod Classic further in a piece I wrote for The Industry.

iPads and iPod Touches, too

This syncing system probably works just as well for all iPads and iPod Touches which support Wi-Fi Sync, however I chose to use my iPhone for this article as I'm in the process of setting it up. I thought sharing the complex way I go about managing my iTunes Library might help someone else.

If you'd like to give me feedback, correct mistakes, or share your own iTunes tip or trick, please, shoot me an email or say hi on Twitter.

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1: I consider myself to be an audiophile, however I am less obsessive about bit-rate than most audiophiles tend to be. I find the iTunes Store version of most songs to be my preferred version: there is something satisfying about knowing I haven't been responsible for the transcode of the digital file; Apple has. Furthermore, some albums which are Mastered for iTunes are only available from the iTunes Store.

2: I live in a small town in southern England. The data connectivity here is far from great; there's nothing worse than the helpless feeling of knowing you could access a song from your iTunes Library, but not being able to because your signal strength is too low. I would rather only see what I can play, and know that the quality of everything I see has been controlled by me.

3: Hopefully. I will detail my backup plan in a later article. For now, Stephen Hackett's post from August serves as a great starting point for a solid backup strategy. You can never have too much data redundancy when it comes to data you really care about.

4: Yes, it was a lot of scrolling. As I mentioned previously, I suffer from certain obsessions and compulsions. I didn't want to accidentally copy a few hundred songs to my iPhone just because I'd forgotten to uncheck a checkbox.

Sentry, over on The Verge forums, has some good ideas about how the iOS app switcher/multitasking tray could be improved now the iPhone has a taller display, with more pixels to use.

Some of the mockups suggest showing full screenshots of apps most recently used in the tray, rather than just their icons. This would give a much clearer visual reminder of your position in an app, showing where you were before you switched away.

As iOS devices become more powerful and iOS apps become capable of more, this will become an increasingly useful feature: it can be easy to forget where in an app's interface you were before switching away to reply to an email. Having screenshots taken as you switch away solves this problem. It also makes remembering an app's icon or name less necessary.

Quick access to commonly used settings, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 3G data seems like a sensible addition to the brightness slider, however added complexity isn't something Apple would be keen to add to their UI. I also don't see how Sentry plans for AirPlay to be integrated in the multitasking tray, as it is now.

I think these UI mockups show what could be made of the app switcher now there's even more room and powerful hardware to play with. I'm sure a future version of iOS will bring improvements here.

Alan Travis writes for The Guardian:

A six-year study of Britain's drug laws by leading scientists, police officers, academics and experts has concluded it is time to introduce decriminalisation.

The report by the UK Drug Policy Commission (UKDPC), an independent advisory body, says possession of small amounts of controlled drugs should no longer be a criminal offence and concludes the move will not lead to a significant increase in use.

So, I imagine the government will completely ignore this and continue to waste money:

The report says their analysis of the evidence shows that existing drugs policies struggle to make an impact and, in some cases, may make the problem worse.

The 173-page report concludes: "Taking drugs does not always cause problems, but this is rarely acknowledged by policymakers. In fact most users do not experience significant problems, and there is some evidence that drug use can have benefits in some circumstances."

This is a radically different view to the legal policy in the UK today. I can't help but feel this is a more sensible and scientific approach to drug law.

I feel the most interesting part of the article is the proposed change to how the classification system would work for drugs in the UK:

• Reviewing the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act so that technical decisions about the classification of individual drugs are no longer taken by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) or politicians but instead by an independent body with parliamentary oversight.

Moving scientists and engineers into positions of power is a smart move: politicians aren't equipped with the knowledge to make decisions about these matters. Scientists are.

Kontra discusses the issues facing online publishers, writers, and the questionable quality of technology writing today:

Nobody likes advertising, and yet we seem to be stuck with its corrupting effects on public discourse online. It corrupts news delivery, Facebook privacy, Twitter flow, Google search, Kindle reading and so on. There doesn’t seem to be any way to make profits online, or often just survive, without pageviews and clicks, and all the shouting that entails.

Shouting sells newspapers. Shouting creates headlines. Shouting grabs attention. And, after all, if writers are paid by advertisers who want their ads seen by as many people as possible, there is a direct incentive for writers to shout, no matter how crazy what they're shouting is.

Making crazy, outlandish predictions and bold statements gets headlines—and on the web, people tend to not remember what was even said after a few days. Especially not by who.

This creates a problem for writers. I don't want to shout. I want to be called out if I make a mistake or say something truly wrong. I'll correct my errors. I enjoy criticism, if it's fair. If I "shouted", I wouldn't care the same way: I'd likely make a lot of bold predictions which would be wrong in the long run. This would be a disservice to my readers.

My most valuable assets are trust, thoughtfulness and taste. Traditional advertising doesn't cater to those. I need something different.

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.

Great catch by Tom Klaver — use the new "Guided Access" accessibility option in iOS 6 to help you focus.

Notifications won't show up when it's activated, double clicking the home button won't open the multitasking tray and notification centre isn't accessible.

Here's how to turn it on:

Try this:

1. Turn on Guided Access in Settings > General > Accessibility.
2. Switch to your book app.
3. Triple-click the Home button to invoke Guided Access.
4. Tap ‘Done’.

Switching to your distraction apps now takes 3 clicks on the Home button, filling in a passcode, a tap on the ‘End’ button and a click on the Home button. Enough of a hassle to stay focused, I believe.

I will be using this a lot. Do Not Disturb is great — but it only stops notifications when your device is locked. This works when you're actively using it.

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.