The Apple iPad revealed. What now?

I was wrong on plenty of things regarding this tablet computer. Some of the things are disappointing, but I’m happy I’ve taken some time to digest it a bit, to listen to some arguments. I think Apple’s iPad is pretty darn cool. It *might* be something I’d buy, but I can’t say for sure just yet.

I’m going to start with this statement. I’m relieved that I now know what this is. The build-up was just ridiculous.  But I think that the suspense was valuable because people put forth so many ideas, they may have even encouraged innovation by other organizations to meet needs.

I think the iPad will be a good computer for people of every age to read and learn. I think most media companies will like it because it encourages the consuming of their information, books, films, and audio. And it’s created to be hyper-convenient to purchase those materials via this mainstream channel.

People were hoping for more than the iPhone of course. And the lack of camera surprised some.  I think I don’t mind it not having an onboard camera as long as a durable one can be connected. I think it might be better as a peripheral actually, then it could be pivoted to see the subject best for whatever use case, chatting or games.

One area that does bother me right now, but I hope for resolution is the lack of a dedicated drawing program. I thought for sure that one of the most important ways to justify the existence of a device like this is to throw down with designers. In a way, I think Apple owes the design community something like that because the design community supports them.  People were mentioning they were surprised about a lack of stylus. I kind of agree, but I want it known that a stylus does exist that can work with these capacitive screens. How the device will handle a sharp input, I don’t know. And that’s too bad, because it’s a niche opportunity.  But I think it’s something Apple probably wants other companies to handle, Adobe of course and smaller companies.

Sounds good right? Well yes but still I go back to this intended as a consuming device.

What else is missing?  Well I said in my earlier posting that I expected the device to have a real operating system, not just the iPhone OS. Well I was wrong. And that means it doesn’t really have the ability to support programs and utilities outside approved app store apps. Will this matter to most people who can find useful programs in the 150,000 large app store?  Nope, they’ll be fine.  And in fact, for every lost hobbyist, there will be hundreds or thousands of users who are given more than they need at prices they don’t mind, in a closed platform they don’t mind.

The good news is, plenty of other devices predating and developed concurrently are going to work for hobbyists. And these will gain a lot from the iPad. The envelope must be pushed. And it’s happening in price, weight, battery life, user experience and more.

What’s hot?  As much of a bugger it is for me to say, the app store is really hot. Because it is a market where a lot of people can get involved. Sure it’s closed off, but it’s not 150,000 strong by keeping people out. It’s quite open too. And somehow non-public apps will be made as this device and platform evolves if certain businesses want to take advantage.

What else is missing? I think a lot about the possibilities of a really strong voice recognition to complement a handwriting recognition where one could produce text to share these ideas almost as quickly as with a keyboard.

So after seeing the real thing, will I get it?  I’m torn, I mean the price points certainly make it more fun, but given that the potential for the Android devices, the battery life potential of Pixel Qi screen tablets and Ebook Readers and it’s hard to part with the money if I don’t have a killer drawing program. And I want the   It’s a good idea if one were to skip this device that they might keep an eye on the app store still. Because that’s where one might find exactly what they’re looking for.

It’s very exciting.  A few years ago, there were plenty of devices that would fail and never return.  One might think this wasn’t something people wanted and would go away before it reached a potential.  You get the feeling now though that we are definitely inching towards the right version for most people in this form factor.  It’s happening now and just like all other technologies, it will keep getting better. It will get to the point where you will see too many reasons to buy one.  They present many opportunities for in-home control over networked devices, energy settings  or other monitors and smart features.

February 5, 2010 at 7:07 am | computers, design, mac | No comment

On the eve of the Apple Tablet

Some would tell you that tomorrow the world will change.  I’ve loved all the coverage, I eat it up. As an ultra enthusiast of portables, this is a big year. And tomorrow is a significant day in the material world. Big player, massive expectation. Great potential no doubt.

