I have used and loved my iPad for the past two weeks and it has greatly changed my media consumption habits. The iPad is the first device I look at in the morning, besides my alarm clock, and the last device I attend to before falling asleep.

Here are some of my most used apps.

Newspaper apps
My favourite app for news about Switzerland is Tagesanzeiger. Regretfully, 20min did not get the idea of a design for the iPad right, so it’s basically the iPhone app with more screen estate.

And for international media of course the notable apps from New York Times Editor’s Choice, BBC News and USA Today.

RSS reader
Reeder app is not just the best RSS reader on the iPhone; it’s also one of the best iPad apps I have seen so far. With its nice pinch-to-expand feature, similar to the Photo app, where you can get a small preview of the unread feed in a folder, or the unread articles in a feed.

Productivity apps
Because I’m already using Things on my Macbook Pro and on the iPhone, it was a no-brainer that I would like and use Things for iPad, although it’s quite expensive.

Then there is Evernote, which is my favorite app for taking notes, best of all it syncs between the desktop app, iPhone/iPad app and, if I’m not on my computer, also with the web interface.

Media apps
Radios is an app for listening to Swiss radio stations developed by the Swiss company Liip. And they are going to release the source code under an open source license soon.

We’ve been using Campfire (37signals’ group chat application) for quite some time now and it has helped our internal communication when working together. But we’ve also sworn to a proper desktop client to use its extra features. A new player is on the market and it’s called Propane, which basically is a simple desktop client for Campfire.

Propane adds more functionalities to easily use Campfire – with features such as drag’n'drop images and files to upload, name auto-completion and a smoother interface, Propane is what we’ve found to be a better alternative to running Campfire through the browser.

Check out both Campfire and Propane to experience how your internal communication can be improved.

The camera

The new Nikon D90 is a 12.9 megapixel digital SLR camera, with movie capture at up to 1280 x 720 (720p) 24 fps. That’s right! a DLSR that’s also a HD video camera. Quite simply it’s stunning :)

Click on ‘HD’ to watch the full movie in High Definition on the Vimeo site

Nikon D90 test from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Switzerland

For the Swiss launch, Nikon dropped cameraman Robert Bösch and speed climber Ueli Steck onto the Eiger by helicopter, leaving Ueli to climb the north face and Robert to film it using the D90. The quality of the resulting film (and the speef that Ueli ascends to the peak) is remarkable.

Spoiled Milk and Nikon

Spoiled Milk worked with closely with Köder und Stolp and Nikon to develop a Flash microsite to support the Eiger TV commercials and nationwide launch.

Visit the microsite

I recently bought myself a MacBook and have now also started to do all my work on Mac OS X.

It has to be said that I used to be quite the Bill Gates evangelist up until a couple of months ago when I got a new PC laptop with Vista installed. I don’t have much more to say other than it crashed and burned a couple of weeks ago. It might have been a virus, it might have been Vista being tired of my almost reckless use of the OS. Seriously, you can’t find a damn thing on there for all the pop-up warnings. It was clear that it was time for something reliable and where I felt like I was in control, but not too much.

I thought I’d become of age and stop my near neurotic obsession with a computer that I can feel and screw up as much as I want to, and buy myself an Apple computer. There has been a major change in how I work with computers, between when I was 14 years old and now 10 years later – my focus has changed a lot. As a young and inexperienced boy, I used to spend hours upon hours trying to figure out what to do next – I had already cleaned my desktop five times! So I began to go deeper and found out that a PC can take you as far as a black hole. It’s endless (are black holes endless?). And that’s probably a good thing for some people…

But I use a computer at least 14 hours a day now and need to just focus on my work. Here’s a small list of must-haves for that situation:

* I need to be able to rely on my computer. I don’t want an “UNEXPECTED ERROR!!!” or such useless nonsense.

* I need to be able to focus on my work and not on a cluttered visual mess.

