Brooklyn-based Makerbot Industries, which makes 3D home printers, on Wednesday announced that it is opening its first retail location in Manhattan and launching a new version of its printer. Read more »
With the goal of becoming nothing less than the world’s next big design brand, commerce site Fab Wednesday announced that it had raised $105 million. Read more »
Stockholm-based Bloglovin says it has raised $1 million from Betaworks, Lerer Ventures and other investors to speed its expansion. Read more »
Between Pinterest and Fab and Fancy and Svpply and Wanelo and Lyst and many other similar startups, the social-meets-design-meets-commerce space is nothing if not crowded. But a couple of former MySpacers believe they can push through the pack with Uncovet, an e-commerce site rolling out to the public today. Read more »
Just months after Germany’s notorious Samwer brothers courted controversy by cloning design sales site Fab.com, they are about to close their copycat site, Bamarang, down — folding it into its more successful stablemate, WestWing. Read more »
Project Decor, a New York-based social home decorating platform, will open its site for an invite-only beta launch in June. Read more »
Ahead of receiving his knighthood from the Queen, Apple’s British design chief Jonathan Ive has given a rare interview to the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph, outlining some of his thoughts and feelings on how the company’s products achieve a “sense of care.” Read more »
Fab announced a collection of updates intended to make it easier for users to socialize and discover content on the site, and said it was dropping Google+ for Pinterest. Read more »
Changes brought in by much-hyped Berlin startup Amen were partially intended to stop the opinion service being used as a messaging platform — ironic, given that the CTO was a key early developer at Twitter. Read more »
How can consumer electronics makers avoid merely matching new Apple features and try to think ahead of the company’s designers? Apple design guru Jonathan Ive did a rare Q&A about Apple’s design process, how inspirations become actual products and why copycat designs often fail. Read more »
Monoqi, the European competitor to design flash sales site Fab.com, launches this week. What makes it different? CEO Simon Fabich says it’s a “curated design platform” that sports a less commercial taste than its American rival. Read more »
With its new iOS app, Clear, Realmac Software has taken the “less is more” axiom to its ultimate conclusion. Fjord’s Alfred Lui and Aynne Valencia explain why we’ll soon see more of this stripped-down approach to interface design, thanks to three big industry trends. Read more »
Design shopping site Fab.com is taking a big step toward becoming the Amazon of design with the introduction of five weekly specialty shops for categories like fashion, pets and food that will more than triple the number of products Fab offers at any given time. Read more »
One of the world’s most popular travel websites has decided mobile is better. On Monday, Kayak will reveal an updated design for its eight-year-old site. The interesting part? Kayak is now taking design cues from its recently updated iPad and iPhone apps, not vice versa. Read more »
Apple makes beautiful things, but sometimes Apple fans can make them even more beautiful. This new iPhone SJ concept from ADR Studios in Italy (the same folks who created that iCam mock-up) is a perfect example. Take a look and feel sad it isn’t real. Read more »
Computers — the boxes that we consult — are wonderful, but they take away from what it is to be human and to really connect with one another, so the challenge and opportunity that lies ahead is how to get the computers out of computing. Read more »
A new biography of Steve Jobs quotes Bill Gates as saying that the Apple co-founder “never really understood much about technology.” While the Microsoft billionaire likely saw that as a put-down, technology is arguably the least important thing about Apple’s most successful products. Read more »
News of Steve Jobs’ death was greeted with an outpouring of emotion by Apple fans around the world, in the form of moving tributes and memorials. We’ll see many more, no doubt, but we wanted to take a moment to highlight a few of those gestures. Read more »
As revolutionary as the mobile ecosystem is, it’s the interactions of more intelligent connected devices with people outside the context of phones or computers that will drive more innovation says Mark Rolston, the chief creative officer at Frog Design at an event on Monday. Read more »
Apple and its fans will no doubt feel the loss of Steve Jobs as CEO, but while the man may have been the primary architect and master builder of the company that has sparked multiple computing industry revolutions, he isn’t the lynchpin. Read more »
