Super Volatile

Krzysztof Szafranek's link blog

Hi, I'm Krzysztof and I make websites.
When I'm not making websites, I read these.
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ipad

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Oct 26, 2011 / 3:50pm

The Hubble Blew My Mind

Secondly - and most importantly - my daughter told me the answer. This might sound weird if you don't have kids - but for your kid to know the answer to something you genuinely don't know - that's really special for them.

All of this from a little black piece of glass and metal. I know I'll be called a fan-boy for this, but yes, that was magical.

more on blog.wekeroad.com

A short real story when pieces of modern technology play together. Do you still let yourself be amazed?

Filed under: ipad   science  
 
Jun 20, 2011 / 11:46pm

iPad Usability: Year One

I thought I'd driven a stake through splash screens many years ago and eradicated them from the Web, but apparently splash screens are super-vampires that can haunt users from beyond the grave.
more on useit.com

Reading sentences like this I wonder if Mr Nielsen realizes how much the attitude he demonstrates makes it harder to convey his (valid more often than not) findings.

Filed under: ipad   usability  
 
Mar 4, 2011 / 2:31pm

Daring Fireball: The Chair

Even the chair on the stage was the same.
more on daringfireball.net

Gruber's reflection after the last Apple event.

Filed under: ipad   apple  
 
Feb 24, 2011 / 11:09pm

Why Nobody Can Match the iPad’s Price

At the end of the day, the iPad might be worth well above $500 for all we know. (Part estimates made by component analysts such as iSuppli aren’t very useful because they fail to measure costs of R&D and other factors.) It’s most likely that Apple can afford to absorb the costs of producing and selling the iPad because of the tenacious ecosystem backing it, and also because it has such tight oversight over every aspect of the company to control price.
more on wired.com

One of the reasons all “iPad killers” will have such a tough time is the price. What they're going to do in a week, when iPad 2 will be announced?

Filed under: ipad   apple  
 
Dec 22, 2010 / 2:23pm

Digital Kitsch

Worse than those misguided and patronising metaphors is the fact that publishers can no longer decide which typeface to set their text in. Apple provides just five (Baskerville, Cochin, Palatino, Times, Verdana), and only one of them (Palatino) can be considered a book face suitable for reading on a screen. Somehow, there seems to be a weird dichotomy between cool aluminium shapes, high-tech displays and amazing technology on the one hand, and wooden bookshelves on the other, as a metaphor for an online bookshop. Perhaps the design departments responsible should talk to each other? Or does Steve Jobs not have such great taste after all?
more on blueprintmagazine.co.uk

Erik Spiekermann's critical view on digital typography.

Filed under: ipad   typography  
 
Oct 24, 2010 / 11:45pm

Jobs speaks! The complete transcript

[Q: Any updates on your stance on Flash?]

Flash memory? We love flash memory.

more on macworld.com

Transcript of Jobs' comments after the announcement of Apple's new record (as usual) quarterly earnings. Some interesting comments on Android's fragmentation.

Filed under: ipad   android   apple  
 
Jul 5, 2010 / 11:30pm

Flash 10.1 ported to iPad, burninates the countryside (video)

Take it with a grain of salt, but it's looking like some prayers have been answered on this Fourth of July -- Flash (or is that "Frash"?) is running on this man's iPad, cleverly ported from Android.
more on engadget.com

Interesting proof of concept, but don't expect to see it in the App Store.

Filed under: ipad   flash  
 
Jul 3, 2010 / 2:09pm

iPad and Kindle Reading Speeds (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

The iPad measured at 6.2% lower reading speed than the printed book, whereas the Kindle measured at 10.7% slower than print. However, the difference between the two devices was not statistically significant because of the data's fairly high variability.

Thus, the only fair conclusion is that we can't say for sure which device offers the fastest reading speed. In any case, the difference would be so small that it wouldn't be a reason to buy one over the other.

more on useit.com

Nielsen researches readability on Kindle and iPad. I expected that Kindle will score higher with its e-paper technology.

Filed under: ipad   kindle   usability  
 
May 30, 2010 / 11:55am

Apple iPad offers “freedom from porn” – but not in Berlin

Billboards announcing the arrival of the iPad on Friday have been going up all over Berlin, but one of them in the subway station of Rosenthaler Platz is quite different to the rest. As you can see from the images below, the iPad appears to be about to offer an entirely new experience of porn.
more on eu.techcrunch.com

After living here for few months I'm not surprised.

Filed under: ipad   berlin  
 
May 29, 2010 / 9:20pm

iPad Usability: First Findings From User Testing (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

For the last 15 years of Web usability research, the main problems have been that users don't know where to go or which option to choose — not that they don't even know which options exist. With iPad UIs, we're back to this square one.
more on useit.com

Nielsen on iPad's usability. In short: the interface beautiful, but suffers from lack of standardized controls and metaphors.

Of course it didn't take the members of “Nielsen is a boring guy who just don't get” camp too much time to come up with a rebuttal:

He almost gets it.
more on johnnyholland.org
Filed under: ipad   usability   user interface