Notes from Prof. Oliver Wrede on Interface, Interaction and Information Design & more
Many month ago Yahoo introduced Yahoo Pipes to the public – allowing to mix and process data from sites and RSS feeds from different sources (I have a master RSS feed of a pipe that represents almost all my blog activities)
Now Yahoo has expanded this model to include widgets for displaying the resulting: Yahoo Badges.
See the a demo here:
Hobnox will be supporting re:publica 08 conference in Berlin. We will be recording some sessions. I have the honor to discuss »Because we can…« on Friday morning, April 4th, and we will also present Hobnox in a separate session in the afternoon.
The new seminars for summer term 2008 are fixed. It is always a very exciting moment to think about new topics for projects… or rather: to pick the best from the ideas floating around.
And I always love to define topics with a leightweight appearance but at the same time much depth.
Here are the two candidates:
Project seminar: »Habits«
Design research about our habits and how they shape our daily life and how we use things.
Project seminar: »PIM«
Design for Personal Information Management systems.
Apple has released the iPhone SDK. The 2.1 gigabyte download is free after registration and includes the latest Developer Tools as well.
I personally don’t use an iPhone. Being able to hack it (or get third party software for it) was a stopper for me. Another argument against the iPhone was the rather limited storage space — 4 and 8 gigs simply did not seem enough space.
Apple still wants to retain some control over which apps are pushed on the phone, but it seems the upcoming operating system of the iPhone has already been hacked. People may be able to install software independently from Apple (e.g. to remove a SIM card lock) on a hacked phone.
But looking at the developer site for the iPhone simply does it right. I get a clear product, a very readable documentation and easy to digest tutorials – developing hardware and software together again pays out in a consistent product.
The Android SDK on the other hand is lacking the simple question: How can I get started (I mean really)? What devices can I deploy an Android application on? In fact the Android FAQ states that there are no phones that Android is running on. So who is supporting Android? Why should I spend time on developing for a theoretical market? Android is nothing more than an approach to an upcoming problem that Apple has already solved from A-Z.
That is the reason why Apple is succsessful: They offer solutions – not concepts.
People that think the stylishness of their products are key to Apple’s success don’t know much about Design.