Linked List: February 3, 2014

Monday, 3 February 2014

New short film from Apple:

On January 24, 1984, Apple introduced the Macintosh. And with it a promise that the power of technology, put in the hands of everyone, could change the world. On January 24, 2014, we sent 15 camera crews all over the world to show how that promise has become a reality.

From sunrise in Melbourne to nightfall in Los Angeles, they documented people doing amazing things with Apple products. They shot over 70 hours of footage — all with the iPhone 5s.

With lineage connecting it to the original Mac commercial:

One of the first phone calls at the beginning of the project was from Lee Clow, the ad agency creative director behind the iconic commercial that launched Macintosh in 1984, to Ridley Scott, who directed it. From the start, they knew the right director this time around was Scott’s son Jake.

John Nack Leaves Adobe for Google ★

John Nack:

After nearly 14 terrific years at Adobe, it’s time for me to open a different chapter of my life, and next week I’ll be joining Google’s digital photography team.

I’ll go out on a limb here and guess that Google has big plans in the works for photography.

Two Bears, Revisited ★

Great piece by Ben Thompson:

Samsung is being challenged by lower-cost competitors; the company’s average price per phone fell by $30 last year, and its share of >$400 phones slipped from 40 percent to 21 percent. This kept up Samsung’s volume — they now account for one in three smartphone sales — but the result was their first profit decline in nine quarters.

Apple had the exact opposite problem: the iPhone’s average selling price jumped from $577 to $636 quarter-over-quarter, and was only down $6 year-over year. Apple also increased its share of the >$400 market from 35 percent to 65 percent. Growth, though, was meager: a mere 7%, despite the addition of NTT DoCoMo and a much earlier China launch for the iPhones 5S and 5C as compared to the iPhone 5.

‘CSS Animation: An Interactive Guide’ ★

Speaking of designing for animation, Vicki Murley is using Kickstarter to fund the follow-up to her excellent CSS Transforms: An Interactive Guide e-book. I’m in.

How In-App Purchasing Has Not Really Destroyed the Games Industry ★

Interesting counterpoint, from Drew Crawford:

See, in the in-app purchase model actually predates phones. It predates video game consoles. It goes all the way back to the arcade, where millions of consumers were happy to pay a whole quarter ($0.89 in 2013 dollars) to pay for just a few minutes. The entire video games industry comes from this model. Kids these days.

I think the comparison to coin-op arcade games is fair, but I’d say it only proves that some forms of in-app purchasing in games are reasonable. Clearly, some of the techniques we’re starting to see are inexcusable.

Update: Interesting thread on ADN regarding this retort; I agree with Neven Mrgan that it doesn’t really address the points in Thomas Baekdal’s original argument. One argument is about the artistic integrity of video games; the other is about how to make money.

How In-App Purchasing Has Destroyed the Game Industry ★

Thomas Baekdal:

We have reached a point in which mobile games couldn’t even be said to be a game anymore. Playing a game means that you have fun. It doesn’t mean that you sit around and wait for the game to annoy you for so long that you decide to pay credits to speed it up.

The video regarding the new mobile version of Dungeon Keeper is pretty damning.

North Korea’s Red Star OS Goes Mac ★

Not designed using Origami, I’m guessing.

Using Origami to Create Paper ★

Mark Wilson, writing for CoDesign:

Origami is a powerful counterpoint to Photoshop, just as Paper is a powerful counterpoint to Facebook’s standard app. It allowed the designers to mock up one of Paper’s most complex animations — something you’d never traditionally associate with Facebook UI — a booklet unfolding to reveal a news article. What’s important to note is that this animation isn’t precanned in Origami. It’s truly interactive, always anchored to your thumb and tracking it in real time, while a 3-D lighting system adds depth to the image. Not bad for a piece of software Facebook teaches its designers to use in just an hour and a half.

Origami is largely the child of Walkin, along with fellow product designer Drew Hamlin. Its development started around nine months ago, in conjunction with their work on Paper.

Paper presents an extraordinary experience. Maybe they could have gotten the same results without Origami as a design tool, but it makes sense to me that designers can better explore animated and interactive designs using tools that aren’t based on static images. Photoshop can only give you a look; Origami can give you a feeling.

Paper vs. Paper ★

FiftyThree CEO Georg Petschnigg calls on Facebook to rename their new Paper app:

There’s a simple fix here. We think Facebook can apply the same degree of thought they put into the app into building a brand name of their own. An app about stories shouldn’t start with someone else’s story. Facebook should stop using our brand name. […]

What will Facebook’s story be? Will they be the corporate giant who bullies their developers? Or be agile, recognize a mistake, and fix it? Is it “Move fast and break things” or “Move fast and make things”?

The Story Behind Apple’s ‘Think Different’ Campaign ★

Somehow this slipped my attention back in 2011, when former TBWA/Chiat/Day creative director Rob Siltanen wrote it. Great story:

Jobs was quiet during the pitch, but he seemed intrigued throughout, and now it was time for him to talk. He looked around the room filled with the “Think Different” billboards and said, “This is great, this is really great … but I can’t do this. People already think I’m an egotist, and putting the Apple logo up there with all these geniuses will get me skewered by the press.” The room was totally silent. The “Think Different” campaign was the only campaign we had in our bag of tricks, and I thought for certain we were toast. Steve then paused and looked around the room and said out loud, yet almost as if to his own self, “What am I doing? Screw it. It’s the right thing. It’s great. Let’s talk tomorrow.” In a matter of seconds, right before our very eyes, he had done a complete about-face.