Intrigue surrounds this thing, not just because it’s Apple. Not because of controlled leaks. People are looking for something. They want to do new things, or do old things better. Will this thing help people do things, or is it just a device for consuming?

Many of us have realistic expecations for this. Writing and drawing, taking notes, good battery life, durability, responsive UI, games, specialized programs, photo and video viewing, reading books.  A netbook or high end notebook isn’t enough for some.  They want to interact more naturally. Some, like me want to be able to create higher quality designs using their refined motor skills and talent, not just push a mouse around.

These gadgets are personal man, they spark all kinds of debate. For some of us, they seem to run our lives, they own us as Tyler Durden would say.  But they let us work in special ways, to share, to communicate. We scupt them through the programs we use, the shortcuts we deploy and what we throw out entirely.

I was disappointed with some writers covering or commenting on these devices, who insist that they know what people want, or more often what they don’t need. Stupid.  There are enough people in the world in all niches that you could make any kind of tablet product fly if you targeted it properly.  Medical, education, logistics,  and more.  And don’t forget the technique many use to market wares to people who don’t know about them. Create the need by introducing a problem, one that people didn’t know they had.  A 9-year-old understands this brand of persuasion.  It’s a mixture of What-if? and Don’t-You-Hate personal inquiries that lead to great answers.

The must frustrating statements made to me have been things like:

• Nobody wants to lug a tablet around when they have a smaller phone
• The device won’t be any good for true serious gamers
• Smudging issues (are we still hearing people say this?)
• No one wants to stare into a backlit screen to read a book
• This won’t appeal to anyone but graphic designers
• You won’t be able to do any real work on it
• No one wants to obscure what they’re doing while touching
• No one can do anything productive without a keyboard
• If Apple makes it, I will preorder it site unseen
• Apple will succeed where others have failed
• Apple will fail where others have failed

As obsessed as I get with wanting to strike back at these with my own strong feelings about the potential for the device here. I’d feel just as energized if Apple didn’t announce a tablet tomorrow. The ball is already in play buddy. Somebody is going to take hold and run with these ideas. We all know after the media storm what many people are after.   So it’s exciting, and it feels like anyone’s game to win.

Now for my speculative remarks.

God knows I’ve listened to everyone else on these matters.   I don’t care of Apple does any of this, it’s just a fun exercise.  But I do have some personal certainties here. Take it or leave it.

1. I don’t see how it could possibly be called “Tablet”, “iTab” or iSlate or iPad”  Not that the name matters at all to me, but it’s going to play off the graffiti theme or will have a cool name like “Moses” just like the “Newton” was used for their first tablet, something strong. If Steve Jobs did say this is his most important work ever, why wouldn’t he break the standard and  give it a name with real pwnage.
2. I think the screen will be different in materials than anything else we’ve seen.  Or if we have seen it, we’ve forgotten about it. It won’t be like the iPhone and it won’t be OLED and won’t be Pixel Qi either(unfortunately), I think it will be something else that’s been overlooked by everyone. I’m betting a 3rd party company has been developing the substrate quietly for a long time, and it’s a key selling feature that Apple would NOT allow a controlled leak on. It won’t be unbreakable, but durable.  It will be something that works for reading and writing in daylight better than we’re used to. The screen will perform well, but don’t get your hopes too high, too many compromises are in play.
3. Lack of ports will bother me. Focus will be on wireless connectivity and against my wishes, there will be a lack of ports, thereby making the device less useful to hobbyists. Apple always does this to me, so I don’t see this changing. If there are more than 2 ports, I’m betting they will be non-standard and annoying to connect to. I’m very curious if it will have an SD slot. I’m thinking not, tragically.
4. Apple will allow docking in vertical position for pairing with a keyboard easily, and will probably have a good docking station for it (look at logitech’s dinovo keyboard charger dock for example of what you’ll get with this.
5. Screen will be 10 inches. That’s my guess. One size, 10 inches.
6. In order for this event not to end too quickly, there will be a massive amount of use cases and software revealed where all sorts of problems are “solved” in the demo. The use cases will take up a large portion of the time. Videos and testimonials in areas like design, home entertainment, commercial use and media creation (photo / video / audio).  Education will get some time, but not enough, because Steve trimmed that part for the sake of brevity.  Those items ARE most important for the device to succeed though. They’ll be more evident when the microsite goes live.
7. A few years ago, Apple changed iMovie so you could drag your mouse across clip thumbnails and it would shuttle through the video. That was killer and you will see nice UI features like that for plenty of oohs and ahhs. These things WILL get people thinking and it will drive more innovation.
8. Some kind of iPod goodies will be part of the announcements to hold interest, the 2 devices will fuel each others’ progress.
9. Special Mac software will be what sells this thing which is also where the other “failed” tablets and multi-touch didn’t grab the mass market.  Designers will get graphic software, students WILL get office. Learning software will be apart of this. This device will do more than just App Store stuff. It will allow for custom builds.  Because it has to appeal to commercial users who want to create their own lock-in for their company.
10. Price will be $899 or higher. Look at Apple’s current offerings across the board. How could it be cheaper if they stick to their pricing as usual?
11. 3G will be available, but not locked to a vendor like AT&T.  That will too easily hurt sales.  No contracts required.
12. There will be exclusive partnerships which are made to sound cool, but really are just annoying. Something about these tablets and portables that brings out the old-world corporations and their attempt to control the future by creating a false scarcity on things. Extreme content and intellectual property fascism wrapped in the guise of the simple and convenient purchase and exclusivity.

