New Apple Lust Objects for 2010 and onward

always love it when i discover new levels of aesthetic fastidiousness. what am i missing here - why is helvetica bad on the iphone?

they should have used espi sans instead?

^^ but Gruber's been all over Helvetica in the past for sure. Think the original iPhone review had boke-worthy bits about how "elegant" it all looked because it was in Helvetica.

Xp

helvetica has measurably poorer legibility at small sizes on displays at current resolution (even iphone resolution) than custom-designed screen fonts.

they should have paid the profit they make in ten seconds to get someone to make an italic lucida grande, and used that

Think the original iPhone review had boke-worthy bits about how "elegant" it all looked because it was in Helvetica.

i guess it does look elegant compared to OS X, and if your stock in trade is poring over apple runes it's an interesting decision. it's a terrible decision though.

Xposts otm. Even Geneva would've been better for the tiny text. Lucida ideal. Am hoping for new fonts w/iPhone HD.

Shit font choices on iBooks too.

like this dude says, style over substance: http://fontfeed.com/archives/ipad-typography/. apple does not deserve that criticism as often as windows people would make out in the 90s, when it used to be the narrative about apple, but helvetica as the system font on iphone, and the time machine UI are examples for all time.

That link is great. Dead right about the iBooks fonts and settings, and Helvetica in the UI.

found it via http://blog.fawny.org/2010/04/12/appletype/, which is another great rant

ok that fontfeed link was really helpful. think the lack of hyphenation is going to be worse for readability that the font choices though, especially since ibooks is going to be on the iphone. they should just buy out the guy who made the eucalyptus app.

"Even Geneva would've been better for the tiny text. Lucida ideal."
Are there mockups? I'm not feeling the lucida.

it's the system font on OS X, yeah. or do you mean iphone/pad mockups?

for iphone. helvetica bold seems fine to me. only looks weird for large things like the clock.

there are so many fonts which are better than fine for this purpose.

I'd bet the few fonts I would like better might be less everyone's cup of tea than helvetica.
what y'all think of espi sans?

http://www.kaleidoscope.net/greg/images/WithAL.gif

yuck!

kinda glad you posted that link just because i wasn't sure what the term was for "full justification", i really always hate seeing that - the bad kind of form over function

Chicago > Charcoal > Espy Sans

any cambridge based software engineers want a free ipad?
http://www.red-gate.com/careers/free_ipad.htm

so apparently the new camera connector kit acts as a pseudo-USB port. most exciting is that it apparently supports usb audio.

Where do we go to make fun of the gizmodo dude getting a visit from the cops

the worst consequence of this is the feeling of smugness that this is going to give gawker, a bunch of nerds going "see we got busted by the cops, told you we're legit, we're doing serious journalism here"

yeah because if theres one thing you couldnt find on gawker media sites before now, it was smugness

:}

lol

smugness aside and all, that raid seems like pure bullshit.

probably gruber called it in

he is getting more tiresome by the day about this

The agents who searched Chen's home were from REACT; Apple sits on their steering committee.

xp, seriously. His "show me the case law" in response to the EFF.

react website is like snowcrash scary

man I don't know which dog to pick in this fight, on one hand I don't want gruber et. al to get any more sanctimonious but on the other hand I really wanna see gawker get dinged

I like how the REACT site uses a Star Trek font. I wonder if they paid for it.

i hate apple but i need a new mac just the same. help a not-computer-savvy brother out.

which are the new processors that they're putting in some of the macbook pros? does it make a difference whether it has an intel core i5 or i7?

also--these things don't come with VGA dongles anymore? i need to buy one of those? wtf.

also--anyone have the hi-res screen? any problems w/ it?

I just got the i5 15 w/ hi-res antiglare.

conventional wisdom says i7 is not worth it. Save your money and put it towards ram, and/or buy an SSD in a year. That's my plan...in a year or two I'll double the ram, then a year after that I'll get an SSD when they're cheap(er).

Hi-res screen is fine...some people complain fonts are too small. I haven't used it that much. When surfing the web I'm more inclined to increase the fonts in safari when it's on my lap, but doesn't seem a problem at a more normal distance.

For me the trade-off is palettes. I can use every bit of space I can get for InDesign and Digital Performer.

is there a notable increase in quality of e.g. DVD video on the hi-res screen?

apple charges an arm and a leg for additional RAM, but i suppose i could buy that from a 3rd party (although does it void the warranty if you do the install yourself?).

is antiglare better for your eyes? or is just a matter of preference?

doesn't void warranty, replacing ram is dead easy on a mb

matter if preference. don't think either is particularly good for your eyes xp

there are tons of threads on glossy vs. matte for displays. here's the crux, distilled:

glossy - leads to richer, more saturated colors, if you can tilt the screen at an angle so that light sources are reflected away from your eyes. if you use your macbook in a room with lots of incident light sources it may be impossible to find a good angle.

matte - all light is absorbed and scattered by the matte coating, regardless of where it's coming from. this can lead to a washed-out look and colors are more subdued. however it's more usable in places with bad lighting (i.e. offices)

ftr I vastly prefer my mbp's glossy screen to my old powerbook's matte screen. best would be to go to the apple store and see if you like it.

good call. thanks.

as mentioned, installing ram doesn't void warranty and can be found cheaper elsewhere.... macsales.com (OWC) and Crucial are good places to start.

Generally speaking, colors are more saturated on the glossy and watching movies tends to look better, so if watching DVDs is going to be a major activity, glossy is probably preferred, though that's not to say the anti-glare is no good. I'm a print designer, so glossy screens accentuation of colors is not a good thing.

another good bet is to use Crucial to find out the exact specs (speed, pin number) of the RAM you need to get, and look for it at newegg - it'll often be a little cheaper being sold as generic PC laptop memory, but it's the same exact thing

...and there are plenty of demonstrations of installing ram on youtube...I probably wouldn't have had the confidence to go ahead on my iMAC from the written instructions alone.

newegg is where I've gotten hard-drives for my mac pro...really cheap boxless OEM drives that have worked great.

yeah the wd scorpio "blue" drive I got is great and was cheap.

installing ram on an iMac is simple.

Dude needs a blog:

Conclusions.

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

Steve Jobs
April, 2010

loooooooooooool at Steve Jobs espousing an open standard