iWatch

There's been much speculation about the possibility of Apple doing some sort of wrist device. With the small iPod nano, Apple designed a variety of watch faces for the device to be used with the aftermarket wrist straps that sprung up. The explosive popularity of the Pebble on Kickstarter is yet another indicator that the public may be ready, in very large numbers, for a compelling device to interact with their iPhones.

Bruce Tognazzini takes a big swing at the concept on his askTog blog. It's a fascinating read.

Hat tip to Parislemon

iPad 5 Mockup

MacRumors has commissioned a very nice mockup of what the next generation iPad would look like if the earlier leaked back case is a real part. I think it looks great, but maintain my usability concerns with regards to the smaller side bezel.

Microsoft's Compromise

John Gruber has collected a nice roundup of Microsoft Surface Pro reviews at Daring Fireball. Many of them use the "C" word when describing some aspect of the product. It was always obvious to anyone not completely sucked into Microsoft's marketing speak, but every design has compromises. A good design balances compromise with advantage.

In my opinion, the Surface products are not good designs.

Margin

Horace Dediu writes about Apple's margin on his Asymco site. As always, it's worth a look to see the story he tells with his charts.

Social Platforms & the Superbowl

Matt McGee has written a very interesting post for Marketing Land about social platforms and Superbowl commercials. I can't say I was surprised by the winning platform, but I was actually a bit shocked at the winning margin.

Hat tip to Daring Fireball

Lazy & Stupid

Philip Elmer-DeWitt writes about analysts and the concept of 14 week quarters. This reinforces much of what I already think about the analyst profession.

OmniFocus 2

I just purchased all of the OmniFocus products for my Mac, iPad and iPhone earlier this year in a dedicated effort to get more organized. The programs are immensely powerful, and I'm working hard to integrate them into my life.

When I first heard that there was an OmniFocus 2 coming for the Mac, I was initially a bit upset that I had just made my OmniFocus purchase. Ken Case, of the Omni Group, has a brief post up outlining some of the changes coming to the new version.

After reading the post, I'm now okay with my purchase of OmniFocus and am willing to pay some additional money when OmniFocus 2 finally ships. Great software that improves my productivity is worth some expense.

iPhone + Speculation

Marco Arment is back again. A second great post in as many days. This time, he's taking on the topic of a larger iPhone to compete with the large Android phones on the market.

I remain unconvinced that Apple needs to make a larger phone. I certainly don't see it as a priority, but I'd guess the path towards a larger iPhone would follow along the line laid out by Marco.

Apple TV as Test Bed

Marco Arment has done some interesting speculating on how Apple uses Apple TV. If he's right, his conclusion about Apple's plans for the next iteration of Apple Tv is very interesting.

Netflix

The Verge has a story on Netflix's television show development plans. I love this quote:

"The goal," says Sarandos, "is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us."

I'm looking forward to anything, and I mean anything, that can shake up the way the traditional networks are doing business. I also have no idea what to make of Netflix, as a company. One day they're doing stupid shit like Quikster, and the next thing you know they're making perfect sense.