As noted here, every other phone has lots of logos for manufacturer, cell company, all over the front.  And who knows if someday they'll have to have an "Intel Inside" sticker like computers do.*

Apple is the one company where you don't see that, pure elegant screen on the front, and no cell company logo anywhere.  But actually, it would have made more sense if they had done their logo a bit differently--a subtle outline could have been used as the graphic on the home button instead of the rounded rectangle.

Not that it's hard to describe "press the home button" but "press the Apple button" is even easier :)

* Interestingly, Apple computers also use Intel chips but aren't covered with stickers like all the Windows computers I've bought in the past.

7.85" - Doing the Math

The iPad has bigger pixels than the iPhone.  Ignoring the 2x retina size, it is 163/inch on the iPhone vs 132 on the iPad.  The iPhone has pixels 81% the size as pixels on the iPad.

All the buttons, controls, and lists are the same size in pixels on the two devices, so on the iPad they are a little bigger. What if they sized down the iPad to the same pixels per inch as the iPhone.  Still a totally usable size as we prove every day by using iPhones (no finger-sanding required!)

Multiplying by 0.81, the rectangular screen dimensions on the iPad change from 7.76" x 5.82" to a smaller size of 6.28" x 4.71".

It's interesting that when you throw those numbers into the good old Pythagorean Theorem, you get a diagonal size of 7.85".  Exactly the size it's been reported that Apple has been buying.  It's possible the sources of the report can do math too, but if it is true about Apple buying screens that size, it exactly fits a smaller iPad with a pixel DPI that matches the iPhone.

Our Best Work

Vladimir Kush is my favorite artist, I've been a fan and collected his art for over 10 years.  Our house is like a mini gallery :)

I'd seen him at gallery shows and things over the years, and I've got a tattoo inspired by one of his pieces.

Nearly a year and a half ago, I heard he was going to be making a children's book.  I got in contact, wondering about converting it into an iPad app.  Vladimir had the idea to just skip making a book and go straight for an app!

We met and I showed a very rough demo app in September 2010, that sold the idea and direction for flowing painting for the app.  It took a lot of work since then to make it really work fast and smooth, but that first demo got the ball rolling.

After a very long time, him painting, us programming, it's in the App Store.  I think it's the most beautiful, amazing work we've done (and we've done a lot over the years).  We'd always worked with the thought, "Vladimir's art is going to be in museums some day, so this has to be that good too."
Aries the Sheep in the App Store

"iPhone 5,1"

As has been widely reported over and over, there's two bits of text "iPhone 5,1" and "iPad 2,4" in the latest iPhone beta software.  And on those tiny bits of text, dozens and dozens of long articles, with all sorts of predictions of future devices have been written :)

If I worked at Apple, I might stick something like that in, even if I knew nothing about it, just to mess with all the rumor sites.

Hello, Siri

Wow, Siri is pretty awesome.  I've probably opened the alarm/timer app for the last time.  Just say "Set a timer for 15 minutes" and that's it.  There may be more and more apps I don't open too.

Apple was smart to give it a personality, and answer all the geeky questions.  That make it fun to play with, and I'm sure they use it all to help improve the voice recognition too.

I assume they're doing the next thing:  getting statistics about they types of things people ask about and where Siri doesn't have the answer.  Recipes?  Movies?  Travel?  Then partner with someone to provide the answer rather than having to send it as a search off to Google.

That's one less thing Google gets to show ads for, which has to be pretty huge for Apple.

And that's a very valuable customer recommendation, companies may pay huge money or give a commission for the privilege to being Siri's answer.  If all movie questions got sent to Fandango, or all travel requests went to Expedia, wouldn't they give Apple something for that?  If I were them I would give a LOT for that.

Screen sizes

Yeah, Apple was right.  Duh.

As pointed out here and here and other places, 3.5" screen is just the right size for a normal adult to comfortably hold and use the iPhone in one hand.  Thinking about it as I use it, I'm able to touch the farthest points just at the point before it would be uncomfortable.  Even another 1/4 inch away for the farthest corner gets pretty uncomfortable.

Before the first iPhone came out, there were zero points of reference, and they could have made the screen any size or shape they wanted.  I'm sure there were lots of prototypes.  At another company, you'd expect there were committee meetings and focus groups, but I'd bet at Apple, Steve Jobs just handled them all and picked the one because that's what fit his hands.  And the 3.5" size was THE size that was as big as possible while still being usable one handed.

And that's the one and only size the rest of the world ever saw.

Next Steve Jobs.

People have been wondering who might be the next Steve Jobs.

Looking backward, at who the last Steve Jobs' were, the common names I've seen include Disney, Ford, Einstein, Edison.  A few names spread out over a long period of history.  

A few industries are lucky to get one, but so far no industry getting two.  All at the beginning, bringing their industry forward further and faster than it would have come without them.

The next Steve is more likely a 10 year old boy or girl than someone working today.  And they'll bring us nanotechnology or something we can't even guess.


(What about Bill Gates?  Brilliant but different, more like Rockefeller where it was very smart business sense.  Apple has recently gotten far better at capitalizing on what they did first and not letting it be Microsoft that brings their ideas to the masses.  Though Apple getting better kinda coincides with Bill retiring from Microsoft.  Hmm.)