Posts Tagged ‘Apple’
iPhone Minimalism
This week I bought an iPhone4S; the one with the 32Gigabytes on PAYG.
I was also going to try and pen a comparison piece between the different UK phone networks; those with the cheapest plans against my outright purchase. Why? I wanted to illustrate how much somebody could be better off by not needing to purchase a pay monthly phone.
But I had second thoughts, instead I just want to make the point that I bought exactly what I needed. I believe in Minimalism and this is a good example to show how I practice it and a better approach to communicate my thoughts in case anybody would find this useful.
iBooks Author doesn’t allow landscape cover layouts.
It’s curious how the icon used to represent front covers is a square book and at the moment a user can’t create their own templates or re-order pages.
Even curiouser is there is an option in the Document Inspector to disable the portrait orientation (while viewing content), but no option to disable the landscape orientation completely or enable landscape front covers.
Interactive images are formatted off centre which is also helpful.
< Insanely Great, Walter Isaacson’s: Steve Jobs
I bought the Walter Isaacson’s ebook about Steve Jobs on the day of its release. One day after release, I finished it, I’m a fast reader and too impatient to read it in small doses. Below are a few thoughts I had on the book. It’s not a review, it’s not out to spoil it for others, but there are bits I want to pick on and quote:
Imagine Oompa-Loompas Taking Charge.
Last week I read this Businessweek article about Scott Forstall, Senior VP of iOS software at Apple.
It’s clear Businessweek want a new ‘taskmaster’ at Apple. I think as we move forward in this Post-Jobs era, the media in general will look for one, more so than Apple will. (1)
The problem is there might not be one after Jobs but the businessweek article thinks it’s found one. I think the article is flawed from the beginning but it’s further questionable, when named and unnamed sources who use to work at Apple or around Forstall, take a slightly negative tone towards promoting him as a microcosm of Steve Jobs. The title doesn’t help with it’s use of the word ‘sorcerer’ instead of ‘wizard’.
The character analysis draws parallels to historic events in Apple’s history; Forstall is depicted as a political player and as somebody who creates friction between development teams, just like Jobs in his youth. It’s important to note, nobody still working at Apple or anybody who admires Forstall beyond mutual respect, has commentated on the story.
The political narrative; describing the tale of the iPhone’s creation, is tripped up with Tony Fadell’s statement, (an endnote added after the article was actually first published) the supposed opponent of Forstall’s in the article. Fadell contradicts what happened; attempting to set the record straight. I’m surprised the article still exists; there are two versions of the story, of course the truth lies somewhere in-between. The same goes for Businessweek’s writeup about Forstall, it sounds too convenient to be entirely true. I’m just wary of what is being conjured here again, in front of Apple. John Gruber has his own writeup here.
What I want to emphasise is the mis-presentation of Forstall as Steve Jobs’ successor. The media want their narratives to work on a personal level, their figurehead; for Forstall to become our new lens on Apple and who better than a supposed prodigy?
Everything from Apple before the iPhone 4S event was personally, unrealistically attributed to Steve Jobs; there is a tendency to forget there was an excellent team behind him. Last week we saw that team, new formation, equally divided, presenting where they were strongest. (2) Nobody took over to become the media darling, there was nobody to build up (until this Businessweek piece), there wasn’t a way to have a singular narrative attached to what Apple showcased. Actually, there were a few articles after the announcement but they were still related to Jobs.
I hope Apple continue to present themselves as a team; that’s a more accurate lens with which to view Apple, just as we witnessed at the iPhone 4S event. Forstall wasn’t in more visible than normal. Naturally the event felt different without Jobs but I was glad there was less ‘distortion’, more ‘reality’ with Apple’s keynote. This probably explains why there was a negative reaction by the media after the event; the media needed their showman, a polarising figure, a magician and of course the magic wand that would have been a redesigned iPhone.
The next event will be interesting, another team presentation would certainly skew the typical Apple narrative, there won’t be anything to attribute to one person. The only fair recourse would be to stop with the constant speculation and concentrate on the products or talk up the team.
The Willy Wonka Candy Company is still going to be faithful to its heritage when you have a crack team of Oompa-Loompas, trusted to run everything in Wonka’s absence. What’s important, is to write about the chocolate and how amazing it still tastes, not hyping up chocolate aficionados with who is going to be the new cheerleader, when the Oompa-Loompas don’t give a shit.
~
(1) Is there a suggestion that Tim Cook isn’t capable? His quiet, cool demeanour might not be good for headlines. A lot of commentators see Tim Cook as solely an operations guy, that’s a slightly negative implication after following on from Jobs but how many ‘operation guys’ do you know, running around with a B.S. degree in industrial engineering?
(2) Have you noticed Jonathan Ive only does the product videos, he never presents on stage?