Maybe it’s the influence of Google+, but suddenly everyone seems to be talking about what’s wrong with Twitter. First, blogger Robert Scoble said it was “boring,” and now Slate columnist Farhad Manjoo says it needs to lose the 140-character limit. Both are missing the point. Read more »
Autodesk is making its Inventor Publisher Mobile Viewer app available today on Android. The program allows users to view 3-D color instructions of a product, allowing them to pan around and see a step-by-step process of assembly complete with animations. Read more »
London design consultancy BERG has spent the last couple of years carving out a strong reputation with its futuristic films and approach to innovative-but-tasteful technology. But it doesn’t just want to build ideas: now it’s moving into making products. Read more »
The iPod nano wristband accessories Scott Wilson designed back shortly after Apple introduced a new model of its smallest-screened iPod have gone from community-funded success to Apple Store shelves. The LunaTik and TikTok watchband kits go on sale in Apple Stores across North America this week. Read more »
There are definitely some great tools for the iPad to help solidify your app concept from a more abstract point of view. Looking at the more tangible side of visual design, I’ve found the following tools available in the Mac App Store to be quite helpful. Read more »
Apple’s next iPhone will resemble the last, if early case designs are any indication of what the company has planned. Alibaba.com has listings for a number of iPhone 5 cases, which are listed as also compatible with the iPhone 4. Read more »
Who would have thought, in early 2000, that Apple would end the decade as the most valuable technology company on the planet? Join me for a visual history of Apple products throughout the decade, and marvel at the software and hardware design ingenuity that was. Read more »
The touch interface has effectively taken over, thanks to the success of the iPhone, and every mobile device maker is trying to catch up and figure out how to use it, mobile designer and former Nokia staffer Christian Lindholm told the GigaOM Mobilize conference on Thursday. Read more »
Back in July, I wrote an article rounding up some of the top RSS readers for the iPad. Since posting, I’ve started using a new client, River of News. River of News is simple, elegant, and beautiful. Twitter embraces very different design principles. Which is better? Read more »
A new idea is catching on. The idea is simple: build a Bluetooth keyboard right into an iPad case, and you’ve got yourself a total netbook replacement in a single, svelte package. It’s a watershed moment for the iPad, and for tablets in general. Read more »
Now that Apple’s sixth-generation iPod nanos are actually in people’s hands, I thought I’d take a closer look at the key value differences between the new and the old. It’s definitely got style, but is the new iPod nano really worth it? Read more »
The new Retina Display on the iPhone 4 is simply stunning and gorgeous. However, the increased resolution has meant that developers need to increase the resolution of the assets used in their apps. Is it really such a big deal? Read more »
MobileMe has just gotten a makeover, featuring the new webmail, now out of beta, and a refreshed navigation system. In addition to the new features that came with the Mail beta, Apple has also unwrapped a few additional features. Read more »
If you’re a designer, especially for the web, a color picker or color sampling tool is almost certainly part of your arsenal. But did you know that OS X actually already includes one? Read more »
I don’t think I’ve ever had a device as throughly beaten as this old Mini. So, imagine my surprise when, after months of neglect and mistreatment, the Mini powered on and filled my daughter’s room with music once more. Read more »
Dribbble (yes, that is three b’s in the site’s title) is a kind of “show and tell” community for to show off the designs they’re working on, discuss their work and look for inspiration from fellow designers. Read more »
The iPhone OS is pitched as the entire Internet in your pocket…minus Flash. This works most of the time, but what if you just want to design a site or form that looks like a native iPhone App? This is where iWebKit comes in. iWebKit is […] Read more »
Why do so many Apple products succeed when their competitors do not, even though they have more features? Because the company focuses its design thinking on several features that really matter, and ignores everything else, says Gmail creator and FriendFeed co-founder Paul Buchheit. Read more »
When I recently came across Ember, a service similar to Scrnshots but with more contemporary features, a smarter interface and cleaner design, I was keen to try it out. Read more »
Few design trends for electronic devices have had such a seismic impact as the revolution of smallness. It’s not just that the sizes of devices have shrunk; the mindsets of designers and the whole culture of design have shifted toward all things Lilliputian. Read more »
