Definitely one of the best iPad app magazines out there. Except for the heavy Cadillac sponsorship. But would have to say that even the Cadillac ads are well designed.
cool hunting iPad app
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Category Archives: Design
the word press iPad app
This app for the pad is terrible. Mostly buggy, but lot of plain old poor usage. iPhone app is more capable. This feels like an alpha build.
ipad leapfrogs all
So lucky for me that Nook had production delivery problems. That just saved me $500. Now I’ll just wait for the ipad to come out.
On that note of products being late…that’s just a killer when it comes to generating sales and making business numbers. Designers should know this, but often don’t really assimilate the impact of being late and its consequences on the business. What does that mean to the design process?
nook leapfrogs kindle
Ok, i want one of these…there was something about the kindle, that made me wonder if I should plunk down $300, uh ok, $250 (since the intro of nook). I was unsure when I wrote about this a while back and am now certain, that i won’t buy a kindle.
For now, until i can go to Barnes and Noble to buy one, my thoughts based on what i’ve read on the web and what i can see in pics:
Look: winner Nook – ok the Nook is nice and clean, not a stunning design, the Kindle 2…pretty darn bland, i can see the braun/rams/bauhaus inspiration, but, still just too plain. And the original Kindle, well honestly, that thing was pretty ugly, I mean, look at that keyboard.
Technology: winner Nook – dual screens, gotta love it
UI: winner Nook – jury out, but the potential of, the dual screens!
Experience – Nook – bring it to a Barnes and Noble and read stuff for free. Phyigital Reality, making digital things act like real life things
Cool Factor: Nook
Teague ads, heady, arrogant or ?
I’m not sure what to make of the latest series of Teague ads. They sure are spending a lot for those back covers of ID magazine.
and wtf…DESIGNTHISDAY.COM doesnt work.
iriver doing nice work
Some might say they are riffing off Apple and some might say the design is so simple, its boring. It also has a bit of mid 80′s Japanese electronics feel, think Sony back then. I just played with the Spinn for a bit. It’s definitely a nice product. OLED display is awesome and the build quality is solid.
The Visual Media is really nice as well, simple swiss grid like feel. They are also talking about a new home screen they are calling “magazine” style on some of their other big screen products. I think its a really fresh take on media design. It goes beyond the Apple jelly style buttons, or any buttons for that matter, you just interact with the media itself. But their website, ugh, in this case, Flash doesnt have anything to do with how fast you can view all of their products. The site is really painful to navigate as well. That said, the UI on the Spinn was a little strange combining touch and physical control in a way that wasn’t naturally intuitive.
You gotta love the original walkman, it changed the game in personal electronics. 1979…wow.
Challenger challenge
From a previous post, I bashed the new Dodge Challenger Life After Steroids. Well I actually got to see both the original and new Challenger at CES and now can give you an in person assessment. I still like the original. The new is nice, but doesnt have the flair of the original.
What do you think?
Loading ...The successful Kindle
Below is my reply to Bruce Nussbaum’s Design blog about the Kindle titled “Amazon’s Kindle Is A Success–Hooray For Designer Bob Brunner.” I’ve modified my post below a bit so it makes sense without reading Bruce’s post and the readers comments.
Does good design make a product “successful”? Does bad design kill the chances of success? From the replies above, we have a UI and Experience professional saying the ergonomics of the Kindle are bad. Walt Mossberg also confirms this in his review. We’ve also got someone pointing out that “ecosystem” is what is making this successful. And finally, the host of this column (Bruce) says its Oprah and Bob’s great design work, which once again, some folks aren’t happy with. And now we can go back to the start and continue to debate the Kindle’s success. But let’s not.
What also makes this interesting is that we’ve got some very qualified folks speaking to the pros and cons of this device. Of course, they probably haven’t debated in person on this topic, but all present a different POV on the product’s success. So what is the missing component here in this dialog of design? According to Amazon’s figures, its the 240,000 consumers who have bought this thing. What I wonder is, how many of these consumers are “design saavy or qualified” like the blogger and the responders here? And, as Rob (a responder) points out, I’ll bet that those 240,000 people trust Oprah more than any of us qualified “designers”.
I’m a product designer as well, I know Andy and Bob and they both do great work. On a similar, yet off path…What I’ve always wondered about is the Designer/Consumer taste barometer, that is when the consumer wants something that most designers don’t. Like fake wood grain for instance, the designers fight it, “oh my god, there is no way I’ll put fake wood grain on a product”. Yet, somehow, with all those designers fighting it, that fake wood still gets out in the market!
I guess the other question is, is a commercially successful product, always well designed? Seems like, not.
Manlets
Designer watches are things that really don’t tell time. At least not easily. So no longer should these things be called watches…
There just braclets for men…Manlets
ID Annual – B+W Zepplin
Ok, my take on this is I like the speaker itself, the detailing looks nice, I’ll take Johns word for the build quality being great, but I don’t like this pairing with the ipod. I typically don’t prescribe thinking that calls for matchy matchy, meaning “if the ipod is square, lets make the speaker system square”. (Apple did for their own speaker system) In this case, the two elements are so strong and pure individually, I believe they don’t really mix well together.