Mike Rundle nails it over at Flyosity:

“If someone is trying to understand why Apple products do well and they’re putting them in a feature comparison matrix against competitors, they’re already doing it wrong. When the iPod first launched it famously had “less space than a Nomad” but it ended up dominating the industry. The specs for Nokia’s high-end smartphones blow the iPhone’s away but their U.S. market sales are abysmal and almost non-existent. The iPad doesn’t compare well against a netbook in a feature-to-feature lineup but it has over 2,000,000 sales in less than 2 months.

Apple’s products sell because they focus on the overall user experience and how people actually use the device, from when they buy it in an Apple Store to the first time they open the lid on a MacBook Pro all the way through its lifetime. Apple treats each product as something special by itself; a treat for the person who bought it. Even the cheapest iPod nano has beautifully-executed packaging while other companies throw their most expensive products in a cheap, brown, cardboard box.”

I wonder if this concept can be applied to any other company competing with Apple. Is there a game you can’t Microsoft at? Is there a game you can’t beat Dell at? Samsung, Nokia and other follow.

The very last competitor Apple has to tear down is prejudice.

If you were following us last night, firstly we want to thank you for your much needed input and for being quality followers to our site. We think it’s fantastic that people would actually stick around and want to listen to us. And last night was a first, because we decided to try Google Wave as a live blogging platform instead of Cover it Live. I think it worked pretty well, and it was a good event where we could try ideas and get feedback. We’ve gotten lots of compliments, lots of complaints, but all feedback is positive in this instance; we really want to learn where we can improve our live blogging experience. Federico will be chiming in at the end of this post with his thoughts of course, but I’d like to kick things off with Google Wave, what’s good about it, what we did poorly plus what could improve, and where we go from here.

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The problems over at Foxconn have been a highly discussed subject in every technology weblog, and if you consider that Apple is somehow involved in this discussion (Foxconn is the manufacturer of many components used by Apple) you realize that the problem is quite big. Apple itself has released a statement last week, in which they say that they’re “saddened and upset” at Foxconn suicides and that they’re “in direct contact with Foxconn senior management”.

But, someone decided to send an email to Steve Jobs about the matter, and he replied. An interesting discussion arose between the two, and we’ve got the exclusive conversation with screenshots after the break.

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Justin Williams (@justin) developer at Second Gear, has written a very insightful piece about switching to Android. Must read.

“After a week of using Android, I’m conflicted. If you had asked me last Wednesday what phone i’d be using a week from now I’d without a doubt say the iPhone. Now that we’re here, however, I am sticking with Android until the new iPhone ships. Widgets, home screen customization, background processes and the notification system are things that I’ve grown incredibly fond of and would miss if I went back to the iPhone today.”

[via Daring Fireball]

This weekend, an editor at TUAW almost died at the hands of Windows. Yes, sometimes the Windows experience does suck, but was this necessary?

While some would argue it’s a combination of all three (use 7-zip next time dude), I would argue he shouldn’t have started with Windows Vista. Secondly, why blame Microsoft for all these problems when the author happened to buy a shitty webcam that wasn’t really Mac compatible in the first place? Come on. Also, Windows has always had a taskbar - it’s nothing like the Mac’s object dock.

Flaws in the whole, “It’s all Microsoft’s fault,” aside, it does bring back memories of the all the times I spent finding drivers online. For a rather lengthy read on what could have been summed up in one sentence, “Installing hardware sucks!” TUAW has a rather compelling and way overdramatic article on what  makes the Mac a simple platform to use. You decide: is it that far from the truth?   … I think he might be stretching it.

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Andy Ihnatko over at Macworld:

“The iPad has been available for a few weeks now and I’m disappointed to find that one of my predictions seems to be coming true: the iPad won’t truly be “out” for another few months, when developers have finally had enough time with a real iPad in their hands to design true iPad-focused apps. Most of the freshman class seem to be either embiggened editions of iPhone hits or apps that bear the fingerprints of mouse-and-keyboard user interface design.

The brilliance of the iPad is the understanding that many notebook features aren’t relevant in a slate computer. I’m likely to use external hard drives and printers with a notebook. Not so with a slate. So why bother cutting three USB ports into it, and adding all kinds of troublesome third-party device drivers to the OS? And why bother adding all kinds of features to an app that will only be used 1% of the time, and which ruin the clean lines of the interface every time the app is launched?”

Very interesting design and usability analysis of the new MobileMe interface over at Graphicpeel, covering pretty much every aspect of it. I like the use of popovers and the new toolbar, for instance.

Steam for Mac is coming in a week, and we can’t wait to try it out. But, I think it’s a given that the app doesn’t look very Mac-like and that Valve simply went for a unified interface design across all the platforms Steam will be available on.

Can Steam for Mac look better on OS X? Sure, and Sebastian de With (@cocoia) gives us a peek of what he’d like it to be.

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As I held the iPad in my hands for the first time I knew that it was going to change something about the way I consume the internet and produce content for MacStories. I mean, I had no justified reason to believe the iPad was going to change anything, at least not after holding it for a few seconds and simply staring at its screen. But just like every revolution in our fast running technology world, it’s about the details, even those that you don’t see but perceive after a few seconds. My first encounter with the iPad was an impression, more than an approach.

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