* I need to not be distracted by idiotic pop-ups warning me of things that I learnt as a child. Small useful notifications will do, but silently taking the intelligent choice is preferred.

* I need to quickly test across various platforms and browsers, while coding XHTML/CSS.

It’s clear that with the new Intel Macs, I can cross the latter off the list. Running Parallels is a dream. I can even access my netbanking through IE6 (the most reliable way to use Danske Bank’s services) in a small window, while still Exposé-ing and drag’n'dropping.

I think I’ll make another list. Here’s the reasons why Mac just works better than PC (i.e. Vista).

* You feel in control of what’s happening. You’re accepting the “vital” changes, but acknowledge that most processes and settings are hidden, because you won’t actually need to change them. Someone has already figured out that this is the way a person wants to work and want to save you time.

* There’s an application for everything that I had on my PC. I have yet to find a Windows-only program that I need, where I haven’t found a great Mac alternative (well except for a dodgy, broken web browser, but who needs that anyway!)

* No constant re-booting. I haven’t re-booted in two days. The energy saving settings are amazing.

* There are so many small, helpful workflow features such as Exposé and Spaces. I can organize my processes and not worry about them being back to square one the next time there’s an OS update. I use four spaces: 1 = Web/Mail (Firefox, Thunderbird) – 2 = Instant messaging (Campfire, Skype, Adium) – 3 = Development (Photoshop, Textmate, Versions, etc.) – 4 = Entertainment (iTunes).

I like Mac now, but I have no regrets about not switching earlier. I have used older versions of Mac OS before and they’ve never impressed the way that Mac OS X has. This is not an advertisement for Apple – it’s an ode to better usability, natural logic and swallowing your pride to make a change sometime. Less is more.

We presented our work and ideals at last night’s SweetTalk Copenhagen. We met lots of nice people and had a great time. The event was filmed and I believe the footage, along with some more photos and copies of our slides, will be available shortly on the SweetTalk site.

Tak for sidst!

Our first SCIENCE vs ART film evening was a lot of fun. With support from Wholphin DVD and TED, plus a live lecture from Tor Kristensen we had an excellent mix of entertainment and education. A full schedule of what took place is below. If you’d like to know when the next free film evening will be then please sign up to our mailing list on the contact page.

You can download a PDF of the informational pamphlet we distributed on the evening here.

• Are you the favourite person of anybody? – Miguel Arteta & Miranda July
• How cooperation (eventually) trumps conflict – Robert Wright
• Kitchen – Alice Winocour
• Writer - Carson Mell
• Yes, design can make you happy – Stefan Sagmeister
• High Falls – Andrew Zuckerman
• Eno Go Home – Tor Kristensen [live lecture]
• An atheist’s call to arms -Richard Dawkins
• Ballistic Jaw Propulsion of Trap-Jaw Ants -Scientific Discovery
• A 10th Dimension – Rob Bryanton
• Heavy Metal Drummer – Toby MacDonald & Luke Morris
• Death of a Hen – Brian Dewan

Our cinema.

The schedule screen.

Backstage operations.

Stefan Sagmeister discussing “Yes, design can make you happy”.

Some of the attendees eating our homemade cakes in the break.

Our pamphlets containing more information about the evening’s events.

I, like many other people, are simply in love with Danish wonder collective Efterklang. How can you not be? Anyway, this post isn’t really about Efterklang specifically, so I better change my course quic… Oh, well it is… about Efterklang, but mainly about the wonderful work of Nanna Hvass, the creator of the amazing, entertaining puzzle cards hiding in the Efterklang mini-album “Under Giant Trees”. Those cards… are seriously amazing. I don’t know what to say. So, super, super Kudos to Nanna Hvass (http://www.myspace.com/nan_na) for that tiny stroke of genius. I would have posted this earlier, but I just recently found out that you can see a puzzle card demo on YouTube, so now it’s perfect.

Check it out:

Be sure to remind Nanna how great her stuff is. Visit her MySpace!

