It’s true, there’s not necessarily a business case to do this, but that is not the only thing Apple will be judged on in the decades to come. And that’s what I’m talking about here: how will future generations look back at Apple, and by extension its customers? Did we all live our lives by more than just the bottom line? Or were the late twentieth and early twenty-first century the decades in which we irrevocably decided that everything should be disposable (or even recyclable) after just two or three years?

If we are going to ask people, in the form of our products, in the form of the things we make, to spend their heartbeats—if we are going to ask them to spend their heartbeats on us, on our ideas, how can we be sure, far more sure than we are now, that they spend those heartbeats wisely?

Instagram succeeded for many good reasons, including its design, its viral qualities, its simplicity, and the fact that its engineers focused so obsessively on making sure that it works all the time. Part of its success, no doubt, is the fact that it was just in the right place, at the right time, with the right, crowd-pleasing mix of features.

How to use the Smart Objects Link Panel I just linked.

I think it’s important to publish what you learn. There’s really no school for front-end development. You can’t go to a university for a JavaScript degree or a class about how browsers work. Most of us learn from blogs and Twitter. Early in my career, I learned a bunch of things whenever I worked on a project, but I never told other people about them. So my general advice is to publish what you learn, share with the community, and collaborate on projects that help move the community forward.

‘The problem is that this is exactly what the competition are doing — they are competing with the iPad rather than solving a problem that hasn’t been solved yet. They’re always one step behind because they’re simply trying to re-create the solution that Apple has created for their vision of a touch tablet device.’

‘With an entire body at your command, do you seriously think the Future Of Interaction should be a single finger?’

Background images. Paper, stone, lines, patterns, pool table. Very nice. ‘Free textures for your next web project.’

‘There are some particular findings that are pivotal to issues such as readership and readability and comprehension, which is really what body copy is all about. If people won’t read it, or if they can’t read it or understand it, then what’s the point of having it?’

“Simple, lightweight WordPress themes for graphic designers, arists, architects, photographers, agencies, bloggers and other creative professionals.” Priced $30-$100.

Comic Sans’ problems explained from a typographical standpoint.

By Gina Trapani, head of ThinkUp. “What's not clear is how people who don't code contribute their skills and expertise to making OSS software. Because it's not clear, they don't, and the software looks and feels like it was designed by engineers, for engineers—because it was.”

"A great Mac image editor built for humans." I would like to buy this at some point. Alternative to Photoshop.

For backgrounds and whatever.

No one should ever spend $180 on a clock, but goddamn I want this thing.

How to present and sell design: 1) Don't wing it — postpone until you're ready. 2) Really sell your design — the idea that 'good design speaks for itself' is a myth. 3) Don't get subjective or allow your feelings to get hurt — tell them to tell you when it doesn't work. 4) Don't embarrass the client — make them look good, be honest, listen to them.

"Create Your Own @font-face Kits."

Create color schemes by doing color math.

How to make an background image scale without using a ton of JavaScript.

Great, of course.

Great, modern, hip photography.

A stylish, simple, infographical, curt, and summarily realistic at the world in which we currently live.

This looks great.

This bookmarklet makes reading things on the web very simple and thus enjoyable by removing all of the often-useless and often-flashing worthlessness surrounding the content.

Beautiful photographs to demonstrate words.

This may be worth looking into. I waffle on whether this sort of thing is ultimately a good decision — you're relying on someone else's framework, it takes a while to learn and master, and once you decide to go with it you're essentially stuck with it. But isn't that the case with any pseudo-framework developed for a website design? I should test this on a little project.

Indeed!

As seen on Normative.com.

As seen on Normative.com.