Apple TV, Apple TV, Apple TV, and Apple TV+

If you’ve wondered what exactly is up with Apple TV, know that you’re not alone. I didn’t realize quite how bad the situation was until reading this post from Dustin Curtis. > ‪Apple TV is a hardware device. ‪ Apple TV is an app on Apple TV that curates content you can buy from Apple and also content you can stream through other installed apps (but not all apps, and there is no way to tell which ones). Apple TV is an app on iOS/iPadOS devices that operates similarly to Apple TV on Apple TV. App…

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Whimsical: my app of the week

In the past, I’ve used Sketch a lot to illustrate concepts for my team, or create user journeys, or onboarding flows. Although it’s a full design tool for making mockups or full product designs, I found it also worked well for conceptual models. Here’s an example [https://wildbit.com/blog/2017/07/22/a-framework-for-creating-a-robust-onboarding-workflow] I made for showing the ideal user journey for a Beanstalk customer. Over the past couple of years, I haven’t needed to make this type of thin…

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Don't make me think

Medium’s claps and Basecamp’s boosts. These are two items that feel like the creators have gone and ignored Steve Krug’s advice from his excellent book [https://www.sensible.com/dmmt.html]. Both features went from a very straightforward use case to one that caused me to pause and ponder. I talked a little about Medium’s change from hearts to claps last summer (Vol IV Issue 23 [http://email.chrisbowler.com/t/ViewEmailArchive/j/6420AF4A5569BAF32540EF23F30FEDED/C67FD2F38AC4859C/] to be exact), so…

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Familiarity for users

Iterative development has been touted as the way to operate, whether you're developing web sites or applications. Instead of perfect, you shoot for a good start, launch, then slowly improve over time. There are blog posts aplenty dedicated to this topic. And there is wisdom in this idea. Yaron Schoen said it well [http://yaronschoen.com/writing/real-designers-nurture/]: > I have a lot more respect for designers that have the same excitement after shipping a product as they did before shipping…

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Rdio is clever

A well designed application, whether native or web based, will have clever UI elements that make the usage more pleasant. Some are obvious from the start, others are delightful surprises that you come across during your usage. Rdio [http://www.rdio.com/] is an application that gets you on both ends. I love the service since it has given me access to so much new content that I could never afford to purchase on iTunes. And in the course of finding all this great new music, there are often times w…

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Beginning to end: a tale of good support

There are a few reasons I like Apple and use their products and services. A primary one is the experience: beginning to end, Apple has crafted a culture that makes for a positive interaction between them and the customer, whether it's online or in a retail store. They seem to understand that our culture offers too much choice and gives little regard for how you get to the end point (taking out your wallet). Here's a recent sequence of events in our home: * Thursday, March 17 6:30 PM — my wif…

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