With Steve passing, my RSS reader and twitter stream filled up with stories of how Steve (or a product created under Steve) had made life better. Or that he inspired, and challenged people in their lives to do something big. To do something more interesting, to strive for great – or insanely great. I’ve been an Apple owner for some time, and owe most of my career to Apple’s products. Not that I couldn’t do great things on a PC, but something about the Mac – creating great things just comes naturally on something that is itself great.

Before going into my own Apple story – I wanted to mention my favorite Steve story. I’ve read books, blogs, news stories, but this is the one that stuck:

I had this idea about having a glass display, a multitouch display you could type on. I asked our people about it. And six months later they came back with this amazing display. And I gave it to one of our really brilliant UI guys. He then got inertial scrolling working and some other things, and I thought, ‘my god, we can build a phone with this’ and we put the tablet aside, and we went to work on the phone.

(Full Article Link)

Another article puts it:

Apple’s multitouch technology began life not as a cellphone, but as a notepad-sized skunkworks project internally dubbed Safari Pad, run by Tim Bucher, then Apple’s head of Macintosh hardware. To his credit, Mr. Jobs seized on the technology and morphed it into the iPhone.

(Full Article Link)

It’s the ‘my god, we can build a phone with this’ part – that he saw something no one else did. He had the vision see how all the pieces fit together in a new way, in a way that finally took his company from his garage to the largest company in the world.

These are the types of people I admire most. People who can see how things connect in a way that no one else can, and what I strive for in my work.

This one observation – that what he had was a phone – has jumpstarted a mobile revolution that has grown countless companies, developers, designer, and startups – to join in on what may be the biggest change we see in our lifetimes.

Steve was a great American inventor, salesman, designer, innovator… I could go on. He brought Design to the front, and not a meeting goes by where the non-designers in the room don’t invoke Apple’s design as something to strive for, making my job a little easier.

Now back to my fanboy story…

I was digging through some old photos – while I used Apple computers throughout school, my modern usage came about during Design school in 2000. Where after using some brand new G4 Macs in class, I went and purchased a G4 350 – the cheapest desktop at the time.

I was at the Plano, TX Apple Store opening in 2001 – 3rd in the states – where @schubox and myself were videotaping and interviewing people in line:

We’re caught on film here (around the 1:56 mark). And more photos here on flickr.

I was around for the second DFW area store opening a couple years later, in Dallas:

More photos on flickr here.

From that early G4 tower, I bought a G4 500 Dual Processor tower, and a Powerbook G3 to accompany – moving up to a G4 17 (which I used at BrightCorner when they wouldn’t buy anyone a Mac!) – and then getting the very first intel iMac (sooo fast!) when they were released in 2006. Throw in the very first iPod, a newton I got at a garage sale, an Apple TV, and of course the iPhone.

I’m writing this on my MacBook Air, getting my internet from my Airport Extreme – and my iPhone 4 is right here next to me. You could say I’m a fanboy, or maybe I just enjoy products that think a little differently. Thanks Steve.

The perfect laptop for the airport and airline? – with the MacBook Air 11″ you don’t need to take out your laptop when going through the TSA line, and it actually fits on the tray – with your drink! #WIN

I agree with http://daringfireball.net/

I do work on the road using a MacBook Air, not an iPad, because I’m one of those users for whom the iPad’s design compromises get in the way, and slow me down. But I like having the iPad as a separate device, for reading and video. The marvel of the iPad is not that it can replace a Mac. It’s that it opened the door to all sorts of things that a Mac was never all that good for.

Overall my experience with the 11″ and Lion has been great, and the extra screen space is rarely missed and it performs like a champ. If only it had the iPad’s battery life, it would be the perfect travel machine!

Two weeks ago HP dropped their TouchPad by $100, Staples had a coupon for an extra $100 off that. A 16GB Tablet for $299. Sounds like a pretty good deal… The next cheapest option would be to get a Nook for $249 – but I really like WebOS. I like the attention to the design details, the gestures, the notifications – I could go on. But in the end, and as the events of this weekend showed – only when at the bargain price of $99 does it beat out the iPad in buzz and sales for a short time before its demise.

