Matt Gemmell gives a very good overview of design ideas that should be used for iPad applications. I love how these come together to create interfaces that seem natural to use and not overwhelming. These to me are what makes the iPad itself compelling. When it is released, I hope it will live up to my expectations in this area.

Mantia’s comparison of the App Store to MacBooks highlights how people’s perception can flavor their attitude.

Sebastiaan has summarized a bunch of the UI changes in Snow Leopard. The roundup has some nice observations of little things I had not noticed yet.

Apple has improved their Software Update dialog on Windows. This addresses people’s issues with ‘forcing’ Safari on people who didn’t want it.

Jesper at Waffle posted about Apple and their Windows apps. I’d been meaning to give this some thought and list my annoyances with how Apple software behaves differently on Windows. I think this sums it up:

Apple knows how to behave on their own platform. When I talk to Windows-using friends, Apple is legendary for being bad Windows citizens. I do not think that’s the case myself. iTunes, for example, is often brought up as a slow resource hog, something that I never saw after the initial dog-slow iTunes 4.1 or the initial dog-slow Safari 1.0 beta. (Maybe Apple’s Windows QA leaves something to be desired.) But Apple’s certainly not doing their best to be a good Windows citizen.

As noted by Macworld, the 10.5.2 update to Leopard is an amazing response to customers. It addresses most of the issues people had with the UI of Leopard. The most visible being Stacks and the Translucent menu bar. The one remaining UI gripe was the 3D dock appearance, which is not a usability issue.

I’ve been expecting this update since before Leopard was released. Small changes made during the beta cycle showed that Apple was listening, and now comes one big response. I’m glad they did, and I’m hoping they continue this trend.

via Daring Fireball

Planet Cocoa is a great resource for following blogs about Cocoa and Mac development.

Among my favorite podcasts in MacBreak Weekly. It is usually the first podcast I’ll pick out of a list of fresh podcast episodes. I have to agree with Merlin Mann that the latest episode is my favorite episode ever. The soon-to-expire MacHeist Bundle was discussed at length, with depth. There is plenty of commentary on Merlin’s post, but I’d like to approach that topic from my perspective as a buyer.

The first and obvious point is that it’s an amazing deal. With an average price of about $35, any combination of two or three of those apps is worth it. Some are worth it by themselves. Personally I bought it because I had a need for CSSEdit and AppZapper, with further interest in Pixelmator, Snapz Pro X and Cha-Ching. One of my hobbies has always been trying new apps, so it was a welcome opportunity to try out the other apps as well. Since I don’t have much of a budget for shareware, most of the apps I try are on a trial basis only.

The biggest question for buyers is whether they will pay for upgrades, recommend to friends or otherwise generate revenue for the companies involved. I think it’s too early for me to give a firm answer on this one. My quick answer is that I don’t see myself handing over any money that I wouldn’t have otherwise.

In the last year and a bit, with MacHeist and other giveaways, there are more apps on my Mac than I could humanly use (over $1000 worth, I’m sure.) The upshot of this is that I have a great appreciation for the general quality of Mac apps. 95% of the apps are worth using, given a need. I can’t say that I need most of them, but if I did I would be happy with them. I couldn’t say that for Windows software. Most of the shareware that I’ve used is at best passable.

The downside of having so many apps is that I DO have to fight internally to put value on them. In the end, the apps are not devalued. I treat the free apps more like special trial versions than full versions of the app. If I use the program enough and the new version offers features I want, I do think I will upgrade. If any of the apps are devalued in my mind, it’s only the free ones that came free by doing the heists. However, one big factor in my personal valuation is that I am a developer, and I’ve been observing the indie Mac dev community. I know how much work gets put into each piece of software and that there are dreams behind every one of them. Unfortunately, the ratio of developers to normal users that bought MacHeist bundle is not 1:1.

Also in this episode of MacBreak Weekly, Merlin Mann brings up his vision for .Mac, which is syncing your home directory between different devices. Andy Ihnatko brought up a good point about the special Intel chip in the MacBook Air. He puts forward that the specially designed Intel chip indicates that the MBA is just the first of many smaller Apple products.

(The MacHeist discussion in the podcast starts at 0:10:15 until 0:17:35. It then picks up again at 0:38:19 and finishes off at 0:57:56. The .Mac and Intel chip discussion happens between the two bouts of MacHeist chatter.)

There seem to be mixed reactions to today’s Macworld keynote. On one hand, most of Apple’s audience seems pleased with the announcements overall. However, Apple’s stock price is down and comments at reddit were decidedly against the MacBook Air.

Taking time to think about the keynote, I can see why. There was an excitement from many people expecting a Wow product. The iPhone was exactly that. The switch to Intel even had some Wow in it. And I say that the MacBook Air does, also. But I think too many people expected something different. That’s the problem with hype.

I’m happy with the new products. They fit very clearly within the existing product lines. Personally, I can see a place in my daily electronic usage for everything announced.

• The cleverly named Time Capsule is probably my favorite. I’ve been pre-shopping for a wireless NAS for a while. Time Capsule bests others by being the router for me. So not only do I get what I want, one of the many boxes I have gets replaced.
• There is a growing market for light notebooks brought on by the Asus EEE PC, OLPC and others. The MacBook Air fills that gap nicely.
• iTunes movie rentals strengthens the video side of iTunes store while the music side is under attack.
• They even fixed the weaknesses of the Apple TV by providing content and breaking the link with a computer.

The slogan on the banners this year at Macworld is “2008 There’s something in the air.” Besides opening the door for many a joke, the new banner slogan has a much lighter feel to it than the one on the banners last year. Almost whimsical. I will refrain from trying to match the slogan to my Apple fantasies, but my curiosity is piqued.

(Last year the banner slogan for the iPhone was “The first 30 years were just the beginning. Welcome to 2007.”)