Wrapping up, It won’t be for this guy =(

I’ve been disappointed before and probably will this time too. I’m doubting the Apple Tablet will be my choice of tablet in the long run. There’s a lot out there now, with the Entourage eDGe, HP’s offerings, and I’m really hopeful for Notion Ink’s Android tablet with the pretty Pixel Qi screen.  A lot of devices are using Wacom technology for pen recognition. I think I’ll be paying for the most flexible choice.  Apple doesn’t have that reputation of being flexible or open.  But I bet it will do a few things I’ll be jealous of when I see it in the field.

January 27, 2010 at 1:30 am | design, gadgets, mac, media | 1 comment

Ted Talk – Secrets of Longevity

My latest favorite snippet of valuable learning once again comes from a TED Talk. I’ve been watching these for years.

In this talk, to find the path to long life and health, Dan Buettner and team from National Geographic study the world’s “Blue Zones,” communities whose elders live with vim and vigor to record-setting age. At TEDxTC, he shares the 9 common diet and lifestyle habits that keep them spry past age 100.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_buettner_how_to_live_to_be_100.html

No surprise, Japan and Italy include one of the blue zones where people in a certain community share a long life. And we find out a little bit of why that is. It’s not all what you might think.

January 10, 2010 at 2:59 am | family, friends, inspiration, interesting, learning | No comment

Snowflakes have rules too

I’ve created dozens of snowflake designs over the past few years, many using this fine Make-A-Flake snowflake generator tool.  I never once thought of any kind of rules that water molecules and crystalline structures obey for making real snowflakes.

This story from NPR was really cool.

What’s Wrong With This Snowflake?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121827582

This is one of the many examples of why it’s interesting to be a designer and observant of other disciplines you briefly work around.  I’ve cheated in a million ways to create digital imagery but some things can’t just be passable, they must be done properly. And there’s something very comforting about that even though it means more time.

December 24, 2009 at 2:51 am | design | No comment

HTML Email Newsletter Marketing

I’ve spent the last month doing contract work with some great people at Build-A-Bear Workshop® putting together HTML email newsletters. It’s been a good experience for several reasons. After seeing how a large retailer does things, I’m more equipped to help other clients off the ground with their marketing.  I’ve been fortunate to work with some of the best in the business there and I’m soaking up all I can. Like any other company, there are plenty of improvements to be made but I never doubt the talent that surrounds me there.  And they are all so friendly and kind.

