"then we begin to craft around our intention"→

Apple's WWDC 2013 keynote began with a rare sight, an intro video, a beautiful and brilliant sequence. A direct and clear declaration of Apple's intentions. Simple, in black and white, with prose that elegantly addressed many of the recent criticisms aimed at the company. My fellow artists, artisans and technicians, may our intentions be this specific and clear so we may craft our works around them.  

From the newly launched Designed by Apple page on their site:  

This is it.
This is what matters.
The experience of a product.
How it makes someone feel.
When you start imagining
What that might be like, 
You step back. 
You think. 

Who will this help? 
Will it make life better? 
Does this deserve to exist?
If you are busy making everything, 
How can you perfect anything? 

We don't believe in coincidence.
Or dumb luck. 
There are a thousand "no's"
For every "yes."
We spend a lot of time
On a few great things. 
Until every idea we touch
Enhances each life it touches. 

We're engineers and artists.
Craftsmen and inventors.
We sign our work. 
You may rarely look at it. 
But you'll always feel it. 
This is our signature.
And it means everything. 

Designed by Apple in California

When Patents Attack And Their Collateral Damage

This week This American Life takes a look at patents. In particular Host Ira Glass and Zoe Chace from NPR’s Planet Money talk with Jim Logan and Richard Baker of Personal Audio, which claims it holds a patent used by all podcasters. This episode is a continuation of a previous episode aired in 2011. To find out more about how you can help the efforts to save podcasting visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF.) 

Update: WSJ - Obama Tries To Curb Patent-Holding Firms​

Subscribing to blogs, Feedly and the evolution of RSS

In less than a month Google Reader will close. Many people relied on Google Reader to subscribe to their favorite websites' RSS feeds. The retirement of the service has left many like me trying to figure out how to make sure people can subscribe to our blogs in as convenient a way as Reader. ​Since the announcement of the retirement many companies that offered third-party apps, that allowed access to Reader with additional functionality and better design, have stepped up as potential replacements. This is interesting because it will most likely lead to RSS innovations that were not pursued simply because Reader was obviously the dominant provider. 

We have already begun to see such innovation from Feedly. They have bowed to clone the Reader API and allow Reader users a smooth transition once Reader is shut down. I've been using the service since the Reader announcement. Yesterday they took it a step further by announcing partnerships with some of the most used RSS feed apps in the market currently, including Reeder, Press, Nextgen Reader, Newsify and gReader.​

I encourage you to try Feedly and follow their many helpful suggestions to facilitate a smooth transition from Reader. I've also added links to our RSS feed (to subscribe directly on your preferred app) and Feedly feed in the sidebar of the blog next to our social network links. You can also subscribe to the blog via email. 

Simplicity and Innovation→

Excerpt from the book Simple: Conquering the Crisis of Complexity by Irene Etzkorn and Alan Siegel:

We use the term breakthrough simplicity to describe an approach to innovation that is rooted in finding new ways to make everything simpler. It’s a way of thinking that, once adopted, enables you to envision and pursue a wide range of possibilities that can lead to major breakthroughs.

This puts a fresh spin on “innovation”—that much-used, oft-misunderstood buzzword. There’s a tendency to think of innovation as coming up with the latest gadget, or adding new features onto existing ones. But the concept of breakthrough simplicity recognizes that today, the most powerful forms of innovation don’t manifest themselves in new bells and whistles. They take the form of better customer experiences (or patient experiences, or citizen experiences). And one of the best ways to improve any experience is to simplify it—to remove complications, unnecessary layers, hassles or distractions, while focusing in on the essence of what people want and need in that particular situation.

Apple : Lincoln Center :: Google : Broadway

Google I/O is currently going on and Apple's WWDC is around the corner. This has led to many conversations between my developer and tech friends about which one is better, which one is moving ahead and which one is staying behind, and on and on. 

For me Apple is to Lincoln Center as Google is to Broadway. 

They both offer a multitude of products in various forms. They both have specific visions and financial goals. They both offer merchandise that intrigues me and makes me want to find out more. When they are good I seek them. But I definitely gravitate towards one and check it out first and more often because it is more in tune to what matters to me and what I enjoy. 

Updated: ​Jed Bernstein, who led Broadway’s trade group, will take over as president of the performing arts center next January.