Google, recently on Twitter, announcing their adoption of Apple’s UIKit design language instead of using their Material design:

“Does a switch really need to be built custom in alignment with a generic design system? Or might it be sufficient to simply use the system solution and move on?”

I don’t buy Google’s explanation. Google is trying to say that UIKit wasn’t good enough for them, so they went their own way. Bullshit. The other way to look at this: building native apps is a better way to go than trying to build apps on unifying frameworks.

Today, Vanmoof announced their latest e-bike, the Vanmoof V model. The announcement video, reminiscent of Apple’s product reveals, is light on details. The singular design, in white, is both intriguing and looks heavy on the look. Some specs are impressive, on paper. But, there is something absolutely troubling: the V model is going to ship near the end of 2022. Yep, in more than a year. What is going on here? What this premature announcement could mean for Vanmoof? Well, obviously they are trying to gain mind share among potential e-bike buyers, and they are afraid to lose market share.

We’ll be developing the VanMoof V over the upcoming year, and will keep you updated with news and features as the bike comes to life.

Can you imagine if Apple were to announce a new flagship product iteration, the next iPhone, more than a year in advance? I wonder if Vanmoof is aware of the Osborne effect. 🧐

I don’t know who got the idea at AppleInsider of putting video auto-play right in the middle of every articles, but this doesn’t enable a great reading experience. Even worst, scrolling the page to the bottom while reading will put the video in the bottom right corner on top of the content. It makes me wonder if I should stop reading their content altogether. Ads are bad but this is even worst. It’s not a good reading experience at all. Please, reconsider. Thanks. A long time reader.

So, you’ve got an e-Bike. Good for you. I’m jealous. You’ve got an Apple Watch too. Good for you, just like me. Now you want to go for a ride and record this activity with your Apple Watch. Which activity type will you select? Selecting Bike will probably record wrong data as you can move much faster than a regular bike and getting lower than normal heartbeat rate. Should Apple provide another type of biking activity?

Photo by Wolfram Bölte on Unsplash

This is the Opal webcam. For the Mac. Made by Apple people. Can’t wait to try this out. Not cheap, though. Not ready yet either.

Can Medium stop reimagining their app and fix it?

Consider this screenshot of the Medium.app updates streak. It’s not a joke. At least one update a week for reimagining their app. I used to like Medium but their app, probably a major conduit to their content, is broken on the iPad and it never gets fixed (mainly layout issues).

How are we supposed to take online publishers seriously when for months they let bugs hinder the user experience of… reading their content? I greatly reduced my use of Medium for reading content, partly because of this.

Matt Birchler had an interesting blog post this week about a screenshot of his 2013 iPhone home screen. There are a few interesting things to note. In 2013, it was the arrival of the controversial iOS 7 redesign. It’s interesting to look at the Camera+ icon design which was still not updated for the new style. The dock design style was pretty basic and felt out of place. A few apps are not longer among us these days: Path (which was really a great design example) but most of the third-party apps are still available today.

I wish I had kept screen shots of previous home screen arrangements in the past. Something that I have kept is many screen shots of my password manager user interface dating back pre-iOS 7 era. Here is an example below. When I saw iOS 7, I didn’t have the courage to rework my design. The development of my app stopped right there. I made five thousands dollars with this adventure, between 2009 and 2013. Now I’m using a combinaison of 1Password and Apple’s passwords vault.

Again, Matt Birchler:

technology and improved general productivity always had the promise of letting us work less, and yet today we work more than ever and have less than before Source: A Four Day Work Week? Yes, Please!

I sure wish we had this four days work week. I cannot see the day it will become reality. The problem in IT where I work, there is a worsening trend of a lack of qualified people for many IT fields. This trend puts pressure on those who are qualified to do more working hours.