Archive for the ‘review’ Category

iPad brief review

Monday, September 13th, 2010

Since everything has already been said about how it’s beautiful, but no flash. How it has a long lasting battery, but doesn’t have a USB port. How it’s fast and portable but the operating system is a bit stripped.
Blah blah blah.

Since everybody knows all the tech specs already (and if not you can just look it up) I’m gonna focus on my impressions on using the device. Because in the end who cares if it does that or doesn’t do that if you hate every second spent with it. Allright then, let’s start from the basic.

It’s just a giant iPhone

No. This is like saying a soccer ball is just a bigger tennis ball, when both have different purposes and are used quite differently. What iPad is – is the revolution that the web was waiting for – not in the content and not in the delivery methods (that’s why flash doesn’t matter here) but in the form factor that’s easier and better for the web. It was the first big hit in the tablets but now, as I said before we’ll see a whole bunch of other ones, cheaper and more accessible. And in that respect it doesn’t matter if they run iOS, android or some crippled version of windows. Or linux. What matters is the way to interact with the internet is finally changing for the second time since internet was born. (this first one was text commands, then came the graphically intense websites and online videos).

So do I like it? Yes. In fact it’s become used more for everyday tasks than my laptop. I can carry it around me all the time since it’s pretty small and light, so I take my things with me everywhere. As simple as that, holding the internet in your hands is the way to go for the internet itself. And it doesn’t matter if you choose an apple device for that or something else. It has started and we’re sure even Nokia will make a similar device soon.

Quick review : The Smashing Book

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

smashingbook

Photo of the smashing book alongside our iPad parody to prove we got it ;)

I have before me a beautiful example od DIY creativity. The Smashing Book is a compilation (but made apparently especially for the book) made by the nice people from SmashingMagazine.com . Why are they nice? Well they’re nice because they share what they know, and in the modern world information is money, so it’s nice of the to share. Sure the book costs 30 bucks + postage but after giving it a brief shuffle it’s worth it! Definitely. It doesn’t matter if you’re an experienced designer with a portfolio that when printed would have more pages than this book. It doesn’t matter if you’re a complete beginner who hearing “text-kerning” says “WTF mate?”. There’s only one group of people that won’t find this useful. The rest will love it regardless of their experience and knowledge.

So let’s pop the question

Who are those people that won’t need it though? Well the people who will not find it useful are people who don’t really learn anything by themselves. People who rely on knowledge and learning before attempting ANY tries at a subject. People that will have a full typography course before they type in their first Aa’s. These people might only benefit from the nice, easy to understand language. But they probably won’t learn much, because what Smashing Magazine did is organized the most commonly “asked questions” and answered them with both the scientific precision and clarity for the “normal” people who don’t spend their life buried in a textbook.

Is it worth the 30$?

Definitely. It’s a quick read for the first time, and then you might keep it handy since it’s almost like a bible of design, usability, productivity and more down to earth stuff like CSS and coding. That makes it universal in a way that anyone who wants to do more with their projects will want to have it somewhere close to the computer. Good job guys! Thumbs up!