Today I played with the iPhone for about an hour in the store. In person it’s better than anything you’ve read. I don’t understand how Apple got the phone to be so “snappy” (aka. responsive). You can switch tasks, watch videos, scroll around on a website, all without any lag. It’s amazing for a phone. I’ve used Sony, Nokia, Blackberry, Palm, and LG phones. None which come close to matching the iPhone’s responsiveness and overall aesthetics. My current E62 takes 5+ seconds whenever I click on a application, and the multimedia features are about useless.

It’s really like going from Windows 3.1 from 1994 to Apple’s OSX in 2007. They both have “windows”, let you use multiple applications at the same time, both have calculators, and both let you type Word documents – but once you get past the list of features and actually use it – it’s obviously a world of difference.

The one thing that was holding me back from getting an iPhone was the lack of corporate email support, but after playing with it today, that seems minor…

I had someone ask me if I had any advice about situations where clients were trying to ruin a project. I’ve had more then my fare share of these – as I’m sure many designers have. Maybe it’s something as simple as adding a ugly logo, or maybe it’s something more serious that hinders the usability or usefulness of the site. Whatever it is, maybe this list of ten ideas will help:

• Communicate your a highly skill professional and they are paying you for your skills as a designer and a consultant.
• Let them know you keep up on all trends and did competitive research – you know what you’re talking about
• Use the analogy of architect vs. bricklayer, you’re playing an architect role (you have the experience and skills) – if they want a bricklayer you’ll point them in the right direction
• Let them know you have many clients and don’t like to take work where you’re not taken seriously and maybe it’s time to help them find someone else (if you don’t need the money…)
• Request some “testing” on your design (this is a gamble) – enough good feedback will squash any “i’m not sure” feelings
• Ask them what they feel the current design is not communicating to the audience, take notes and revise the design (away from the client)
• Focus in on one of the changes they are requesting and try to fit it into the design, that may make them loose focus on the other changes (“This change was a good idea! the other did not really work in the design”)
• Let them know you’re into the whole experience of the site you’re creating, and you feel like these changes will hurt their business (or the usability of the site, the page load times, etc…)
• If you have a contract, talk about how the changes will effect the development and it’s adding more scope to the project.
• (Again) If you don’t need the money, walk away. Let them know you don’t like to work this way and you’ll be more then happy to try and find them someone else who could help – but not anyone you like

Today’s the day… The app l spend the most time in (besides good old Firefox) has turned universal. PhotoShop CS3 is here.

I’ve posted some screenshots on my flickr account. So far so good, it’s faster – has some nice UI changes, and it’s faster. Did I mention it’s faster? My MacBook Pro is loving it!

Paul over at internetfamous.net interviewed me on a variety of topics… Check it out!

My .mac is up for renewal and I’m not going to renew this year. I just received this email:

Thank you for being a member of .Mac! Your .Mac membership is set to renew on October 07, 2006 PDT; however, the credit card information you provided when you joined .Mac may now be invalid or out-of-date. Please check your credit card information in your Account Settings to update it (if you want to renew) or to remove it and uncheck auto-renew (if you do not). We appreciate your attention to this matter.

Now the problem with this is you can’t remove you’re credit card info (like the email says) – and if you can’t remove your credit card info, because then the form won’t validate – you can’t un-check auto-renew either.

So here’s me trying to un-check the auto-renew option…