Apple Archive - The Fox Is Black

‘Photos Every Day’, the new ad from Apple

'Photos Every Day', the new ad from Apple

I’ve said it a million times before, you’re a weirdo if you use the phone on an iPhone. I have a whole separate post brewing about phones in general, but still to this day it strikes me as funny that it’s still called an iPhone yet I bet that the Phone app is used by less and less every day. What I do use every day is my camera. I’m a serial sharer, I love to document what’s going on in my life and take photos of the small details that other people might not have noticed. I’m always uploading photos to my Instagram or the upcoming Days app, it just makes me happy.

That’s why this new ad from Apple makes so much sense. I mean, they always know how to make a memorable commercial, but this one totally hits me. That’s why I took the screenshot above of the “hipster dude” taking a picture of “street art”, because that’s totally me, all the time. You can watch the ad below.

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Bobby Solomon

April 26, 2013 - See more posts by Bobby

Amazing iPhone 5 cases by Jack Spade

Jack Spade iPhone Cases

I’m a strict believer in not using a case on my iPhone. Like any well designed object it looks better with some dings and scratches like you’ve actually used the damn thing (which reminds me of this original iPhone which is aged to perfection). If you do choose to use a case though I have to suggest these new iPhone 5 cases from Jack Spade which are pretty hysterical. You can choose between tie-dye, a classy patchwork or my personal favorite: cigarette butts on the beach.

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Bobby Solomon

February 11, 2013 - See more posts by Bobby

The Head, the Heart, and the Voice: The New Apple Organization

Tim Cook illustration by Jules Jullien

Illustration by Jules Julien

Earlier this week there were some big changes in the leadership at Apple signaling a focus in how the company is being run. The biggest change was the slow exit of Scott Forstall, former senior vice president of iOS Software, who was well regarded for the birth of the iOS platform and derided for the beta version of Siri and the questionable launch of the new Maps app. Now his kingdom has been split up and there are three main leaders in place – Tim Cook, Phil Schiller, and Jonathan Ive. Don Lehman from More/Real has a great analogy for this new era of Apple: The Head, the Heart, and the Voice.

Stepping back, the biggest question post-Jobs was how would decisions be made and who would make them. Now it seems that there are the makings of a leadership group within the leadership group. Cook, Ive, and Schiller.

You get the sense that though each may recognize they are the best at what they do, they aren’t angling for more power inside Apple or elsewhere. Amazingly, they seem to know that they can do the best work of their careers and make the biggest historical impact by working together at Apple. Their individual talents and demeanor perfectly compliment each other and I think could be best summed up in this way: the Head, the Heart, and the Voice.

I think this is a great way to look at it, especially when we consider design. Jonathan Ive will now have ALL of design under his thumb, not just industrial/product design. What a Jonny Ive UI looks like is anyone’s guess, but I think the iPhone will grow and evolve a lot faster and a lot more consistently with him at the helm, something the iPhone is going to need in the near future.

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Bobby Solomon

November 2, 2012 - See more posts by Bobby

The Apple campus in design development

This week, it is widely expected that Apple will unveil the next generation iPhone. Much like the iPhone 4, images of the product have leaked prematurely, spilling the freshest juice about Apple all over the internet. It’s a little sad to know, ahead of the keynote, what the phone will look like– because it’s genuinely more enjoyable to watch Tim Cook deliver the new Apple baby than to read about spilled apple juice on a website. So it feels a little strange to be sharing leaked drawings of the Apple Campus, other than to say that architecture takes too long and is too big to hide.

So here you have ‘em: just a couple of the design development drawings for the Apple Campus. Here, huge panes of curved glass hold in tidy and unoffensive offices. (For comparison’s sake, take a look at the recently revealed Facebook West campus design from the office of Frank Gehry.) It may be the lack of color in the renderings, the scale of the project or simply my bias, but for some reason the spaces seem generic and dull. I hope that the construction of the project will prove me wrong. Something clean, slick, and exciting would be expected, much in the same way that Apple products are clean, slick and exciting. But these spaces are something different, and it’s hard to get excited about something you’ve already seen.

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Alex Dent

September 10, 2012 - See more posts by Alex

iPad Air – The new smaller version of the iPad?

iPad Air - The new smaller version of the iPad?

I just spent the last hour or so gorging myself on iPad Mini rumors, which I’m now calling the iPad Air, which you’ll understand shortly. John Gruber over at Daring Fireball wrote this fairly epic analysis about the upcoming smaller iPad, which if you have 15-20 minutes to spare you should certainly read. He hits the nail on the head several times, really focusing on the size, weight, dimensions, and what we could be seeing soon.

Cost can’t be the only factor in play, though. There must be something great about the device’s design. If it’s not display quality, what else? I’m thinking thickness and weight. The iPad 3 gained a retina display — but at the expense of getting thicker and heavier than the iPad 2, so as to fit a more powerful battery to run those additional 2,359,296 pixels. So I’m thinking the iPad Mini doesn’t get a retina display but in exchange gets to go remarkably thin.

How thin? As an iPhone devotee (thickness: 9.3 mm) I marvel at the relative thinness of the iPod Touch (7.2 mm) whenever I see one. So, how thin for the iPad Mini? How about iPod Touch thin: 7.2 mm. That’d be an entire third thinner than the Nexus 7.

The name iPad Air came from Chris Pepper in an @reply to Gruber. As Gruber mentions in the snippet above the thickness and the weight might be the determining factor. By calling it the iPad Air they’re immediately saying “this is the lightest tablet on earth, Nexus who what?” It also strengthens the Macbook Air line and potentially let’s Apple make the defactor laptop lineup be simply the Macbook Air and the Macbook.

Also interesting to read/see was this post with accompanying mockup from iMore, who may have totally nailed what the iPad Air might look like (as you can see above). Looking at the rendering, it just looks.. right, you know? This gets me excited for the idea of an iPad Air, looking forward to seeing what gets released!

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Bobby Solomon

August 14, 2012 - See more posts by Bobby