There’s not only the cost, or the details, but what I wanted the TouchPad for. Yes, I’m a gadget geek, and yes, I like to tryout new things, and I also believe in consuming as much as I can online and off to inform my own designs. But, I wanted the TouchPad to be my productivity machine. See my iPad has been commandeered by my 7 year old as a gaming console, and TV. There are also opportunities for educational uses: math, spelling, BrainPop – but overall it’s a consumption device. And that’s how I use it as well – games, movies, reading, surfing – occasionally email, etc… but never any real production. Not that it’s not capable of doing so – professional records, novels, websites, presentations – all can and have been produced on an iPad, but for me it’s just not natural yet.

So it depends on what you want to use this device for.

Gruber recently posted about Seth Clifford’s experience buying an Android tablet:

Case in point: when I went to Staples, I asked the sales guy for the 10.1 and the first thing he said was
“What are you buying it for?” When I replied, “development”, he said “Ok, because this thing isn’t going to replace a laptop for you”. No problem, I assured him, we’re app devs, and we know what we’re doing.

Then, the manager came over to verify the coupon I had and asked the same question again. Again I replied “development” and he asked “Of what?” rather indignantly.

“Uh, Android apps?” I replied incredulously.

“Oh, ok, because we’re selling a lot of these things, and we get a LOT of them back. People buy them thinking they’re getting rid of a laptop, and they all come back returning them.”

And I agree, most people think a tablet will be a laptop replacement, or something that will increase their productivity, it won’t. Or it won’t for most people. There are just certain tasks that are more difficult – typing without a keyboard (not that you can’t add one) – getting files from one place to another, managing your photos, multitasking (when needed), etc… If there is not an app specifically for what you’re doing, it’s probably not going to increase your efficiency.

Then why is the iPad selling like gangbusters? Because of what it does well, and how it fits so well in the entire Apple ecosystem. I love buying universal apps – where I get the benefit of purchasing once, and getting it across multiple devices. It does the reading and viewing all types of media well – and if you’ve experienced an iPhone, you know what you’re getting. I think it’s a wonderful entertainment device, that can help with work in a pinch.

I also like iPad’s interaction model with it’s focus, and I like that Apple is bringing that full screen, single-app-at-a-time focus to OSX with Lion. Is Apple purposely helping our distracted minds focus on one task at a time? Or are they just taking an interface that seems to work with millions (the iPad), and moving it to the desktop to get people to move up from an iPad at some point? I’d like to think this is Apple’s genius design – helping us get back some focus in our work – removing the distractions – which has been so popular as of late (IA Writer for example).

That brings me to the MacBook Air. I wanted something portable like a tablet, but used not for entertainment, but to create. And in my opinion nothing can beat a Mac for this – no matter how small. And small it is, the 11inch MacBook Air is small, light, powerful, quiet, instant, and besides the whole “it’s a laptop” thing, it’s great for portable, anywhere creating. And that’s what I’m looking for in the end: portable, quick, anywhere creating.

Lion really helps with this, with just my limited experience, it works well with smaller screen devices, again provides that focus, and has a tablet OR desktop feeling, that’s actually pretty nice.

So while I may of flirted with a TouchPad, and had extensive time in with an iPad – I’ll see if this MacBook Air increases my productivity. Like most purchases, we’re looking for something to entertain, show status, or increase our productivity in life – this purchase was about productivity. Let’s see what the iPad 3 has, and then I’ll check back.

Anyone using an iPad exclusively? Can it/did it replace a desktop/laptop?

I was lucky to have been asked to be part of the TEDx Dallas Idea Week. CoHabitat hosted a Mobile Salon, where myself and others talked about and answered questions about mobile design and development.

Before the panel, Vijay Thakkar (Technical Director at Newtoy – aka. makers of Words with Friends) gave a great talk on how their team works, and how they’ve released some great software – all in a short amount of time. It was one of those great small-teams-kicking-ass type of stories, and how you can bring this type of process to your organization.

After the presentation, I sat on the mobile panel where we answered questions around mobile development, design, and general mobile business questions.

Here are some photos from the event:

You can view all photos from the event here.

