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A pride owner of an Apple product

From The Oatmeal of course.

(Thank you Antony)

10 things you always wanted to know about Apple

Fantastic list of not so well known facts about Apple. I only new the #1.

I loved #3:

The Apple I Cost $666.66
(...)
The Apple I wasn’t priced at $666.66 with any Satanic connotations, but rather for more practical reasons, as Steve Wozniak once explained at a news conference:
“I was into repeating digits,” he said, and explained that the wholesale cost to stores was $500, and adding a third to get the retail price made it around $667, which Woz changed to all one repeating digit — $666.66 — “was just easier to type.”

The new Applestore in Shanghai

The making of:

The evolution of Macs in 30 years

Things can only be better.

Jonathan Ive on Core77

The charismatic designer of Apple, Jonathan Ive, shares some of his wisdom:

It’s very hard to learn about materials academically, by reading about them or watching videos about them; the only way you truly understand a material is by making things with it.

Apple fails when it comes to typography

Apple claims to be a master in typography. But in reality it fails.

Khoi Vinh:

While the letterforms on that virtual page may look gorgeous, it’s apparent to any designer that the text is far from perfectly typeset. It’s hideous, scarred as it is by unsightly “rivers” of bad spacing within the text. No self-respecting typographer would dare call that perfect.

Apple on advertising

Who cares about the technical details? Geeks.

But when you aim to the masses tech doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is the experience and your feelings.

That’s the thing about Apple marketing. They don’t talk about how many gigabytes of memory or how many CPU cycles or how many apps (much). They aim for your heart, and show you how technology can make your life better during its most important moments.

Exactly.

iPhone 4

iPhone 4 deserves all the buzz it has these days. And I think it does changes everything again.

I am pretty impressed by the FaceTime feature.

Steve Jobs on D8 conference

Each times Steve Jobs gives an interview it’s interesting. This time he appeared on the stage of D8 conference.

On the so called war with Adobe he says:

We don’t think Flash makes a great product, so we’re leaving it out. Instead, we’re going to focus on technologies that are in ascendancy. If we succeed, people will buy them and if we don’t they won’t….And, so far, I have to say, people seem to be liking the iPad. We sell like three iPads a second.

Read the whole interview or take a look at a short video of it.

Working for Apple. In China.

Apple is a shiny machine. It is slick. We like it. Being a cog in this machine though isn’t comfortable (to say the least) for everyone.

People who work in Foxconn factory in China, the factory which makes Apple products, sometimes see their life as a nightmare.

They often dream, but also repeatedly tearing apart their dreams, like a miserable painter who keeps tearing up his or her drafts, “if we keep working like this, we might as well quit dreaming for the rest of our lives.”

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How Apple works

They take something small, simple, and painstakingly well considered. They ruthlessly cut features to derive the absolute minimum core product they can start with. They polish those features to a shiny intensity. At an anticipated media event, Apple reveals this core product as its Next Big Thing, and explains—no, wait, it simply shows—how painstakingly thoughtful and well designed this core product is. The company releases the product for sale.

Really.

Thoughts on Flash

Steve Jobs goes out and talks about Flash:

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

Forget for a minute that Jobs runs Apple. Try even to forget he’s the fire-starter.

And now let’s ask ourselves: Is he right or wrong? Do Apple products run better without Flash or not? Isn’t it better to count on non proprietary technology such as HTML5?

Now let’s go back to the reality. Jobs is the head of Apple. Of course he would his best for his company.

You can also read the response of the CEO of Adobe, Shantanu Narayen. Who do you think stands closer to the truth?

Steve Wozniak On Apple security

With the words of Steve Wozniak:

I myself never prod Apple friends into saying things about unreleased Apple products. I’m not in the group where early knowledge equates to value. I don’t play the rumor mill game. So I had little interest in seeing this iPad beyond a couple of minutes.

In my opinion, Apple was not hurt by my being shown this iPad. And if the employee who showed it to me believed that he could show it after April 3, then that’s another factor.

I did describe this to Steve Jobs the night of the iPad introduction and he said “so it’s no big deal.” We talked about family things after that for a short while. But that engineer did get fired.

See why many people think Apple is evil? Or as the editor says:

A culture where you can’t show someone like that a new product, hours before it was to be unveiled, isn’t a culture of innovation—it’s a culture of fear.

Apple vs. Microsoft (profits)

Here are two very insightful charts.

Apple is getting more profitable because of iPhone, a non-existing product 3 years ago. And Microsoft counts on the rebirth of Windows and Office of course.

First Apple:

Microsoft:

Sources: Apple Chart, Microsoft Chart

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This is Apple’s next iPhone

If Gizmodo says so...

But how did Gizmodo “found” that phone? New York Times suggests a possible explanation.

Guess what’s next. Apple wants its thing back.

Non-Apple’s mistake

If you are creative, create.  Otherwise, strive to find a strong-willed Jobs figure gifted with good taste, and become his loyal servant.  This is how we get quality products, everywhere from architecture to operating systems.  There is no other way.  Creativity requires a mind, and a herd has none.

Very insightful article on Apple’s philosophy. Read it, especially if you loathe this company.

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Why 9:41 is the official time of Apple product photos

That’s freaking awesome.

(...) when Apple puts that most important slide up, the one introducing the new hardware, the time on the static image of the device will be damned close to the time the packed room of journalists sees it for the first time.

Let it be 9:41 then.

An open letter to the people of the world

Hold your iPad. Gaze at it. Pray to it. Let it transform you. And do it soon, because before you know it we are going to release version 2, which will make this one look like a total piece of crap. Peace be upon you.

Oh, The secret diary of Steve Jobs might have revealed a harsh truth. Or not?

The truth about crappy products

Put a product video of Apple next to a product video of whatever iPhone/iPad-killing company, and we geeks immediately know who to trust, and what product we should buy.

Read this insightful post by Tim Van Damme and see why geeks like Apple products. Don’t miss the relevant video.

The iPad launch: Can Steve Jobs do it again?

Stephen Fry flies to Cupertino, tests an iPad and chats with Steve Jobs.

Too many we people envy him, but too few we can write like he does.