Considering how good iOS’s image-to-text processing is (especially compared to competitors), Apple Maps should be able to convert menus into standardized POI metadata.

• For those that require assistive devices to read a menu, they could just load the restaurant POI
• Keeps users who are interested in delivery in the Apple Maps app longer, since they don’t need to jump immediately to DoorDash to check the menu if a restaurant looks good
  • Eventually you should be able to order (via applet) directly from the Apple Maps POI card
• Assuming it’s easy for a restaurant owner to upload the menu, it incentivizes businesses to engage with / update Apple Maps content

“You know when you…”, the start to many a good design metaphor.

It’s always sobering to accidentally leave an adblocker off and visit a couple websites. They really are trying to cram ads into any available whitespace.

Updated the home page with a fun new simulation 🙂

Addendum: I thought about this a bit more, and while I still agree with my original sentiments, I figured I’d expand my thinking slightly. But, yes, I think the event was 100% “this could have been an email” territory.

The iPhone and Apple Watch incremental updates absolutely should have been a Newsroom press release.
Sending out announcements and building up expectations only to not deliver to those expectations erodes the positive sentiment people have generated towards Apple announcement events. If you do that too many times, nobody will take them seriously anymore.

The carbon neutral achievements are impressive, but they would have been better utilized in an ad campaign.
Average consumers don’t watch these keynotes. Sure, they get trickle-down information of what Apple released eventually, but you know what people do pay attention to? Apple ads. They have a very distinct style and are (almost) always effective at communicating the benefits of Apple product releases. If anything, having an ad campaign that Apple have revamped the materials of most of their accessories is compelling to get people into stores simple to see (and more importantly) touch the new materials.

Today’s Apple event might have been the first time I didn’t actively watch or follow the updates. When I went back to check what had been announced, I saw that there was nothing of particular significance. This felt like such a non-event that it made me genuinely wonder what these teams have been doing for an entire year.

Perhaps the iPhone is soon reaching the same point MacBook Pros did a few years ago, where a complete overhaul saved the line from being the joke had it become.

So hear me out:

You’d end up with something like this:

I’m actually surprised I haven’t already seen this yet:

• In apartment buildings your garage is often far from your front door
• These wagons have become incredibly popular for this reason, and they’re honestly a great solution for large shopping trips
• In many cars there is usually already a space under the floor of the trunk for a spare tire, with some reconfiguration a tunnel could fit to hold the collapsed wagon

Finally got around to finishing the code for my portfolio page. It’s live now, and I’ll be adding projects there in the coming weeks.

Got to love rediscovering old art.

Via Ars Technica:

“All parts for this vehicle, whether internal or from suppliers, need to be designed and built to sub 10 micron accuracy. That means all part dimensions need to be to the third decimal place in millimeters and tolerances need to be specified in single digit microns. If Lego and soda cans, which are very low cost, can do this, so can we,” Musk wrote, referring to products that are the result of decades of constant manufacturing improvement.

Ah good, so at least when pedestrians are blinded by the stainless steel and then decapitated by one of the many sharp edges they can have some peace in their final moments knowing that this monstrosity has the same tolerances as a soda can.

Design pattern libraries could really super-charge their utility if they were used to propagate component-specific features across all the channels that component appears in.

Example: if you ensure that every video throughout your app is loaded in a common video component, any quality of life improvements or new features would be consistent everywhere.