O’Reilly Radar recently put it as “…is iOS then still to be judged primarily as a communications device platform? Or, as a low-end gaming disruptor to Microsoft Xbox or Nintendo Wii in the living room?”. And I agree, if we’re seeing a shift to a more casual gaming scenario where more and more people will pick up a game if it’s easy and natural what better platform then the one in your pocket? Or the one on your current laptop? This reduces the barrier of entry to gaming to zero, or at least .99.

“For One Quarter of Users, the iPad is a Game Machine”, which I again agree with. Not only is it capable of great visuals – it’s convenient, comparably inexpensive, and touching is a great way to interact with games “naturally” (like a Wii remote or the Xbox Kinetic). The article goes on to say “38% of iPad owners responding to the survey indicated that they had no desire to purchase a different mobile gaming device.” – and for some, I’m sure this is their only gaming device.

Gaming apps continue to take the top spots on mobile devices: “Gaming apps once again took the number one spot for and accounted for 41 percent of apps on the network in June” – this article also mentions iOS growing 36% to 56% of the total US smartphone mix.

Titles like “mobiles are the consoles of the future” are becoming more common, “by the end of this year, there will be 120 million iOS devices in circulation – only 20 million shy of the most popular console of all-time, the PS2, which has sold 140 million units.” – again, not everyone is playing games on their mobile devices, but with these numbers comes great potential!

Data from Resolve Market Research shows that after owning an iPad, you’re 38% more likely to NOT by a portable gaming device (like DS or PSP). Which makes iOS devices like iPad and iPhone prime targets for Nintendo and Sony (as if Sony isn’t already going after Apple).

I think the iOS devices have shown that they’re not just for Snake and Tetris. First person shooter games like Archetype, show how “console like” online mobile gaming can work. And Words with Friends, and other turn based games excel on mobile “go with you anywhere, always connected” devices.

When Google announced the Chrome App Store, a majority of the non-Google app were games. Even demoing “Lego Star Wars”, which is a pretty rich console game. While I don’t think it’s total clear yet, Google is moving to a web app strategy – and we’re already seeing HTML5 gaming engines – like Aves, show some promising demos. And games like Pie Guy have been out for awhile now, showing some basic HTML gaming on the iPhone.

What’s also interesting is Apple’s “here’s the platform, let’s see what people do” attitude – and people gamed, and now they’re releasing their “Game Center” hub that will better connect players to their games.

Personally I love gaming on the iPhone, and iPad – and just last week was excited about, and waiting for a game to come out – Star Wars: Battle for Hoth. But then happy finds, like Helsing’s Fire shows me innovation with touch based gameing is far from over!

A lot of these smaller, fun games also bring down the cost, from million dollar blockbusters to something that can be made in 72 hours, with a small team.

My 5yo also really enjoys games, and has recently been enjoying Monkey Island on the iPad, and Star Wars on the iPod. With a busy lifestyle – riding in the car, small chunks of time here and there, a mobile gaming device is perfect.

We have, and love the Xbox 360 (check my raptr account!), but our leisure time is being shifted from console, TV, movies, and more to mobile, and what we have on our devices.

So what does the future of gaming hold? Probably something in your hand.

I’m pretty much an RSS junkie. User Experience, mobile, technology, gaming – it all never stops. My passion for consuming news and feeds comes from my passion for what I do, and how it all relates with each other. Need a new icon for an iPhone app? I just starred that. What trends will shape the next five years? I’m sharing it right now. And I want to make finding these items easier for anyone who has a passion for these same topics…

I’ve been trying to keep up with everything everywhere (if only I could just download the internet ;-) for years, and luckily the tools have gotten better (have you seen the new reeder app for the iPad?- screen below), feeds better organized, and news – ever more abundant. Add to that the proliferation of twitter (etc..), and sharing these links has become a mainstream event in most people’s lives.

I’ve found that most people who do what I do have similar interests. They’re interested in what I’m reading, and I’m interested in what they’re reading. So I wanted to make that easier, not only for RSS junkies like myself, but for people who possibly leapfrogged directly to twitter, or have other reasons for not consuming news via readers, feeds, “top sites”, or something forced on them, like Google Buzz.

