I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the role of delight in application design and how it relates to (and sometimes trumps) efficiency. I wrote a small piece about this and Macworld published it today. ∞

I read this Wall Street Journal article where Tim Cook explained that Apple is approaching releasing a product in a new category. There is one line in the story that explains “Cook knows that’s the biggest question hanging over the company: whether it can repeat the…

In 2010, Steve Jobs made the analogy between PCs and mobile devices with the original trucks and cars. He explained that when we were an agrarian nation and automobiles were new, everybody wanted a truck. Automobiles were expensive things and you only bought one if you…

I cannot understate how repulsive I find the actions reported in this Ars Technica article. An App Developer made a successful photo app called “A Beautiful Mess”. The app was successful and then a group of copycats began submitting confusingly similar apps with names…

I’m 100% on board with Brent Simmons’ post at Macworld yesterday. “Instead, Apple’s enemy is Apple itself. It must attract and retain talent. It needs to get strong where it’s weak—particularly with syncing and online services. It needs to retain that awesome balance between…

Aldo Coresi explains: “The truth is this: Google destroyed the RSS feed reader ecosystem with a subsidized product, stifling its competitors and killing innovation. It then neglected Google Reader itself for years, after it had effectively become the only player. Today it does further…

I’ve been thinking about all the hullabaloo over the price of the new iPad mini. Everybody feels that Apple blew it by not getting the price down to something competitive with Google and Amazon. Upon reflection, this really doesn’t surprise me. Both Google and…

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY)wrote an editorial for the Wall Street Journal about the US Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Apple over book-selling practices. I’m sure there must be some explanation for this lawsuit but it eludes me. As I understand things: Amazon had a…

In this week’s episode of Build & Analyze, Marco Arment explains the challenges of competing with free. At some point over the last few years I’ve migrated away from free services for anything I consider essential. I’d like to say this was calculated but…