I'm currently working on a new iPhone app and starting to understand how difficult it is to build something that is both good looking and also simple to understand/use.  There are so many small nuances to consider since there isn't a lot of real estate with which to get your point across.  One of the most maddening things to get right are icons.  People don't realize how difficult it is to build great looking icons from scratch.  There are only a handful of apps that I consider beautiful and even among those, I have issues with the icons.  After revision after revision of icons from my designer, I started to scour the web for examples of good icons.  To my chagrin, the answer was staring me right in the face - Glyphish.  Here was an extensive set of beautifully designed icons that are so simple and yet so clear in what the icon is supposed to represent.  How good are these icons?  They're used by little known companies like Google, Twitter, and a small phone manufacturer called Apple.  The best part of it?  $25 for a full pro license that doesn't require attribution and can be used in an unlimited number of projects (free version requires attribution, doesn't include Retina Display version of icons).  I've seen icon sets costing four times as much that are no where near as clean and well designed.  Kudos to Joseph Wain for creating these and providing them at a ridiculously cheap price.

Oh, and his $10 set of background images are well worth it, too!

Apple released its annual Supplier Responsibility Report which discusses the status of its manufacturing partners (mainly in China) on issues of worker rights, factory conditions, etc.  Not so coincidentally, last week's This American Life episode centered around Mike Daisey and his one man show about what he saw while on a visit to Shenzen where many of the big manufacturing companies are located.

Though the first act of the episode was meant to illicit an emotional response in favor of the poor downtrodden workers, the second act painted a much more balanced and realstic view of the plight of workers in these plants.  The fact of the matter is that places like Foxconn have improved the lives of many of these people.  Are conditions as good as they are in first world countries?  Of course not, but that's a very first world opinion.  Ask anyone who used to make $50 a month in the country side doing back breaking labor if they would trade it for a $250 a month job doing a different kind of hard labor in Shenzen.  It's a no brainer.  As consumers in developed nations, we should absolutely push for better working conditions for the people who make our goods.  But progress takes time and why should we expect developing countries to suddenly leapfrog steps in their industrialization when countries like the US did not.

The one hopeful thing I took from the episode was that cold hard economics and not journalists or people like Mike Daisey will ultimately effect greater change.  As workers become more skilled, they also have more options to work at places that have better working conditions.  If places like Foxconn wish to retain these skilled employees that they've spent time and money training, they'll need to improve the environment these people do business in.  That, more than a sensationalistic one man show, will be how China and other developing countries move forward.

Only on a Mac would I have found this out.  The iPhone has so permeated the behaviors of how the Mac works that the rubber-bannding effect allows for some interesting design aesthetics.  Check out the Posterous logo on my blog when I over-scroll.  Very slick!

I love the new iPhone 4S. Super fast and extremely responsive when navigating through apps, browsing, games, etc. Of course, Siri is the huge new feature on the phone and it pretty much works as advertised. I give it a B+ so far but know that it will get better over time. Having to connect to the network to use Siri is a little annoying but it's manageable. And certain voice commands don't work too well like asking it to play certain podcasts that have similar names to songs in your library will more often trigger the playing of the song. For things like setting reminders, calendar meetings, initiating phone calls and having it read/reply/send text messages, it's amazing - to the point where my preferred method of doing these tasks is now via voice. It actually is faster and more efficient. One place it is perfect for is when driving. I've carried on full text conversations with people without missing a beat. Of course, you have to deal with the "looking crazy talking to yourself" issue. Still haven't quite crossed that hurdle yet so when I'm in the office or a public place, I go back to finger inputs. But the dream of Star Trek computer will one day be realized...

I picked up an iPhone 4S yesterday (launch date). It's a great phone that's broken a ton of sales records but that's not the interesting part. I dropped by the Emeryville Apple Store at around 2:45pm and there were only five people in line. Got my phone in 15 minutes. At last year's iPhone 4 launch I came at around the same time and waited in line for four hours. Don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining. It's just odd that a phone that obliterated sales records didn't have an accompanying crush of folks showing up at the stores. Could it be that most folks got it via preorder? Or maybe Apple got their act together and actually produced more phones at launch. Not sure but perhaps the Apple propaganda machine is running a little differently these days. Maybe Tim Cook is more interested in selling as many phones as possible and not how they are sold. I wonder if the mystique is wearing off and Apple will just make and market good products minus the buzz. If so, Apple may be falling back to just being any other consumer electronics company instead of the one people insanely love.

I was driving when my wife texted me... "RIP Steve Jobs".  I wasn't really prepared for the response I would have.  It kind of caught me off guard.  There was sadness but not the usual sadness associated with hearing about the death of a "celebrity".  I didn't know Steve Jobs personally.  I've never met him.  I've never seen him in person.  There will be many people who will celebrate his impact on Silicon Valley, the tech community, even the world of every day people.  All true and all well deserved  But that wasn't enough for me to feel sad about his passing.  Was it because I like using Apple products?  Shouldn't be.  I like using a lot of other products and it wouldn't matter much to me if the people involved with their creation pass on.  What was it specifically about Steve Jobs?  Was it the showmanship?  His vision of how products should affect our lives for the better?  His brilliance?   I realized it was none of those things.

Simply put, don't buy RAM from Apple. I just ordered 8GB of RAM from Amazon for my newly purchased Mac Mini. Total cost? $54.99 no tax. The same 8GB from Apple via the Mac Mini config menu? $300 plus tax. Of course that price includes the installation but it should take even the most novice of people about 5 minutes to swap the RAM from their Mac. Do yourself a favor and buy a precision screwdriver set then do a Google search. Your bank account will thank you.