So here you go – if you’re on twitter and interested in the following topics, follow me, and I’ll share what I find (details on this below):

• http://twitter.com/jeremyfeeds (@jeremyfeeds)- this is the mothership, taking directly from my Google Reader shared feed, and posting here. Be prepared for some heavy tweeting.
• http://twitter.com/mobilefeeds (@mobilefeeds) – this is segmented specifically for those interested in mobile technology: iPhone, iPad, Android, mobile usage, statistics, etc…
• http://twitter.com/trendingtravel (@trendingtravel) – travel news: hotels, travel sites, itinerary tools, destination guides, etc…
• http://twitter.com/touchtrends (@touchtrends) – keeping up with touch and multi-touch news and trends.
• http://twitter.com/gamerposts (@gamerposts) – news around the video game industry, new games, deals, new technologies, etc…
• http://twitter.com/jeremylikes (@jeremylikes) – this is a collection of things I favorite, like, and star on twitter, flickr, and tumblr.

And of course if you’re already using google reader – go straight to the source – my Google Reader account: http://www.google.com/reader/shared/jeremyj or read them at your leisure on my Google Profile page: http://www.google.com/profiles/jeremyj

While this may seem daunting (updating all these accounts) – it’s actually really simple. I’m using a great little online tool called dlvr.it. This lets me take my feed (that I’m creating anyways) and split it using keywords across these different twitter accounts – automatically! It’s not perfect – a post about travel could leak over to @gamerposts if the article for some reason mentions “airlines”, but in general it works pretty well.

dlvr.it also keeps stats, and tracks the click-throughs, which is interesting, and if accurate shows how many people are just out there on twitter searching keywords. In a months time @jeremyfeeds got 10k clicks on just 700 posts (which it tells me is an average of 15 clicks per post).

More and more people are turning to twitter to find new and interesting news posts online – and I only see that as a trend that will continue to grow as twitter gains more and more mainstream popularity.

I hope by doing this, I can help people find out more information on what they’re passionate about, and in turn, will eventually share their own findings.

Feel free to also follow my personal account @jeremyjohnson, or my less serious @raisingrobots as well. See you online!

I remember B.i. (before iPhone) when applications on mobile devices were something only hardcore travelers, geeks, and gamers had tried. But now, you say mobile, and the nearest marketing person responds with “So when can I get my app”? For the first time, it’s easy, and really fun to download an app. I currently have 253 apps on my iPhone – I don’t think even Apple saw this coming.

We had Forrester come out to our $largecompany about a year or so before the iPhone, even then – people were trying to make the decision on what to do in mobile. This was before apps were easy to download and mobile browsers were converging on a standard. Forrester at the time said what pretty much everyone was saying, if you don’t REALLY need an app, STAY AWAY! It’s amazing how quickly things change in the mobile space.

With Apple’s desire to own the entire experience it’s no wonder they got it right. You can’t string together a series of unrelated things and expect them to work together. It takes owning the experience, which is something Apple excels at. But even with the success of the iTunes music store, when the first release of the iPhone OS – apps were nowhere in sight. The web app was enough. But when they finally opened up that SDK to create apps, wow did the iPhone get way more useful.

Again, I think Apple surprised themselves this time – and the interactions used to access these apps on the iPhone home screen show they didn’t think people would have more than 15-20 apps, if that. Someone like me with my 200+ apps, loose apps, forget about apps, and have a hard time finding some apps. And my 5 year old, once he fills his screens, he can’t really spell yet, so searching is out for him. It’s time to fix this, and I hope with iPhone OS 4 they will. But let’s think about how they could fix this problem… How do you make it easy to sift through 250+ apps?

Via: Fast Company

For me it’s GAMES. I’m amazed the quality of games coming to the iPhone, they keep getting better and better – and both me and my 5 year old are big fans. In fact, when I asked my five year old if he was interested in a Nintendo DS or an iPod, he went with the (what he calls) “phone”. I’ve had gameboys, PSP, and other handhelds, but combine the fit and finish of Apple, with some really creative game designers, and you have the ultimate gaming device.

