[gb] Studio

If the appropriate action is obvious to the user, the time actually required for that user to tap the proper spot on the screen is miniscule. Confusion about where to tap wastes far more time than an extra tap.

Who aren’t happy with Apple right now?

The press.

Because they got scolded. They got put down by Jobs like a bunch of middle schoolers that got too unruly whilst the teacher was away for a moment. They were schooled by Jobs, and they took it personal.

If Jobs had not changed the context from the iPhone 4 in particular to all smartphones in general, I could make you a hilarious comic strip about a product so poorly made that it won’t work if it comes in contact with a human hand. But as soon as the context is changed to “all smartphones have problems,” the humor opportunity is gone. Nothing kills humor like a general and boring truth.

First, there’s “Open”.

Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system.

We are human beings; our first responses to anything are dominated not by calculations but by feelings. What Ive and his team understand is that if you have an object in your pocket or hand for hours every day, then your relationship with it is profound, human and emotional.

As an industry, we need to understand that not wanting root access doesn’t make you stupid. It simply means you do not want root access. Failing to comprehend this is not only a failure of empathy, but a failure of service.

But tomorrow’s computing systems, heralded by the iPhone, are not for DIYers. You don’t add Default Folder or FontExplorer X Pro to your iPhone, you don’t choose your iPhone’s browser, and you don’t install plug-ins in your iPhone’s browser. This lack of extensibility may not please the Slashdot crowd but it’s the future of computing and browsing. The bulk of humanity doesn’t want a computing experience it can tinker with it wants a computing experience that works.

And then I realize: you can’t resize it.

And a bright light did shine upon my liberated face and a voice did whisper a thunder: You’re free. Free of pointless preferences and finger-baiting adjustments.

This is the new PC. Sure, there are some things missing, and it’s not as capable as your HP netbook, but it really doesn’t matter: it does everything you need it to do, and it’s sexy as hell. Don’t pretend you didn’t ever buy a Britney record for exactly those reasons.

Apple loves hardware, but only insofar as it lets them develop awesome software which then does what they want it to do. Rest assured that they read this sequence the right way: from human need to idealized solution to actual implementation.

Music industry executives may well not like what’s happened to their industry, but is it really bullying from Apple? Or isn’t it simply that Apple does not do what the music executives wish? That Apple runs its music store its own way? What the music industry really doesn’t like is the whole idea of downloads. They want to go back to selling $18 discs. Pre-iTunes, “music downloads” were pretty much all free bootlegs.

I will not spend money on iron curtains, no matter how nice the pattern.

“It’s all about re-creating the heyday of the album when you would sit around with your friends looking at the artwork, while you listened to the music,” a source told the FT. How will this happen? Liner notes and artwork on the big 10-inch screen.

The problem with rating systems in general is that only people who feel very strongly about something will take the time to rate it… As soon as an app has been rated more than once, it becomes mathematically very unlikely that it will ever see a 1 or 5 star overall rating again. So, it’s nearly pointless to have scales of 5 stars, 10 stars, or 100 stars, when all you really need is: “Liked it, Didn’t Like It, and Neutral”.

The fact is, in the eyes of the media, Apple is the corporate equivalent of Barack Obama—a company that can do no wrong. Even in Silicon Valley, where much of the press corps are pretty much glorified cheerleaders (think of all those slobbering cover stories about the Google guys) Apple’s kid-gloves treatment stands out. Reporters don’t just overlook Apple’s faults; they’ll actually apologize for them, or rationalize them away.

So Enderle either (a) believes that McDonald’s was founded by a man named Ronald McDonald; or (b) believes that Jobs’s role at Apple is equivalent to that of a fictional clown.