A difference that makes a difference

A lovely little thing I just noticed this morning.

As you probably know, when you set an iPhone to charge and it’s oriented horizontally it now goes into a sort of ‘ambient mode’ for which there are various skins/settings.

One of my favourites that I discovered pretty accidentally is this clock with very jolly type. I’ve been using it for about a week but this morning I noticed something lovely.

The small ‘complication’ that indicates when I have my alarm set for nestles up against the bottom of the ‘1’ numeral here.

But then – a minute later…

As I said. Lovely.

Perhaps I ‘over-respond’ to gestures like this, having some insight into perhaps how it was made, or having been in similar situations where something like this is proposed, but – deprioritised, put in the ‘backlog’, interrogated or cross-referenced against some bloodless ‘user story’ for the value it would return on investment.

But – that value is not easily captured.

What this detail indicates is care, and joy

A generosity in the team, or individual that made this, that I feel when I see this every day.

A difference that makes a difference.

More please.

iPhone 3.0: everyware-ready?

Apple’s iPhone 3.0 announcements caused a kerfuffle today, but it seems to me insane that the thing that’s being talked about most is… Cut and Paste?

At the time the event was running I summed my feelings up in <140 chars thusly:

Twitter / Matt Jones: of course, while I'm shaki ...

I mean – they’d announced that you could create custom UIs that worked with physical peripherals – they’d had someone from Johnson & Johnson on stage to show a diabetes sensor companion to the iphone – the nearest thing to AP’s Charmr you could imagine!

Then my friend Josh said:

“Am now wondering whether a bluetooth/serial module and arduino will be able to talk with iPhone. And, pachube

A rapid prototyping platform for physical/digital interactions? A mobile sensor platform for personal and urban informatics that’s going mainstream?

Imagine – AppleStores with shelves of niche, stylish sensor products for sale in a year’s time – pollution sensors, particulates analysis, spectroscopy, soil analysis, cholesterol? All for the price of a Nike+ or so?

Come on, that’s got to be more exciting than cut and paste?

—–
UPDATE

Tom Igoe points out in his comment correctly that I have been remiss in not mentioning Tellart’s NadaMobile project from late last year – which allows you to easily prototype physical/digital/sensor apps on the iPhone through a cable that cleverly connects to the audio jack. It’s also totally open-source.

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