I also have a lot of useful apps that I’d say I use daily to weekly, and a large set for when I travel. Apple needs to devise a way for our pages to reflect the different contexts we’re in on a mobile device. When I’m around town, one screen set – when out of town a different set – and how bout a “lounging around” context? Maybe we need “sets” that we can flick up and down? Or use voice command to put the iPhone in a home/work mode? How about a category switcher using a little page curl at the bottom of the screen? I’m sure Apple will figure this out, but they need to do it soon… I can’t find my Plants vs. Zombies ;-)

Not that I knew it at the time, but going into User Experience turned out to be a great career move. I’ve always thought there would be job security with the number of new technologies and devices that will need designing – think of everything that will have a “screen” in the future. Who’s designing for these screens? Who’s creating the interactions, workflows, graphics? That would be us!

I often use an example of an interactive cereal box. What other aisle in the grocery store tries to communicate with you more! Let’s mix up a couple new technologies – like e-paper, RFID, and wireless power – and you have a talking, interactive cereal box. “Thanks for choosing Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, did you know we’re the #1 cereal for vitamin A?”, “Touch here to learn more”. We’re all set for years!

One of my first jobs was at an Ad Agency that had been around since the 1970′s and at one time had 70+ people working for it. WIth production conveniences, like desktop publishing, digital photography, etc… the number of people needed had been cut over the years. You didn’t need someone to run to the photo studio to check out the day’s photo shoot. You didn’t need multiple people hand setting an ad, etc…

I wonder if these jobs are now starting to come back. Not the same jobs obviously, but the number of jobs in the Design space. Where everything is getting an interface of some kind. Phones are more advanced, kiosks are more prevalent, having a screen is cheaper than having actual hardware buttons in some cases, and with that there is more work today for User Experience professionals then there has been in a long time.

UPA just released the 2009 salary survey – and the average salary of a UX professional is $85k, and it’s steadily climbing. These are people doing things like user research, heuristic reviews, interaction design, creating prototypes, usability testing, etc… There are many things that go into today’s interfaces. It’s not just a developer adding some fields and buttons on a screen anymore. People are taking User Experience seriously – and that means following the processes, doing the leg work, and going further than we’ve gone in the past.

Speaking of jobs ;-) – the company I work for currently has nine open UX related positions right now. And that says a lot, they’ve been very conservative about hiring in this economic climate, but they understand the need for User Experience across our organization.

If you’re interesting in working with me, or at the $largecompany I work for – let me know, here’s what they currently have posted:

User Experience Designer / Information Architect
US-TX-Dallas Ft Worth – Southlake
Job Posting:Aug 28, 2009-Job Number 0071X
https://sabre.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=130840

User Experience Developer / Front-End Developer
US-TX-Dallas Ft Worth – Southlake
Job Posting:Aug 28, 2009-Job Number 0071Z
https://sabre.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=130841

Web Design Team Lead
US-TX-Dallas Ft Worth – Southlake
Job Posting:Sep 2, 2009-Job Number 0072M
https://sabre.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=131240

Principal GUI Developer
United States
Job Posting:Sep 2, 2009-Job Number 0072I
https://sabre.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=131180

Application Designer (User Experience)- Team Lead
US-TX-Dallas Ft Worth – Southlake
Job Posting:Aug 28, 2009-Job Number 006VD
https://sabre.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=127080

Senior IA
United Kingdom
Job Posting:Sep 1, 2009-Job Number 0071F
https://sabre.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=130560

Senior UI Developer
United States
Job Posting:Aug 25, 2009-Job Number 0071Q
https://sabre.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=130740

Web Design Senior – Senior
GB-England-London
Job Posting:Aug 24, 2009-Job Number 006P6
https://sabre.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=123120

Web Developer
US-MD-Bethesda
Job Posting:Aug 5, 2009-Job Number 006J1
https://sabre.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=119000

And if my company isn’t for you, check out my older post on “Hiring on the Fringe” where you can find a list of sites that post UX type jobs.

(Above infographic by: http://www.good.is/)

Last week me and Stephen Thomas presented to our company’s UXC Luncheon. This is a quarterly event open to all the different User Experience groups in the company. Our topic was upcoming trends in Design and technology. This is actually the fifth time I’ve presented a presentation like this one, starting back in 2005. While some trends are still developing, there are some new and interesting things that will shape the years to come.

