Popular Science on the iPad

I’m sure everyone has seen this by now, but here I am late to the party and slightly drunk as usual. Bonnier Corporation have been busy working on an iPad optimized edition of Popular Science, cunningly labelled “Popular Science+”. It’s actually very cool, and makes me feel kind of sick at the same time. Sick in an “Uh oh I just came one step closer to being replaced by a robot” kind of way. Seriously though, it does make me wonder how the new technology which is going to pop up all over the place for iPad-like content creation is eventually going to be standardized and/or integrated into inDesign, Illustrator etc. Anyway watch the video at the link below, it’s very cool.

Mag+ live with Popular Science+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

Macbook Air airport hi-jinks

Apparently this guy got stopped by airport security because of his MacBook Air. Well, the article may question if the TSA staff or whatever they are called are doing their job. I’d say this proves that regardless of if they have recent tech training, this particular group showed that they take security seriously. And that’s the point, right, feckless traveler?

Design Philosophy?

I thought this post on Gizmodo about Dieter Rams product design for Braun in the 1960’s and his obvious influence on Apple’s Jonathan Ive’s design was really great, but what I really found fascinating were Ram’s 10 principles for good design:

• Good design is innovative.
• Good design makes a product useful.
• Good design is aesthetic.
• Good design helps us to understand a product.
• Good design is unobtrusive.
• Good design is honest.
• Good design is durable.
• Good design is consequent to the last detail.
• Good design is concerned with the environment.
• Good design is as little design as possible.

I especially agree with the last one.

Display configuration changing the way we work

I hope Apple follow the pattern of the past few years and tomorrow reveal another sweet new product I will not be able to justify buying.

I’m really interested in all this multi-touch/touch-screen/Minority Report (almost) style technology which is always being talked about, used in a couple of places (like the iPhone) but still not really having a huge impact on the day to day workplace. I’m curious to see how products like Adobe InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop (my 3 daily apps) are re-configured to work in a new environment, when eventually a touchscreen monitor is available that effectively negates the need for a mouse and keyboard. Would it encourage less rigidness and more fluidity or randomness if you are able to literally scatter electronic files on a screen in a manner similar to real-world objects?

I can imagine the work going faster in such an interface, but also imagine needing at least a 30inch monitor immediately! Anway, just thinking out loud. If Apple are the first to tout a product like this aimed at creative/graphic uses, then I need to pretty much resign myself to not being able to afford one anytime soon after!