Instead of copying Apple’s physical products, other companies would be better off copying their unusual commitment to quality.

Continue Reading: What you should really copy from Apple

Some intriguing thoughts on a possible Apple iWatch from Bruce Tognazzini. Lots of good ideas in here, plus my favorite bit, the paradox of the “huge problem”: “A problem that feels sufficiently insurmountable will appear the product of natural law, to be accepted rather than challenged.” It seems to me that breaking this paradox is […]

Continue Reading: The Apple iWatch

Never Lie About Who You Really Are is such a great post…taking the notion of being who you really are and applying it to product design. “People at all levels, especially management, witness the slow undoing of good customer service, product quality, or safety standards, and they don’t say a thing about it. Even if […]

Continue Reading: Never Lie About Who You Really Are

Must read. In What it’s Really Like Working with Steve Jobs Glenn Reid shares his experiences working with Steve Jobs and how he really was just a product guy who happened to be CEO: “I can still remember some of those early meetings, with 3 or 4 of us in a locked room somewhere on […]

Continue Reading: What it’s really like working with Steve Jobs

Hope To Better The Person is a nice post by Brandon Leedy on the aim of product design, in which he examines a video by Charles Eames and draws parallels with Apple and others. His thesis: “Ultimately, that’s what a good product does, it hopes to better the user. Not with technical specs or price, […]

Continue Reading: Hope To Better The Person

Three bits of evidence: designer-led companies are being invested in, designers are increasingly wanted as founders, and design firms are being bought for their talent.

Continue Reading: The Golden Age of Design in Startups

An homage to the best innovator of our time: Steve Jobs.

Continue Reading: How Steve changed things

The design legend admits that Apple is in a class by itself.

Continue Reading: Dieter Rams: “Apple has achieved something I never did”

Straight from the horse’s mouth…Apple doesn’t do market research.

Continue Reading: Steve Jobs on why Apple doesn’t do market research

A quick notice for any web-minded folks in the Newburyport, MA, USA vicinity in early 2008.

My buddy Jeff Watkins (Jeff is an ajax developer at Apple) and I are planning a web geek meetup Jan. 3 in Newburyport, MA. We know quite a few web geeks in and around town, and the North Shore is teeming with them (you). Every week or so I get wind of someone else who I know of online who happens to live in the area. Unfortunately, North Shorers can be up to an hour+ outside of Boston, so it’s not always easy to get to meetups there. In addition, those folks in Portsmouth are even further…we’ll have done well if we get some Portsmouth folks involved.

So come and meet some other like-minded souls to predict what Apple/Facebook/Google is up to next (isn’t that what web geeks do?) over a pint of beer. And, by the way, Jeff is an loyal employee of Apple…I can’t get even the slightest hint of details out of him.

Details:

Date: Thursday, January 3, 2008
Place: Rosie O’Sheas Irish Pub (see map)
Start: ~6-7pm
Ends: ~10-11pm

Travel tips:

• By Car: Downtown Newburyport is ~3 miles off of Interstate 95, so it’s very easy to find and fast to get into/out of by car. (this ain’t the city)
• Commuter Rail: Newburyport is at the end of the commuter rail…if we have any folks coming on the 5:36 or the 6:15 we’ll do a pick up (the train station is about a mile away from the pub) (commuter rail schedule)

Continue Reading: North Shore Web Geek Meetup: Jan 3 in Newburyport, MA