The mobile tool kit (draft)

iPad2 (for composing, "reading" and conversing)

1. Flipboard ( with Flipboard for dummies included)
   
2. Bret Victor's Magic Ink and Visual compilation tools
   
3. Our Choice example
4. Sketchbook Pro with stylus
5. Keynote and Resonate for designing, rehearsing and presenting stories
6. http://prestonpagephotography.wordpress.com/2011/05/28/top-ipad-apps-and-tools-for-photographers/

iPhone 4 for connecting and small format viewing and composing

Related articles

• Pre-$200 Million Valuation: Flipboard's Mike McCue at SXSW (The Full Onstage Video) (kara.allthingsd.com)

web meetings on my iPhone

Image via Wikipedia

I just got a new iPhone - and my first use will be a Virtual Visuals test using the Webex meeting app. View the video for a taste.

Network Innovation - a lesson from Apple

Innovation | Lessons from Apple | Economist.com: "This approach, known as “network innovation”, is not limited to electronics. It has also been embraced by companies such as Procter & Gamble, BT and several drugs giants, all of which have realised the power of admitting that not all good ideas start at home. Making network innovation work involves cultivating contacts with start-ups and academic researchers, constantly scouting for new ideas and ensuring that engineers do not fall prey to “not invented here” syndrome, which always values in-house ideas over those from outside."

Network Innovation is well described in Wikinomics - with its core principles Open, P2P,Sharing, Global. - Apple appears to have its cake and eat it, violating the key principle of openness, but gaining innovative advantage through adopting other's innovations( think Xerox Altos) and focusing on sleek, sexy,fashionable design.

iTunes is the newest version of Apple's network innovation. Its almost hidden agenda is its insertion as a virus-like component on the Windows platform where, unexpected, it resides as a remorahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remora . iTunes and the soon to be shipped iPhone
are stealth invaders of the Windows platform - where any iTunes enabled device, MAC or PC is "recognized" and connected to share any iTunes content. It is a network innovation of mostly unseen and unexpected scope - imagine an Apple networking widget on every Mac and Windows PC. That's iTunes - and guess where iPhone will connect as a Network Innovation?

Who knew?

Ant Trail No.2 - finding information Architects!

This Ant Trail leads to Information Architects in Tokyo,a dynamite design resource for all things Internet.

The trail will be entirely visual, without associated links. It will give me a visual
platform for my meeting with Robert Scoble in early March. In meeting with Robert, I hope to help him overcome his problem of continuous partial attention. (CPA) that I mentioned in previous posts.

iA's interface design rules make great visual sense to me, and I am hoping to find a way to redesign this blog so that it follows the iA rules. I think they would be equally applicable to Scobleizer and the Scoble Video Show.

Let's start on the trail with Netvibes
dave davison's home page (22)
followed by the link to
which contains the link to iA which led me to this really powerful statement: The Interface is the Brand ( which relates to my prior posts on the iPhone and its need for radical simplification). iA gets it just right with this post: Information Architects Japan

and then finally a payoff for my meeting with Robert Scoble - this table rating popular blogs showing that Scobleizer has a way to go in its design.


Ain't discovery grand? I hope Robert will agree.

iPhone- Is the interface the brand?

See my previous Thoughts Illustrated: iPhone redux - Ubiquitous computing or a Fashion Statement?

These guys from Japan really understand Radical Simplicity. Here is how they put it:Information Architects Japan

And once again Apple proves that nowadays the interface is the brand. Useless to say that I will get that little miracle as soon as I can, yet our uncle Fritz is still desperately waiting for the other Apple promise to be fulfilled: Simplicity.

Information Architects Japan � iA Notebook � Strip it down for Uncle Fritz: Introducing iPhone Nano&Shuffle

New power at your fingertips!

A new interactive space that brings a powerful enabling interface to visual computing. Watch the whole video (3:32 minutes) to get the picture. This is similar technology to that used in the iPhone touch screen. You may need to play the video more than once to really "get" how this technology will change the way we communicate and understand.

Thanks to Michael Kaufman of InnovationLabs for the link.

Ignore the "snakes" commercial from MSFT in the first 15 seconds.

You have to click the link below to get to the video - I can't embed it here, just yet. See my next post for a playable video on the same subject - not as good, but you don't have to listen to the MSFT snake commerial. Tell me which one you like best.

FastTV on fastcompany.com

iPhone redux - Ubiquitous computing or a Fashion Statement?

In a prior post Thoughts Illustrated: The Apple iPhone - Steve Jobs does it again at MacWorld I concluded my remarks about the iPhone by saying: " I want one".

After reading this more complete review of the iPhone: Between Doubt And Enthusiasm - Tech News - Playfuls.com - Science & Technology, I'm not so sure.

I hark back to the The Plenitude (unpublished) by Rich Gold in which he describes his experiences designing Ubiquitous Computing Devices at PARC.
This cartoon is from a slide show that Rich presented frequently, and it includes the following caption:

" In Silicon Valley...there is religion of sorts called "convergence" . It is a belief that all media including TV viewing, movies, web surfing, telephoning, photos and reading will all collapse on to a small device that one can hold in one's hand and even go to bed with. That device would consitute all the media you would ever need and there would only be one media."

Sound familiar? It could pass as the design specs for the iPhone.


Rich's design experience at PARC led him to the conclusion that the religion of convergence was a false religion.. Here's Rich again in the caption that follows this cartoon:

" when the Palm Pilot arrived in the marketplace the biggest change was the physical design which spoke loudly FASHION ACCESSORY.

"To say that something is a fashion accessory is to say an object(or its creators)are concerned about the entire social infrastructure of the society. That they care about how people visually judge each other, the accoutrements that they w ear and the social hierarchies that they represent. Fashion is"tribal" , it is part of our mammalian, simian brains that devveloped when we hunted in packs, need to defend our territory and chose our alpha member to lead us. Engineering Ramifies into the issues of fashion and design imediately, so put it into the spec."

I think that Steve Job's put fashion statement into spec for the iPhone - and I agree with Rich Gold that cramming all the ubiquitous computing features into the iPhone, may be too big a bite of the Apple.

So, I have tempered my initial enthusiasm for the iPhone - and will wait and see if it is more than a fashion accessory that I don't need.

The Apple iPhone - Steve Jobs does it again at MacWorld

Take a demo listen here: Apple - iPhone - Phone

Here's the latest from MacWorld - the iPhone combining Internet browsing, highres camera and iPhoto- like picture management, integrated google map and search functions,and a whole lot of cool features for voice and email and call management. Bundled exclusively with Cingular service. Comes with 4 and 8 GB versions, retailing at $499 and $599, service plan included.

And look: No Keyboard! - all running on OSX and compatible with most MAC apps. This new generation phone may be to mobile communicating what the iPod was to music and the MAC has been to personal computing.

Significantly Jobs announced that henceforth Apple was dropping "computer" from its corporate name and will now be known simply as Apple Inc. - a consumer electronics company.

I think the iPhone will be as big a hit at the iPod and will dramatically impact the enormous mobile communicating/computing market. Who need as laptop for roadwarrior communicating? I want one!


If you didn't link to the demo above, do it now and be dazzled! Apple - iPhone - Phone