Apple is rumored to have commissioned architect Norman Foster to build a new corporate campus. I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s not hard to believe that Steve Jobs would admire Foster’s work.

Affectionately known as the Gherkin, 30 St. Mary Axe in London looks beautiful.

(via AppleInsider)

Nice observation from iPad CTO on how iPad’s elegance makes it more useful:

Not just a blank slate, but a clean one too. How cool is that?

Interesting that Apple’s October 20 event announcement shows a lion (10.7?) and the Apple logo pivoted in 3D. Perhaps we’ll finally see some of those 3D patents in action.

Long popup menus are awkward. Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines recommend limiting them to 12 items. Any more than that, the Guidelines explain, and you’re better off with a scrolling list.

But I think the Guidelines overlook how educational long popup menus can be. Today I discovered Wallis and Futuna, which Wikipedia says is a Polynesian French island territory in the South Pacific with land area of 264 square kilometers and a population of about 15,000.

Wedding photographers offer iPads preloaded with the couple’s wedding album:

This only works because the iPad is itself both beautiful and intuitive. A photographer would need to be confident in both these qualities before presenting an iPad as an option.

NYT on Why HP Fired Mark Hurd:

The way H.P. made its numbers, Mr. House said, was not just cutting any old costs, but by “chopping R.&D.,” which had always been sacred at H.P. The research and development budget used to be 9 percent of revenue, Mr. House told me; now it was closer to 2 percent. “In the personal computer group, it is seven-tenths of 1 percent,” he added. “That’s why H.P. had no response to the iPad.”

Now I know why my HP LaserJet 3055 still won’t scan in Mac OS 10.6.

Your iPhone is a blank slate—a chameleon—by design. Consider what it says that there’s no Apple logo on the front of your iPhone:

Respectful. “You and your content are important.”
Tasteful. “Why mar an elegant design with logos. And how does that help you?”
Determined. “Hey, your carrier’s logo didn’t just not appear there all by itself.”
Confident. “You’ll recognize it’s ours even without the logo.”

Now, consider what it says when a competitor slaps a prominent logo on the front of their device:

Disrespectful. “We’re important. You take second place.”
Tasteless. “The logo stays, period.”
Timid. “Sure, we’re happy to put your carrier logo on there, too!”
Unconfident. “Without the logo, how will you know who made it?”

This goes double for wordmarks, which when placed on the face of a device on which you’ll be reading can only hamper that reading.

In this sense, good design requires courage. Apple’s not shy about displaying their logo, but they are judicious. On a small device like the iPhone, where there’s simply no room to display a logo without intruding upon the content itself, the logo goes on the back.

When Steve Jobs at the recent Antennagate media event said Apple loves its users, this is what he meant: “We work really hard for you, and when a tough decision has to be made, we ask the same question: How does this help the user?”

Derek Powazek, on Thoughts on Designing for iPad:

Nicely put.

If you haven’t yet played Spider: Bryce Mansion (iTunes link) for iPad, you should. You’re a spider in an abandoned mansion, spinning webs by shooting strands of silk between whatever’s handy: picture frames, statues, light fixtures. As you travel from the basement to the roof you uncover intriguing clues about the missing residents and what happened to them.

It’s beautiful. The subtle design really draws you in: different prey make different sounds—and different sounds again when they’re ensnared; spinning a web is near impossible in some spots where juicy flies lie just out of reach. Throughout the many levels gorgeous artwork and delightful detail surprise.

It’s fun. There are many extra ways to play the game, including two-spider play, where you can spin webs with a friend and race to eat the hapless prey. It sounds gruesome, but isn’t. Who knew that being a spider trapping insects in an abandoned mansion could be so enchanting? The thrill of taking down a hornet, or herding dragonflies towards a web adds to the pleasure.

It’s well-written. In two-spider mode the screen zooms in and out as necessary to keep both spiders visible—you over on the far left trying to complete a web between two tables and your friend over on the far right exploring an old cabinet. Despite the zooming and frenzied web spinning and leaping, the gameplay never falters.

Games like this, conceived on the iPhone but coming into their own on the iPad, show a fun future.

blackplasticglasses.com says Apple has aimed the iPad at education, particularly higher education, by first delivering iWork on a great content device:

By putting the horse before the cart, Apple will have given students what they want first, only then following it with the education content they will need. In other words, if the iPad can achieve the market penetration of the iPhone/iPod Touch, Apple will have a legion of students on campuses a year or two from now who will be ready to buy and read their textbooks on the iPad. No education hardware selling needed — just release the content and watch it work.

— The iPad: Gateway Drug to Digital Learning?, blackplasticglasses.com, May 5th, 2010