nickb's comments

Simplicity and sophistication of the UI/UX has nothing to do with the simplicity of the overall system. Underlying system is probably more complex because the UI/UX is simpler.

So maybe Gruber should have said that UI is simpler, but not the iPhone. If iPhone is so simple, why aren't other big companies as successful at creating new phones? Clearly, things are not as simple as some people would make you believe.

Also, a jump from Razr or Palm (for example) to iPhone is much bigger than that of iPhone 1.0 to 3.0.

Had Apple released a Razor-like iPhone and then iterated to iPhone 1.0 system over a year or two, I'd buy Gruber's argument. But iPhone was clearly 'from the future' when Apple presented it and everyone else was scrambling to catch up. So Gruber's argument is not really serious.

>Do you seriously think the iPhone would have been better if Apple had asked people what they wanted?

That has nothing to do with the article's argument that Apple's secret is evolution of simple systems.

As for your point, each approach has its virtues. What works for Apple probably won't work for the rest of us. Apple has hundreds of brilliant designers that create three different pixel perfect designs for each piece of new UI. Three different teams (and all brilliant at what they do) working against each other... how many of us can afford something like that?!

I still contend that Gruber's argument about Apple's secret being simplicity and evolution is bullshit. He probably came across Gall's law and decided to spin it into an article about Apple.

Initial iPhone was anything but simple! First gen iPhone was YEARS in the making and rests upon decades of Cocoa engineering. Gruber is completely off the mark in that regard and is overplaying his hand. Every company iterates. Even MS iterates and evolves an initial product and you can see that with Windows 7.

There are lots of reasons for success of Apple but the thing he stated isn't one of the major ones. Apple loves to work in vacuum with no user feedback whatsoever since SJ likes to say that 'people don't know what they want until they see it.' To have a truly evolving system, you need to have a user feedback loop and Apple has one of the worst feedback loops in the industry since they almost never act on feedback and when they do, it takes them years.

You've completely misunderstood my point. I'm talking about individual productivity, not a group one.

What a silly rule. This 'equality rule' is why union shops have some of the worst productivity levels in the industry and why union workers have zero incentives to innovate and become more productive. Under this plan, people have no incentives to give more and work harder. Inevitably, the equilibrium for this type of a system is the productivity of the weakest worker.

Sorry but communism just doesn't work.

These fractals are absolutely stunning! Who created them and where can I find the equations?

Most people don't bother about video comments since most of them are by people who are promoting themselves and they're also very low on info density. You can read a paragraph in few seconds and it takes you minutes to get the same thing from a video comment. Video is perfect for teaching but I don't think it's great for quick bursts of communication.

I think video comments are going to be irrelevant in the long run. It's interesting to make a parallel with video phone. Video phone never took off because people didn't want to be bothered with checking how they look before they answer a phone. Fixing hair, shaving, etc... why bother with that?

Well, HN has changed over the past 6 months or so. Highly technical stuff doesn't rise up to front page as it used to. My suggestion is to monitor user submission feeds of people you like or share similar interests with. That way you will have a more customized experience and won't be disappointed by some of the front page stories.

But this is a superb presentation about how security in an OS works. I enjoyed it a lot.

There's no need for Lighttpd when you use Nginx. It can do everything that Lighttpd can do and more (and has no memory leaks).

It's probably a controller for the new press-control surfaces on the cord.

Third parties are already working on iPod shuffle compatible earbuds: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10194769-1.html

PS: Flagged.

Incidentally, 3/14 is also Albert Einstein's birthday.

Huh? You're completely wrong. How did this entry get 4 points?!

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/2830/picture32s.png

That's absolutely correct. There's no need to fiddle around with a mouse to write something for it to be valid. Here's what the US law on electronic signatures has to say on this topic:

In the United States, the definition of what qualifies as an electronic signature is wide and is set out in the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act ("UETA") released by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) in 1999.[8]. It was influenced by ABA committee white papers and the uniform law promulgated by NCCUSL. Under UETA, the term means "an electronic sound, symbol, or process, attached to or logically associated with a record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_signatures

You can type a single letter on your keyboard or just simply click a button for a contract to be signed if there was an intent to do so.

A year? 0.3 came out in Nov 08.

Or it could be as unimportant as Powerset. It's best not to hype it up too much since the odds are that it won't be a panacea to everyone and a lot of people will be disappointed.

Products that tend to be modest initially and improve and prove themselves rapidly tend to do better than products that are hyped up beyond all proportions.

Pretty cool! You can see it in action here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkqtklABgGQ

In theory, yes, but not in practice. From my experience, Skype's the only app that works reliably when you try to send files. Adium, much less so... it's a hit & miss (and more of a miss).

Pretty awesome! I have an almost daily need for something like this when sending files to people over chat/irc.

Your link creation needs some work, however. I can't paste the link into a non-RTF box (this input box for HN, for example). You should reverse-engineer how Safari creates links when they're copied to clipboard and do the same.

For example, if you right click on any title on any website, and copy a link, you will notice that when you paste it to an RTF box, you get the same behavior as what you currently do but when you paste it into Terminal, you get the URL. When I paste Dropsend "URL" to Terminal, IRC or to Safari's address bar, I get nothing.

To me, the big win is the new TimeCapsule:

  * MobileMe 'back to Mac' integration
  * 802.11n
  * guest Wi-Fi feature
  * dual-band Wi-Fi
  * 500GB TimeCapsule
  * Wi-Fi printer hub
  = $299

Sold.

Read some of the comments.

* Silverlight doesn't run on PPC Macs

* lots of video quality issues: poor picture, blockiness

* lots of audio syncing issues: audio is several seconds behind on many videos

* can't revert back to the old player once you "upgrade" and most customers are saying that they were conned into "upgrading" by Netflix.

Finally, this all started in November of 2008 and comments are still pouring in and it's March of 2009.