It's time to use the web again to store our ideas, and instead of relying on Silicon Valley companies to link our stuff together, let's just use the Internet. That's what it was designed for.
We'll go back to basics now, take what we learned from this round of innovation, and build it for real this time.
iPhone development in decline, analysts sayUnlike other shortening schemes where URLs are quickly shortened via a web input page, Apple’s scheme will first require “URL developers” to submit their URLs for approval. ...
URLs can be rejected for any reason, based on the understanding of a 400-page specification document by Gordy, the one intern who will be reviewing all URLs.
What Brands Can Learn From Luke and Leia, by Wolff Olins head of strategy Paul Worthington.The genius of George Lucas is the way in which this platform he established allows others to imagine and build upon his original ideas. Everyone knows that the force exists—and roughly what it can do. Everyone knows that faster than light travel is possible. Everyone knows there is the "Empire" and the "Rebel Alliance," and everyone knows that Leia is Luke's sister. In a Star Wars Universe, the force would never disappear in the same way that Luke would never sleep with Leia.
Interactive computer media perfectly fits in this trend. Mental processes of reflection, problem solving, memory and association are externalized, equated with following a link, moving to a new image, choosing a new scene or a text. In fact, the very principle of new media – links – objectifies the process of human thinking which involves connecting ideas, images, memories. Now, with interactive media, instead of looking at a painting and mentally following our own private associations to other images, memories, ideas, we are asked to click on the image on the screen in order to go to another image on the screen, and so on. Thus we are asked to follow pre-programmed, objectively existing associations. In short, in what can be read as a new updated version of Althusser's "interpolation," we are asked to mistake the structure of somebody's else mind for our own.
This is a new kind of identification appropriate for the information age of cognitive labor. The cultural technologies of an industrial society – cinema and fashion – asked us to identify with somebody's bodily image. The interactive media asks us to identify with somebody else's mental structure.
First of all, I need to strongly state that although Steve Jobs has bestowed upon me the special honor of being the first and only independent blogger with a Special Edition iPhone App, this doesn't in any way make me "more special" than the other equal and like-minded individuals that make up the harmonious community that we call the Applebubble.
But let's talk about this technical wonder. The Special Edition Note app must be understood as the newest in a long series of insanely great applications designed by Steve, starting with the original calculator.Thanks, John, you've been as fantastically insightful as always, and really, Apple continues to surprise and awe us with marvellous innovations like this!
The brilliancy of Note is so stark that it almost hurts the brain. This is innovation in classic Apple style: bold, fearless, different. I can literally feel the Zen-like atmosphere that must have been present in the board room, right after Steve had received the crucial insight in a lightning flash out of the cloud of limitless creativity, and spoke to his savants: "There is only one page."
Look at the diamond-like beauty forged by the The Man's sheer mental power. There are no buttons anymore: you don't need a trash button, because why would you want to delete the only page that you have? Marvellous! There's no send button either, because why would you want to send your single page of notes to somebody else. They're probably not interesting for them anyway. And of course, there are no forward and backward buttons, because now we are freed from the folder-like tyranny of having to manage our multiple (ugh!) pages by hand.
There's also no way to enter more text than fits on a single screen. This radical design gives birth to a new paradigm of note-taking – about which I'll blog at length once I've immersed myself fully in this new experience – just like the 140-character limitation of a tweet forces you to compress your complex, subtle, and interlinked thoughts into pearls of clarity, wisdom, and poignancy. If your screen is full, there is probably something on it that's no longer interesting. Delete that piece and you have more room for your precious notes.
Also, Note has no synchronization. This turns out to be yet another grandiose achievement of the single-page design: why would you want to sync a single page, when you probably know what's written on it anyway? Brilliant!
All in all, I want to thank Steve and the whole Applebubble for making possible this kind of advancement in computing in this bright new millenium.
