Tag Archives: iPhone

Friday Links: free iPhone 4 cases & stereotyping people by their favorite websites

• The big Apple press conference? Free iPhone 4 cases for everyone!
• In case you missed it: Improv Everywhere’s StarWars subway.
• 6 ways Sci-Fi lied.
• Hacking the Price is Right.
• What Makes a Good Creative Director?
• I’m a softy, but this letter to Patrick Stewart from the parent of a Star Trek fan made my eyes well up with tears.
• 10 technological advances marketers can’t live without.
• Stereotyping people by their favorite websites.
• The 9 Stupidest Superhero Identities.
• Origins of the world’s most important typefaces.

This Week in Nerdery

Here’s what’s happening in and around The Nerdery this week, and next.

iPhone tech talks: Tuesday and Wednesday, June 29&30: Jon Rexeisen is doing tech talks on iPhone development two nights in a row at The Nerdery. Several of us are staying after school to hear from our all-things-Apple guru, and the public is welcome – please send a direct tweet to the_nerdery if you’re interested (so we can order enough pizza). Both sessions are 5:30-6:30 p.m. Tuesday’s tech talk will be a iOS 101 session covering the basics of iOS development, where to get documentation, etc. Then on Wednesday, Jon will do an iOS 4 session covering the new retina display on iPhone 4, the block APIs, Grand Central Dispatch on iOS, TapGestureRecognizers, and iAds.

Gaming and marketing at JMU612: First thing in the morning Thursday, June 30, Mark Hurlburt talks gaming to a group of marketers at JMU612 from 8-9:30am at Urban Bean in Uptown (Bryant and 33^rd). More at http://javameetup5.eventbrite.com/

PHP meetup: Later that evening (6-8 pm, this Thursday), the MN PHP user group meets at The Nerdery, with a session on Doctrine 2 led by Justin Hendrickson and a talk on Gearman by Mike Willbanks. RSVP at http://www.mnphp.org/calendar/13822783/

Agency primer webinars: Our two free HTML5 and CSS3 webinars are Tuesday, June 29 at 10:15 am and Thursday, July 1 at 3:15 pm, RSVP at http://www.nerdery.com/html5 to get the goods from Brian Litzinger and Matt Tonak.

Looking ahead to next week, the MN Python user group meets at The Nerdery Thursday, July 8 from 7-9 pm, more info at http://www.meetup.com/pymntos/

Nerdery Open House for Recruits: On Friday, July 9 from 3-6 p.m., we’ll host an open house geared at recruiting the next generation of much-needed nerds. Some of our local talent is leaving soon to colonize a new Nerdery in Chicago. Replacements, please RSVP at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/742826815

Looking further ahead, July 12-18 is Pentathanerd Week (http://pentathanerd.com/). Watch the second coming of The Summer Games right here (exclusive coverage).

Friday Links: Resisting the urge to use a Linkbait generator headline

• Lifetime cost of ownership of the iPhone 4 and top Android phones.
• 15 things about caffeine.
• The Oatmeal: Things I remember about Legos.
• Move Poster Font Quiz do you know your Tron typography from your Blade Runner? I didn’t. I only got 6 out of 9.
• The case for quirky brands.
• The original Pac-Man drawings.
• Linkbait generator.
• Hello Kitty as Darth Vader, Buzz Lightyear, and more.

WWDC iPhone 4 announcement

There’s nothing like the WWDC keynote to make your less-than-a-year-old iPhone 3Gs look like an archaic piece of junk worthy of Zack Morris. Also, I have to say this keynote didn’t seem to have the same sense of anticipation. I blame the Gizmodo leak from a few months back.

So here’s what all the pundits have to say about the iPhone 4 and iOS4.

• Engadget
• MacRumors
• ars technica
• NY Times
• Gizmodo
• Lifehacker
• BoingBoing

Friday Links: More iPhone 4 drama, social media crack, and some stuff about typewriters

• Meet Brian J. Hogan, the dude who stole the iPhone 4 and sold it Gizmodo.
• Also, a handy flow chart of the whole Gizmodo iPhone 4 drama.
• And, finally, because I have to: Steve Jobs’ kiss off letter to Flash.
• Much like crack, students go through withdrawal when they can’t access social media.
• An interview with Threadless’ VP of Marketing on the eve of their 10th Anniversary.
• The worst of sci-fi/fantasy book covers. The best of the worst? I Sing the Body Electric.
• Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the world for 2010. Once again they forgot me. (and Yahoo collects the five people from the list you’ve never heard of).
• Website teaches kids not to get suckered by ads. This reminds me of the girls I nannied for while I was in college. They begged for some Chips Ahoy cookies of some sort because there was supposed to be a party in each bite. “Uh, there’s no party in my mouth,” one of them said upon tasting the regular old cookie. She was crushed.
• Rock it old school: stickers to make your mac look like a typewriter. I wonder if they can make it so you get that delicious clicking sound and a ding when you reach the end of a line.
• Related to the last: beautiful, beautiful advertisements for Olivetti typewriters.
• Leslie Buck, designer of the iconic NY Greek coffee cup, died.
• The saga of forgotten brands and their logos.