This year we hit on 23 different topics – ranging from the less practical interactive holograms, to something we’re enjoying today – location based gaming.

Due to the nature of many of these new technologies, we included a lot of videos this year – I tried to include a link to most of them.

So here it is – 2010 and Beyond:

Some notes – one of the biggest trends which I missed until this year was Augmented Reality and all it’s many flavors. This seemed to be one of the biggest trends coming in the next year. Once Apple releases it’s 3.1 update for the iPhone we should see a flood of these types of apps hit the app store, and quickly gain wide adoption.

Some topics like the command line, twitter, and location were back with updates for 2009. And although RFID has been around for a while, this is the first time the phrase “Internet of Things” appeared in my presentations.

We had a longer list then the 23 we got to – this took us about 1 1/2 hours to get through – we’ll save those for next time!

Please comment if you feel we left something out – or thought something shouldn’t have been included. See you next time!

Ever since 2007 Twitter has been the buzz. But why? Great company? Innovative technology? No, I think it’s because they didn’t really invent a new technology, they invented a new communication method. One that’s becoming as standard as using a phone, or a replacement to email. Twitter has the promise to be the next chapter in ways humans communicate. Twitter is the internet at its full potential.

Around 1996 I was working at a Barnes & Nobles while going to school. I was stationed in the software/computer part of the store, and every so often our community director would bring in someone on a given topic to present.

With the internet being pretty new, she got someone to come in to talk about the internet. Again this was 1996. I can’t remember who she got, at the time I thought he was way too technical – but now, I think he was from the future.

During his presentation to a group of about 10 or so customers, he described how the internet works, drawing a large cloud (and calling it that) on a whiteboard, showing connected computers. This is my fist piece of evidence he was from the future, basically describing cloud computing ;-)

What I really remember from this talk in 1996 is the question and answer session at the end where someone asked “where do I go to find something on the internet?”. This was before Google, so the common answer would be something like Altavista, or Yahoo – but this traveler from the future said “You just post a question to the community and you’ll get an answer” – “what a idiot” I thought. Now, I’ll concede that he was really talking about usernet groups at the time, but today you’d hear that same answer from many of our most influential speakers.

I know it’s pretty much what I do today, I’ll DM someone, post a question, or search twitter to see how the community is handling a given topic. I have twitter results injected in my Google results via Grease Monkey – and often find the realtime results more valuable.

Twitter is the internet. It’s a communication medium like no other. It’s what I believe the internet was intended to be. A collective social “thing” that allows us to harness humanity (a triumph really). When the internet, er twitter went down last month it was a big deal, as big as if AT&T went down (or when AT&T was down at SXSW this year, twitter was a alternative way to communicate).

I was on a twitter panel at work a while back (with a PACKED audience), and the question of “can twitter go out of fashion” came up. In my opinion, it can’t because it’s the internet. It’s not a place that can get old (like MySpace), it’s a communication medium. I guess it could go out of fashion like the pager, but only when a better form of communication emerges, not JUST a better pager.

The internet is a collection of objects (not tubes): text, video, audio, etc… today we find many of those objects through a system (Google), but in the near future can Google keep up with millions of people? Can Google index, and rank faster than an international community of millions?

How is twitter going to evolve? I think it will become a shared non-corporate communication medium. I’m hoping someone (Google) buys it and makes it free, portable, and reliable. It’s a snapshot of humanity, a moment in time where we can look back and see the biggest thing on this date is: Google Voice, Harry Potter, and #bringbackrachelle. Unlike past communication mediums, it’s public, and easily recordable for all time. Think if twitter was around when JFK was shot, instant recordable international reaction for all time.

How about when all the OpenID/Social Connect/Facebook Connect/OAuth gets settled, you can login via any number of tools, and then communicate on a single platform. Or maybe it’s multiple platforms that are all connected – where a Plurk and a twit will show up just as if they were from the same source.

Twitter is a new form of communication that has never really existed before, a critical mass of shared information – building on it’s predecessors: roads, telegraph, telephone, pagers, email, texting, and now twitter. This is only possible at this point and time with the technology we have today, this is the potential of the internet.