I’ll give you some useful high level information on HTML newsletters so you know how it (mostly) works.  For starters, most companies are using service providers such as Constant Contact, Vertical Response, or Responsys for helping to manage the mailing lists and newsletter content to an extent. There are many companies, more every day who are providing these services.  I can’t tell you who’s the best, but given the competition that’s out there, I am certain you’ll find one at your price point with plenty of tools that will help you immensely. I recommend using a provider if you are wanting to create a newsletter to send frequently to a large list. Don’t send from your personal email account, because you risk getting flagged as spam and compromising your other individual sent email messages. You also want the join and unsubscribe process to be easy and obvious. This isn’t so with your contacts in your address book.

Next you have your newsletter email content.  Basically newsletters need to be created using completely old school web design methods.  Table-based layouts with minimal CSS for text styling. Graphics are good, but you’ll want to keep the size minimal so the email loads quickly.  We use GIF files exclusively, but GIF and JPEG should be fine, best format for the graphics you’re using. Photoshop has a decent slicing and HTML export process so you can cut up portions of a graphic and export it as a layout. I’m talking about this as if you’ll be generating your own designs. But you’ll find plenty of premade templates from your service provider, or online.  What’s nice about designing your own is obvious. Your marketing should look like you, not like a generic template.  If you can get the information across with a template so it’s compelling and you get the outcome you want, then who’s going to argue with you.

If you want to send a test graphical email in your personal account, giver it a shot. Copy directly from a webpage and paste into a composed message, making sure the message is in rich text mode. That should copy the content mostly accurately. There are a lot of tips out there.

My suggestions for getting things off the ground:

Subscribe to 5-10 email newsletters by online and brick and mortar retailers. Your university alumni association and financial advisor and a local community center or museum will provide plenty of diverse content. See what they are doing, look at the similarities, use of subject lines, and headline text. Look at what providers they are using. You’ll often see it in the unsubscribe url links or just in the footer somewhere.  Are they focusing on one CTA (Call to Action) in their emails or providing a lot of click-thrus?  What sort of information do they have prominent above the fold, and what is their email’s footer used for?

After you’ve absorbed from these newsletters, then find a way to use these proven methods available, but setting your newsletter apart from them. Newsletters are big right now. Everyone is trying to capitalize on them. Unfortunately most recipients don’t want to receive hundreds of newsletters from everywhere,  so you want to be interesting and create value with it. Basically have something great to say.  Are you saving people money, providing good industry information or making them aware of products and services they might not know about?  Maybe you’re just entertaining people or keeping them up to date with the company or service they already are using.

I don’t claim to have any kind of statistics on email newsletter profitability.  I know that they have been very successful in the company I’m working with. They are reaching out to a lot of people with sales, events, new products and more. But they have a big list to work from though. These communications are helping them because of all the work they’ve done beforehand generating interest. And I think given the size lists that you can acquire over time, you will be getting a lot of bang out of the work you do on your newsletters.

Do you have to send frequently?  Not necessarily. I believe you should send at the very least, once every two months for informational type content and updates.  I personally like getting newsletters once in a while from my webhosts and my real estate agent friends.  Your biggest fans and consumers might want to have information on sales from you quite frequently, maybe even more than once a week, but others might be turned off on having so much unread junk mail in their box when they were kind of luke warm about the newsletter to begin with.  But then again, you might as well take the attitude of marketing your tail off and see how people respond to it after a while.  You’re going to be using a list service so you’ll gain a lot of insight on how people react to your messages, where they click the most, who’s leaving and finding out why and how often.

November 20, 2009 at 12:49 am | media, webdev | No comment

Japanese movies on NBC’s Hulu

Hulu is pretty cool.  TV and movies on the Internet done fairly well.  I have spent several hours watching episodes of an old favorite, Quantum Leap. Commercials are annoying, repetitive and ineffective, but thankfully less of them are on Hulu per show than broadcast TV.  I wanted to share a few links to Japanese movies on there. Hopefully they stay a while so this post is relevant over a few months. Some shows and episodes are pulled quickly due to copyright or strategy of some kind.