Dear Steve Jobs
You were without a doubt the most fascinating, inspiring, life changing and iconoclastic person I knew. One of my few idols*. I will miss you and your insightful view and contribution to my world. I hope the DNA of your legacies like Apple and Pixar (through Disney), will continue to entertain, simplify, make my life easier and more enjoyable.
I wished your candle that burnt twice as bright, burnt twice as long.
You’re a reminder that I don’t do enough with the life I have left, now more so with your death.
~
As an aside, I’d like to share this image of Steve Jobs. I’ve held onto this picture from the first day I glanced on it. It captured my attention on so many levels; the simplicity in the portrait, the clutter free environment, an individual who clearly surrounded himself that was the most important things in his life at the time.
As far as I can remember, it was taken after Steve quit Apple in 1985 and it was taken by a female photographer. If I could go into greater detail, I would credit her for this image.
This picture has resided in my picture folder by itself; waiting for me to do something with it. Until today, I would just open and stare at it for a moments, I’d remind myself of a few things and then carry on with whatever I was doing on my computer.
This image means a lot to me; it says so much to me. Today I just want to share it.
~
* The first person I idolised was Bruce Lee.
A Long Road Ahead
I feel I should be thirteen years old as I write this. I wish I started programming at that age; it seems the best age to start. Today as I hit 31, all I can do is edit HTML (I know it’s markup) and understand programming references that have made it into geek culture.
This will probably alienate regular readers as I’m going to talk about coding in this blog post. So if you’re not interested, come back later next week or so for my regular photography, bloggy write-ups . Read the rest of this entry »
Fuji X100 ~ Seal: How to Show Irrational Bias (Part 2)
Following on from Part One. What was also of huge interest and blew my mind a second time was what I found in the comments section. Seal, the international pop star and Leica Ambassador weighs in with his opinion and serves to show how subjectivity gets in the way of a good discussion. Seal posts under the alias ’`6‘ by the way.
The discussion is about the Leica X1 vs the X100 and which on a technical level is the better tool. Sadly, the latter part isn’t true, it never goes there because Seal decides to threaten those he is talking against.
While I’ll narrate the comments, in the interests of being fair I’ll repost them in their entirely here so you can make your own mind up as well.
Why am I doing this? This is an appeal for closure, I would love for Seal to respond in a more constructive way, explaining himself. Importantly I also expected a more intelligent response from somebody in Seal’s position.
The comments can be found here at the bottom of the page of David Babsky’s rant.
Amazon Kindle ~ 105 > 100?
I was amazed and curious about the press release Amazon put out last week regarding eBook sales. For the first time in Amazon’s history, digital books have surpassed both hardback and paperback books in total sales. Amazon state for every 100 printed books sold, they now sell 105 eBooks (not including free Kindle book downloads). Amazon have been selling printed books for 12 years, and eBooks for the last four years, so that’s pretty amazing growth.
The bit that interested me was that those quoted figures have no reflection on the number of titles available for sale. Amazon sell 35,332,807 printed titles vs only 712,187 eBooks.*
That’s an insane difference when you consider the 105/100 ratio. It’s obvious that gap will close over time, it’s just a case of when. All I can say is my iPad is crying out for content. Twelve months ago I couldn’t find what I thought were relatively common photographic theory books on the Kindle Store. These would be books written by photography’s heavy hitters like; John Berger, Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes, Walter Benjamin, Tom Wolfe and Michel Foucault.
Now a year has gone by, the Kindle Store lists titles from every one of those theorists except for Tom Wolfe – ‘New Journalism’. That’s okay progress, however there are still plenty of titles I still want to buy, and that doesn’t include those in my more spontaneous moments. I have a long list of books saved in my shopping basket where they are patiently waiting for a digital version to replace them. The progress might be slow because it’s clear fiction and celebrity biographies are the most popular types for content in order to attract people to the Kindle homepage.
But if your interests lie elsewhere, there isn’t much beyond the ‘shop window’. The Kindle Store is obviously above and beyond the iBook Store** in content, but as somebody who is actively learning German and Spanish; the second most widely spoken language on the planet, Typography, Journalism and Design, it’s a shame I’m still better served by purchasing physical books.
It’s not so much Amazon’s fault, it’s the book publishers. The press release I’m sure is there to impress them as it is us. I keep noticing the ‘Tell the Publisher’ links that Amazon’s customers should click if they want an eBook version and in my quest to live a more minimal lifestyle I just wish the book publishers would catch on so I can clear some clutter from my apartment and shopping basket!
*Sourced from the Amazon store at time of publishing. Just for comparison, the iBook Store has just over 200,000 titles.
** The iBook Store is functional, clean with everything clearly labelled like an Oxfam bookshop, with a book collection of seemingly random titles of no particular interest, because all the books were donated.
