Apple’s iPad and the censorship of Apps and Internet

I’ve been waiting a while to comment on the iPad, but I think this screenshot, made by Adobe, sums it up perfectly, and saves me a lot of words:
the-problem-with-ipad

By taking a major web technology, and completely deleting it from their device, Apple has made the iPad worthless.

It shouldn’t have an Mp3 player Operating System hacked/ported to what should be a computing platform.

It should not sync with iTunes. It should run iTunes. You should sync your iPhone or iPod to your iPad, not iPad to your computer. What if you want it to be your computer?

And, of course, multi-tasking. Give me a break: You can make an OS that runs circles around Windows for decades and you can’t bother your programmers to add 1 more item to their task lisk? Maybe they can’t multi-task either.

Apple, you say that you make products the way they should be made, not the way the mob wants them. And I’ve always liked that about you. So I’m gonna use the same philosophy: I don’t care how many hipsters, fanboys, coffee shoppers and scene geeks go out and buy this thing: Your new product missed the mark.

And so does your censorship of web technology. It is a slap in the face of all the designers, developers and creatives that have evangelized your products since your darkest days. You can’t just take a major component of the Internet, whether it’s HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, XML, etc, etc, or Flash, and completely remove it from your device.

Go back to your cubicles, create an iPad Pro (or whatever you want to call it, something better than “Pad”), price it $100 higher, put OSX or OSX-lite on it, the Real Safari with the Real Internet, and act like this upgraded version was going to be your flagship the whole time.

Edit: For professionalism after I calmed down a bit!

Hey wait.. You’re a designer, I thought you guys used Macs?

I get asked all the time why I’m not using an Apple, since they are default for designers. It’s a hard question to answer quickly, so here is my answer to all of you that have asked, “You’re a designer, I though you guys used Macs?”

“Some do, the ones that aren’t sick of everything being locked into proprietary systems that can’t be altered, uncustomizable machines, frequent Photoshop crashes, MP3 players that only work with one piece of software, auto-assigned file formats on audio/video files that need special software to crack, inflated prices, common logic board meltdowns, charging customers to recover data from failed hard drives, suing everyone who has an Apple in their logo (I guess Apple OWNS Apples), a history of building the worst mouses the world has ever known (one button?), iTunes SUCKS.. and there’s no way around it, iTunes locks up my computer every time I plug an iPhone or iPod into it, stupidly expensive peripherals…

Let’s talk about the amount of RAM on a luxury computer: A luxury computer should not have 2 gigs of RAM. My PC from 2006 has 2 gigs of RAM. 4 should be the standard for an economy Apple. The $1500 to $2000 Apples should have 8.

Along with phones that have no desktop or desktop widgets, no multitasking, no copying pasting for 2 years, censored apps without clear censorship rules, CENSORED APPS, no clear reasoning given to App makers whose programs were removed, or action steps to get them re-approved, no official ‘underground’ unapproved app store, proprietary USB connectors (that are, of course, stupidly expensive), screwing artists and record companies by keeping most of the money from online sales of music, iPods and iPhones that can transfer music up from a computer but not down to a computer, no Flash on iPhones (No Flash on iPhones? Have you guys heard of the Internet?)

A general inability to understand that when I buy a little piece of hardware, i OWN it. They can’t reach out through the internet or cell networks and try to destroy it. I can do whatever I want with my property.

And I’m also running Vista right now. It’s not that bad. It crashes a lot less than Mac, especially running Photoshop.. which has a tendency to just “disappear” on Macs.

I’m hoping Google will stop worrying about turning their browser (Chrome) into an OS and take an OS that is evolving well (Android) and do something good with that.

Pre-15th Century Typography: Hand Lettered Bible

Click to enlarge.
bible-typography-small
This excellent piece of typography was found on designersbookshop.com, a company that creates tools for designers to use in making compositional/typographic grids.

Notice there are 6 columns here, 3 per page. The outside columns are left blank to serve as the margins. The gutter between the two pages is thin, as the 2 text blocks on either side are pushed together in the middle. What you start to see is that there are 3 designs occuring here: Each page has 2 text columns that are perfectly balanced on the page. Not only that, looking at everything together you see that the entire 2 page spread is harmoniously arranged.

The spread is not crammed full of information: at least half of the surface is untouched by ink. This allows the design to “breathe.” It makes the content on the page more important and eye catching. Even though you probably can’t read this language, you want to sit and look at it. That is perfect design: It needs no improvement.

Our books today traditionally have a single wide text column on each page. I wouldn’t mind seeing some of those broken in two like this. Of course, magazines make use of this extensively, using 2 and 3 columns per page. But magazines also tend to over-crowd.

On Digital File Structure Cleanliness

Dominic Barry i dont think boredom gets anymore bored than this.
12 minutes ago

Jesse Nivens Not used to being up so late huh? Welcome back amongst us. The creatures of the night.
6 minutes ago

Dominic Barry yeah no joke.. i’ve run out of things to do, now im organizing files.
5 minutes ago

Jesse Nivens At least it’s something productive. When you spend the amount of life we do immersed in digital frameworks, keeping a clean file structure is just as important as a clean home.
3 minutes ago

Dominic Barry lol true.
3 minutes ago

16th Century Typography: The Geneva Bible, London, 1581

Printed in London, 1581, by Christopher Barker.

These typefaces, the paper, the density, the uneven quality of the ink: All these elements come together to give us an example of lush typography from the 16th century.

Look how the margin notes wrap into the text column (especially apparent in the second image). We could apply this to current design projects just as you see it, or in other ways too. What other secondary or tertiary design elements could be allowed to “impede” on the territory of the top-level heirarchy?

Click each image to view a large version.

Source: Fromoldbooks.org.

Stanley Donwood’s El Chupacabra, July – August, 2009

Stanley Donwood’s new show, El Chupacabra, opens July 10th at the Weapon of Choice Gallery in Bristol, England. In other words, anyone living in England who doesn’t go to this show is taking for granted the fact that they don’t have to buy a $1,000 plane ticket to get to Bristol.

Donwood says about the show:

There are thirteen Pandemons in the show called ‘el chupacabra’. Thirteen ghosts at the funeral. Thirteen spectres at the feast of the goat. Loitering on the blackened cliffs of free-market economics, cackling as they raise a glass to toast Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Augusto Pinochet. Gallons of paint I’ve poured over them to drown their snickering. But still they laugh.”

Read about it on the Weapon of Choice Gallery blog.