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  • Christmas Gifts and the Meaning of Design

    Gifts are a funny thing. A year ago, for Christmas 2012, my wife “gave” me an iPad mini. I use quotes because I actually bought it; supply was constrained, and when we got a notification that there were models in stock, I quickly dashed over to my local Apple Store1 and picked one up. It was…

  • Misunderstood

    Apple just posted their holiday iPhone commercial: This is what I’m talking about. It’s not about specs, it’s not about thinness, it’s about what those physical properties make possible for real people. Now please do the same for the iPad (which has always been harder to advertise). Previously: Whither Liberal Arts link The Magical iPad link…

  • Subsidization and Saturation

    Thanks to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, subsidies are once again in the news: AT&T’s top executive says the era of big subsidies for devices is coming to an end, as wireless operators can no longer afford to fund a constant smartphone upgrade cycle. Speaking at an investor conference in New York City on Tuesday, AT&T CEO…

  • Instagram Direct, Twitter DMs, and the Social/Communications Map

    Instagram today announced Instagram Direct. From the Instagram blog:1 From a photo of your daily coffee to a sunrise shared from the top of a mountain hike, every Instagram moment contains something you find special—something you broadcast to your followers when you tap “share.” There are, however, moments in our lives that we want to share,…

  • Promotion in the App Store

    Two interesting articles last week, better together. First came TheInformation’s1 maiden piece about How Apple Gives Some Apps an Edge (subscription required): Being featured [in the App Store] can be a developer’s jackpot. Developers say that it could cost them between $100,000 and $300,000 in marketing to buy as many downloads as they receive from being…

  • Amazon and the Benefits of Vision

    In case you missed it – and how could you? – this happened: While professional skeptics have been skeptical, the sheer audaciousness – and frankly, awesomeness – of Amazon’s drone proposal has attracted a near unanimous outpouring of amazement and adulation, at least if my Twitter feed is to be believed. It truly is a masterstroke,…

  • Whose iPad Life?

    My mom just emailed me. Normally, that would be unremarkable. She’s getting older, but isn’t that old, and surely an email isn’t that difficult of a task. This email, though, speaks volumes: Start with the subject. HK is Hong Kong. My parents are flying from Chicago to Taiwan to see their grandchildren, and while they’ve done…

  • The Social/Communications Map

    I took another turn at my map of the social networking space I made for yesterday’s post The Multitudes of Social: I made a few changes: The primary change is relabeling the horizontal axis. Originally I had “Interest/Topic- Based” on the left, and “Real-life Relationship-Based” on the right, but as Victor Pope pointed out on Twitter,…

  • The Multitudes of Social

    Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.) – Walt Whitman, Song of Myself Last week Snapchat reportedly turned down a $3 billion dollar all-cash offer from Facebook. Apparently Facebook was worried about losing the teen demographic, or perhaps they were unnerved by the 350 million photos Snapchat…

  • A Technological Optimist, but Just

    In June, in response to claims that nine Internet companies were willingly passing information to the NSA, Apple released Apple’s Commitment to Customer Privacy: Apple has always placed a priority on protecting our customers’ personal data, and we don’t collect or maintain a mountain of personal details about our customers in the first place. There are…

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