How to raise a nerd

Have you grown tired of reading about how the 4.G iPhone was lost, what Nick Denton (he owns Gizmodo) thinks about it, and letters from Apple’s lawyers? (and really, how could you grow tired? It’s like the awesomest, nerdiest soap opera this month). But if you are tired of it and need to cleanse palate go read How to Raise a Nerd. It’s tender and sweet (though I warn you, you’ll have to ignore quite a few distracting typos). Plus, it’s pretty awesome to see others reveling in their nerdom.

“But why would I ever want to raise a nerd?

For me, I take nerd to mean someone who has in-depth knowledge on a topic. (I realize there are other connotations the word obviously has, but for me , this is my definition.) So there are video game nerds, sports nerds, anime nerds, history nerds and so on and so forth. What makes nerds so great is they are fountains of information, making some truly intriguing conversations possible — and better yet, some truly heated and even truly meaningless arguments.

But, in short, nerds care. They have fires in their bellies. They have passion.”

Friday Links: iPads, iPhones, and a thing about biking

• The only iPad review you need to read.
• On the lack of good typography on the iPad.
• What Wallstreet thinks of iAds to launch with iPhone OS 4.
• 20 Simpsons graffitis.
• Logo design trends for 2010.
• Related to the last: a fun spot the right logo game (I sucked at it).
• 30 days of biking: “a local Twitter hashtag gone global, all supported by a website built by some cranky Nerdery employee.”
• The dying art of design.
• Awesome superhero posters.
• NY invaded by 8-bit creatures.

Today there’s nothing but a pretty video

It’s a grey and dreary day in the Twin Cities Metropolitan area. The kind of day that sucks all the energy out of a room and all the thoughts out of your brain. If I had any thoughts left, they’d surely be regarding this post about the history of the photo that’s the default wall paper for iPhones, or about how Facebook was really founded (be careful if you have delicate sensibilities when it comes to the f-word, there’s some swearing), or maybe I could weigh in on this point/counterpoint between Marco Arment and Merlin Mann.

But I have no thoughts, instead I have a very cool video to share.

70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! from L'Ogre on Vimeo.

Tech Tuesday: Development for (and getting our Nerdery hands on) the Apple iPad

By now, you’ve read all about the Apple’s new tablet, the iPad. You’ve watched the videos. You’ve maybe giggled about the product name; let’s be honest though, the Nintendo Wii’s name hasn’t hurt its popularity. You’ve either dismissed it as a big iPod Touch that won’t go anywhere, or, you’ve already smashed your piggy bank and have money in hand. Regardless, Apple has a pretty good track record with their latest products (iPod, iTunes, iPhone) and we don’t want our ad and marketing agency partners to be the last ones to the party.

First, the iPad debut doesn’t mean that our agency partners should stop making iPhone applications. All iPhone applications will work on the iPad out of the box.

But how does the iPad affect our agency partners who have already created applications for iPhone and now also want to take advantage of the bigger screen of the iPad? Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as hitting an Easy button (trust me, I have one) and magically all your applications are reformatted for the iPad. The user interface will have to be redesigned to support multiple resolutions. It’s also not just relaying out the design for the larger screen; it’s also understanding what the iPad is, and designing an amazing user interface to take advantage of the new user interface features.

When looking at creating a new iPad application, our agency partners really have two options: target just the iPad or target the iPhone and the iPad.  Targeting the only the iPad should have a similar development cycle and cost as developing an application just for the iPhone. If the choice is to target both devices, there will be some design layout changes, but the core of the application will stay the same. There will also be some additional time for our crack Quality Assurance team to make sure we release a great application.

If you don’t think the iPad is going anywhere, I present Steve Ballmer.

Then again, if you think Apple is infallible, I present the iPod Hi-Fi.

Either way, The Nerdery is ready to help you create great applications, no matter the platform.

Friday Links: Feeling grumpy is good for you, and other news

• The Nerdery wants to recruit you.
• Why digital agencies aren’t ready to lead: “Digital agencies are having a ton of fun experimenting with ideas, technologies and strategies to find new alternatives superior to obsolete ways of doing marketing. That’s what they do best. The problem is, this is the only thing they are doing.” (make sure you check out the 78 comments)
• You need to read the saga of the poor American Airlines UX guy who was fired
• Three Rowlf moon t-shirt
• Feeling grumpy is good for you
• Succeed Blog, for when you need some positivity in your life.
• iPhone vs. BlackBerry Owners:
  Your Phone Tells All
• Public Image Unlimited: Consumerism and Anonymity’s End
• The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe
• How business is adopting design thinking
• The post might be in Spanish, but this Beatles USB drive translates to awesome.
• Win an iPod Touch and a dream job at The Nerdery.