Linked List: July 1, 2013

Monday, 1 July 2013

‘Mickey Mouse in Yodelberg’ 

Fun, gorgeous new Mickey Mouse short from Disney that hearkens back to Disney’s early days. See also: New York Weenie. (Via Cabel Sasser.)

Cloud.typography: Web Fonts by H&FJ 

Big news from H&FJ:

Now all your communications can speak in the same clear voice. Introducing Cloud.typography from H&FJ, the webfont solution for design professionals.

There are two separate technically impressive aspects to this. The first is the fonts themselves, which they’ve painstakingly tweaked to render beautifully, even at small sizes, across all modern operating systems and display types. The second is the web app you use to control — and I do mean control — your font styles.

Just one of many nice touches: any fonts you’ve previously purchased from H&FJ — as regular old fashioned desktop fonts — are already available to you as web fonts.

Amateur Hour Still Not Over 

BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins, five months ago: “Our plan is to upgrade all existing PlayBooks to BlackBerry 10.”

Last Friday:

BlackBerry has just announced that it will not, in fact, be upgrading the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to its latest mobile OS, BlackBerry 10. CEO Thorsten Heins revealed the sour news on the company’s investor call relating to today’s earnings report, though he didn’t delve into the specifics of why the company’s plans have changed. The only justification offered by Heins is that BlackBerry was unable to get performance up to a satisfactory level, and the company now intends to focus on core products instead.

BlackBerry ad campaign for the Playbook, in May 2011: “Amateur hour is over.”

‘Close Encounters of the Seventh Kind’ 

New episode of my podcast, The Talk Show, with special guest Craig Hockenberry. We talk in detail regarding the design changes in iOS 7, particularly the similarity to graphic design and color palette trends in decades past. Also: tagging, as seen in Mavericks, as the future of file sharing and organization amongst sandboxed applications.

Brought to you by three excellent sponsors:

  • Transporter: Peer-to-Peer Storage Solution like Dropbox, except you remain in complete control.

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  • Igloo: An intranet you’ll actually like.

Vesper 1.001 

We could work on Vesper for the next decade and I doubt I’ll ever write a release note I enjoy as much as the third one in this list. Anyway, lots of small improvements, enjoy.