Blog

A collection of links, articles and stories.

Macdrifter Redesign

I used to prefer reading Macdrifter in Instapaper or in my RSS app of choice. Now I prefer reading the site in my web browser.

Beautiful, responsive, fast. An amazing responsive navigation menu which is great on iPhone and a desktop computer. Thumbs up all around: great work, Gabe! Love the typography, too.

Signs a New Apple Product Will Be Successful

What initial signs should we look for in a new Apple product to determine its success? Here are my thoughts.

The new product:

  • Is risky
  • Has very strong design decisions
  • Is very opinionated
  • Feels new and uncertain
  • Is “obvious in hindsight”
  • Lacks features traditionally accepted as necessary

Compare these with your initial impressions when first discovering the iPad or iPhone. Let’s not be so closed-minded. Instant dismissal of new technologies, especially those from Apple, tend to… backfire.

Aeromancy by Dorje

Here’s a great rock track by an independent musician who’s finding out that a record label is less necessary than ever: Rob Chapman has built up 80,000 YouTube subscribers by providing a channel full of great content. We (I’m one of these subscribers) are all willing to support Chappers in his endeavours any way we can.

Rob has crowd-funded a Dorje tour and even managed to start up an entire guitar company thanks to his online “following”. This is the direction I see independent creators and builders taking in the future.

In a way, Chasing Perfection is my first step on this ladder. My small corner of the web which I control.

Google Announces New Service, App First

Google has always focused primarily on webapps.

Apple has always focused primarily on native apps.

After this announcement (and looking at Apple’s iCloud web control panel), I think it’s a reasonable assumption to expect the future of online services to encompass both native apps and web apps.

Still, it feels strange to me watching Google release a new service focused primarily around an app. Times are changing.

As for Google Keep itself, it looks a bit like Reminders coupled with a scrapbook. Looks a bit too disjointed for my taste, but I’m interested to see how it works.