Ashura - A demon hunter searches for a mysterious young woman with magical powers
When the Last Sword is Drawn – a poor swordsman joins an elite band of samurai warriors
Kokoyakyu - High School Baseball Documentary – A national obsession
Pray For Death – Best title ever, terrible movie, Japanese immigrant bullied by gangsters is forced to reveal he is in fact a ninja. (obvious)
Nanking – Feature film about the Japanese invasion of Nanking, China, in the early days of World War II. Interesting story-telling convention.

And finally to round it out, a older SNL skit and a newer SNL Digital Short.  I’m not sure which one induces more cringes.

October 15, 2009 at 2:15 am | Japan, media | No comment

Interesting possibilities in Photoshop CS5

I remember getting pretty excited the first time I saw the Seam Carving technology from a SIGGRAPH demonstration, which eventually made it’s way into Photoshop, The GIMP and Xara Xtreme.  That seemed to happen quickly, and I’m certain because the code was made open to a certain extent. A custom app was built, a plugin for the Gimp was great.  Xara and Photoshop integrated Seam carving really well. And it works. It’s actually one of my best new tools I can make use of probably once for every web project I do.

Now things are evolving even more with what may be upcoming features that will help with fixing and doctoring photos.  I don’t find doctoring photos that enjoyable really.  I love helping customers, but I wish most of this wasn’t necessary.  That being the case, if you have to doctor a photo, it might as well be pretty easy to do.

Here is a video of Improved Seam Carving and PatchMatch, both of which were part of an Adobe/Princeton/University of Washington project.  To my knowledge, nobody said explicitly this WILL be in Photoshop CS5. But it is shown operating in the Photoshop interface and take from it what you will. As an aside, I like this website I discovered.  CS5.org. Despite it’s authoritative look, it appears not to be an Adobe site. Granted I could be wrong, but it’s showing Youtube Videos rather than using an Adobe player, and it’s showing a white paper using Scribd rather than an Acrobat-esque flash paper embedded PDF viewer.  Still that doesn’t mean it’s not all great information.

Adobe does have a video from a few members of their user experience UX design team re-published on the CS5.org website.  It features some discussion and examples of multi-touch and how they can leverage it for their graphics creation tools.

October 4, 2009 at 5:10 am | computers, design, graphics, media | No comment

Dropbox – the perfect computer utility

Ever get tired of sending attachments to people? You write the email, click “add attachment”, browse, find, upload, wait, AND, send. Blah, that’s annoying just to think about.  I got tired of it a long time ago. That’s why I’ve been using this service called Dropbox for probably two years now, as soon as I heard of it. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it in this blog before, but anyway, you want to check it out and get it. It’s truly one of the best online services ever created. And it’s in both free and pay premium versions.

Simple instructions here, visit getdropbox.com and download their utility.  It works on Windows, Mac and Linux. Install and it makes a networked folder in your computer that will sync up with the Dropbox server. Files dropped in there are automatically archived on the internet for you. Dropbox let’s you share 2 Gigabytes of files free, and you can pay a small fee for even more storage.

To share a file, move or copy it into your Dropbox public folder (create subfolders inside if you like) right-click and choose to Copy public link. Paste this link URL into your email and you can share the file with somebody without having to attach anything, (and without them needing to detach it.)  Here’s an example of the public link you’d be pasting into your email:

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/000000/foldername/filename.jpg

As a designer, it’s been a great tool to use because I can quickly update a file on my desktop and it re-synchronizes and my client can just revisit the original email I sent for the link. They will always be downloading the most recent file.  Just remember if files are big you’ll watch them sync with the server, the little icon next to the file will indicate when it’s done synchronizing.

Dropbox also archives versions of files and let’s you revert to them. It’s not infinite versioning, but it’s an added bonus that can help you in case of an accident.  If your PC goes down, you can also install dropbox on the new or refreshed pc and it will sync it back for you. Those files will only delete if you actually delete them from your folder.  I also use it to share files between my PC and Mac, so no worries if I’m on or off my home network.