As you may have noticed, we’ve had some server problems recently. Around 4pm last Wednesday our external web server decided to suffer from serious memory corruptions and shut down. As this machine not only runs our own website, email and other distributed services, it is also host to many of our clients’ sites. Needless to say, we were anxious to get it quickly fixed, but instead discovered a completely incompetent support team on the other end of the phone.

Hostway (UK) provide 24-hour support, but staff it with lethargic and unwilling people. During the following 2 days and the 14 phone calls we made, the only answer that we were given was that an “engineer would be looking at the problem in the next few hours”. None of the promised return phone calls came, and every single request I made for assistance was met with a jobsworth attitude. On Friday morning after being told by a customer support representative that he didn’t have the authority to restart the server, I asked to speak directly to an engineer who did have authority and was given the response that they don’t have phones.

By this point things were desperate, so we took a day out and rebuilt our entire server systems with the fantastic MediaTemple. We’ve already been working with them for our Data Carton project and their support has always been intelligent, personal and prompt, so it was a simple choice. As for Hostway, the old server is still down and we’re still waiting for that phone call three days later.

I apologise for the tone of this post, I’m sure no one likes reading winging articles about hosting companies, but this blog is also a good way to publicise the failings of Hostway and the ill-fated support ticket number #11279839.

I’m fascinated by analysing design in places where design is not usually required to be analysed.

During a recent trip to London, we had some time to spare before a meeting and found ourselves drinking coffee in a typical greasy spoon café. While rummaging through the supplied sugars and sweeteners, I came across Sweet’N Low and its garishly pink coloured sachets.

What really caught my eye was the licensed use of the Pink Panther in four collectible illustrations. The process and decision making involved with this bizarre association has been troubling me for days. I’m genuinely intrigued by brand promotion in specialist markets (such as tiny, disposable packaging you’d consider to be overlooked by everyone who used it).

Upon our return to Copenhagen, I finally found their reasoning on an official FAQ, along with a number of recipes utilising the aspartame compound.

What does the Pink Panther have to do with Sweet’N Low?
The Pink Panther is a very popular character, well known and beloved by generations of people all over the world. And so is Sweet’N Low!

I can’t help it. I love consumer technology and I love to waste valuable hours attempting to understand what makes it worth my time.

I also love buttons. I think there’s something honest about a button. It does just one thing. One simple thing for every push you thrust upon it. Well, in principle it does, sometimes hardware limitations (or faulty programming) mean the software fails to respond fast (or slow) enough for the system to magically “take your order”. But it’s not the button’s fault. It is never the button’s fault. Not even in the unlikely event of excessive dirt from your pocket jamming its way in between the button and its neighbouring component. It might stick, but still, it’s not the button’s fault. You should clean your jacket or write a letter to the designer who left that gap between our faithful button and its surrounding environment.

So, where am I going with this?

Touchpads! Touchscreens! The lovable iPhone, the new LG phones and the latest PMP’s (portable media players) all have one. Why are devices suddenly being dressed up in this, so far, inferior technology called touch sensitivity? I don’t get it. I despise, dislike and fear touch capable surfaces and software.

Firstly, I hate fingerprints more than I hate “Gilmore Girls”. Fingerprints are nasty, on CD’s, on DVD’s, on glass, on paper… everywhere! Fingerprints are bad and I cannot see a reason for giving them more room to breed.

Secondly, touch technology is still in its infancy and I simply don’t believe the hype yet. Despite the smudges, it still seems far too unpredictable. If you think there’s bad software out there now, believe me, there’s a lot worse to come when companies with less prowess than Apple try and keep up.

Why cant simple things just get a chance to survive? Does everything have to be “sensitive” and “magical”?

Technology and its evil spawn of gadgets are supposed to be our slaves, so why should we suddenly learn to caress them as if they were pets? Can we just retain the simple pleasure of pushing buttons for a little longer? Please?