Linked List: November 18, 2007

Sunday, 18 November 2007

Reading Tea Leaves and Campaign Logos 

Astute design criticism of U.S. presidential campaign logos by Ward Sutton.

Ten New Things in WebKit 3 

Maciej Stachowiak runs down the major improvements in WebKit 3.

OmniFocus Public Beta 

OmniFocus, The Omni Group’s task-management/to-do app that was first announced in September 2006, now has a ship date — 8 January 2008 — and a public beta is available now. It’s going to sell for $80, but it’s only $40 from now until the official release, and owners of OmniOutliner Pro get an extra discount.

Quay 1.0b5 

Still-in-beta utility from Rainer Brockerhoff — a simple app that brings back hierarchical pop-up menus for folders in the Dock.

Amazon: Reinventing the Book 

Newsweek’s Steven Levy on Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s upcoming new e-book gadget and service, Kindle:

Over the centuries, the sweet spot has been identified: something you hold in your hand, something you can curl up with in bed. Devices like the Kindle, with its 167 dot-per-inch E Ink display, with type set in a serif font called Caecilia, can subsume consciousness in the same way a physical book does. It can take you down the rabbit hole.

Sounds interesting, and 167 DPI is a very nice screen resolution. But if everything is set in the exact same typeface — if Kindle’s e-books are delivered as strings of text rather than as designed pages — then the Kindle will not replace books. I think PDF is the only feasible e-book format today.