Just get it, and start taking advantage of this perfect utility’s exquisite convenience. Oh and if you had the idea that you might be able to share files over the internet with a second person, you can definitely do that, you could share your login with a person, (which works but might not be what Dropbox intended) or add users within the service as documented.  The free service is great, the pay service is worth it.

getdropbox.com

September 29, 2009 at 11:19 pm | computers, design, gadgets, mac, tools | No comment

Had a great time at the 2009 Kansas City Japan Festival

Once again, I was fortunate to participate in the Greater Kansas City Japan Festival. For years, I’ve done a lot of the website and communications materials for the event. This year instead of driving across town, I had to drive across the state to attend it. I enjoyed it immensely because I could reconnect with old friends and colleagues. Our friend Carole Owsley was gracious to let Juri and I stay in her lovely home overnight. It was the perfect place to be. She made the best breakfast we could have ever hoped for. She also treated us to a light dinner and her own Strawberry shortcake, from which we can’t wait to steal the recipe.

My friend Fran Lemery is the Executive Director of the festival. He started getting involved in the Japanese community in Kansas City something like ten years ago when he decided to try to put in a smallish Japanese garden his backyard. As with much of the projects he took on, both his garden and his community participation blew up in a way that few people would consider. I’ve admired his attitude, his generosity and his ability to lead so many people to represent Japanese in the community. I just found out at the festival that he was nominated and will receive a special award from the Ministry of Japan for his cultural efforts for so many years. Absolutely outstanding. I can’t wait to know when I can come in and see him receive it. I’m just so happy he’s the guy I can call any time about anything and having him as a special friend.

I’m in St. Louis now, but I still have these strong ties to Kansas City. I enjoy seeing my good friend Fran there, my old colleagues and getting updates on how things are going. I only got to attend the actual Festival for about three hours out of the entire 11 hour day. Despite that, I got to help out with some A/V issues for the more presentation, and to take some photos and video. Both my favorite things. I’d like to extend to the hardworking groups there in the festival my appreciation to them, it was a great time, and the crowd grew by over ten percent because of Fran and other’s attention to detail and their labor of love.

September 21, 2009 at 4:51 am | inspiration, Japan, nostalgia | No comment

Millions of Ideas, questions, strategies

Ever have a raging amount of enthusiasm from ideas, and you need to share them right now? You must get somebody else in on this right away? You can’t rest until something is answered? The idea is just too spacey until you can get another persons mind into it. I’ve been plagued with this for the past few weeks. Sometimes I want to get on the phone and call my friends and clients, even ones I haven’t talked to in a while. Or jump in the car and just drive over to one of their houses unannounced. Show up and say, “Hey I gotta run this by you, see what you think.” Or “I need your help, how do you….?”

I’ve managed to keep it subtle. Friendly and casual emails. Thankfully some of my friends have been responsive too, willing to help.  But when it’s 6:30 am on a Sunday morning and you just want to ‘strategize’ with people, even on something not that exciting, it’s humorously painful.  This need that is terrorizing me, I’m chalking up to being a little too reclusive in my lifestyle. It’s good and bad I suppose. You can’t learn without focusing on your own away from distraction, and if a side effect is a sensation that’s igniting a fire, I appreciate its usefulness. No matter what, you need others at points to build up excitement and carry it through. It takes groups of people more often to invent something vastly important or helpful and rewarding.  But it’s 6:30 in the morning!  Why must I be so energetic at the strangest hours?  Why can’t my friends, for no reason just be up and ring my phone right now and say “Hey I’m listening, what can I do?”

I suppose this could be a cue for me to remember that I can be a source of energy and ideas and answers when my friends and family want to do something new and special, give them support, help inspire it to actually happen for them. See the idea, help flesh it out with them. Get excited about it.

July 19, 2009 at 7:54 am | inspiration, interesting, learning | No comment

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