Apple is a special company and besides technology, design is in their DNA. Almost everything they do looks killer, makes sense and adds to the positive user experience. This goes for their products, their software, their user interfaces, their packaging, their website, their keynotes, and so on and so on. But Apple wouldn't be Apple if it wasn't started in Silicon Valley. The atmosphere there is just different. People think different. There's a whole tech start-up ecosystem, with many, many start-up companies, venture capitalist, lawyers, experts and so on so on. People from all over the USA and the rest of the world move to the San Francisco area to start their (tech) businesses. So I think, to a certain extent, Silicon Valley's business/tech/creative atmosphere helps Apple to stay on top. Its happening in the Bay area.  Watch the vid, its interesting, and will give you more insight in the way new apples come to fruition in the Bay area.     Via [core77]

It seems September is going to be an interesting month for those who are interested in Apple products, at least, if we have to believe all the stories that go round in the rumor mill. Below is an interesting excerpt of a rumor that depicts Apple will plug their entire Mac line with dedicated H.264 video encoding/decoding chips. Which will mean that all Macs will be able to play the 720P or even 1080P HD movies even if they don't really have that much muscle processor wise (or a large enough screen to view them :P). It makes sense to me, since Apple is more and more becoming a media company, selling music, movies and games. With this move they might even be skipping the next gen dvd format (blu-ray, hd dvd) entirely, by implementing their own standard and hooking it up to the iTunes movie store. The article which speculates on this also notes that there might be an exclusive contract for the encoding chip for a year, giving Apple a head start on the competition.  "What really excites me as a content creator is the amazing potential of real-time HD. Video and games are by far the greatest consumers of cycles on ...

Some pictures of Nokia's S60 user interface. I am wondering what it feels like when using it. The graphic design department could try a little harder, to make it look nicer (the iPhone's user interface looks stunning) but that is just my opinion. What is your take on it?      Via [Gizmodo] via [Symbian Freak]

An interesting article written by Chris Seibold, one of the guys over at Apple Matters. Its about how competitors are focusing on how to kill the iPhone when the iPod is still the #1 music player to beat. The companies  that ruled in the Walkman era, didn't see the iPod coming, and over they years never had a product that stood in the way of the iPods market dominance. Even recently, Microsoft had a go at it with it with the Zune, without any success. So now the cellphone companies can have a go at it. Will they go at it any differently? Hopefully. So that we, the end consumers, will have a broader choice from devices that, well, that will just work well, without any features because cell phone carriers want those features, and with user interfaces that are easy and a pleasure to use. So Nokia, Samsung, SonyEricsson, HTC, RIM, Google?, Motorola?, Philips?, hopefully you have assembled some kind of special Skunkworks project team with the brightest people on board that are passionate to make a drastic change to your product line up and your corporate strategy. A change that will be better for your clients, US, and not them, ...

When I saw this the first time my thoughts were the following: 'how did this guy ever get into Microsoft's management? why is he still there? and most importantly: his statements about the iPhone are all wrong!"     And Steve J. is entitled to completely laugh his ass of,  but he probably won't, too busy contemplating on Apple's next big thing : )