Cultured Code has published their iterations for Things for iPhone. Things for iPhone’s UI looks rather simple, so it’s interesting to see the initial sketches and iterations that went into its design.

(Via Via Daring Fireball..)

Wil Shipley wrote today probably the definitive article on Apple’s App Store censorship, but I found this part particularly interesting:

The App Store needs to think of itself as two different parts - it already implements these parts, but the people who run the store need to understand that these two parts are fundamentally separate:

• Part one is a giant warehouse, where every piece of software that is not actively harmful is kept in case someone wants to buy it (remember, users can always get a refund). This warehouse can be searched with titles and keywords or an item can be directly linked.

• Part two is like a traditional storefront, with limited real estate, so only the best or coolest applications are highlighted. It’s a recommendation engine, that highlights popular, highly-rated, or innovative applications.”

(Via the Ranchero.)

This is an issue that has bothered me, too — how does the App Store scale? — and this is the first solution I’ve heard. I like the idea of having a “back room” where the majority of software titles are housed, and the storefront, where Apple displays the applications which deserve exposure.

Oddly, part of the reason I like this is it brings company website marketing back into the game. If your application depends upon traditional marketing, like word of mouth and advertising, you must build and maintain a well-designed website for your company and application.

This hasn’t been true thus far — with a few notable exceptions, like Tap Tap Tap and Cultured Code, companies have relied on their application’s iTunes store page to market the application, and that’s disappointing. Part of the Mac community’s magic, at least for me, is the excellent websites independent developers build for their applications. Panic’s website, Shipley’s Delicious Monster, Checkout’s website, and Cultured Code’s website all provide great inspiration for web designers. And, frankly, I love finding a new Mac application in part to see its website — the company’s website design is an important part of the application for me.

If Apple models the App Store around Shipley’s model (and even if it doesn’t, as the App Store is developing in a similar way, anyway — paging through certain categories is impossible), then application developers will have no choice but to create these websites again, and I will be a happy man.

Apple has denied another iPhone app, MailWrangler, because it duplicates functionality of the built in Mail app without adding “sufficient” new features.

MailWrangler uses WebKit to access Gmail’s iPhone web interface, which users can do through Safari. MailWrangler’s added functionality is that users would not have to log in each time to access separate Gmail accounts like they do when using the web interface.

Granted, its added utility is not that great, and MailWrangler being denied is less egregious than Podcaster, but what is Apple’s criteria for what is and is not sufficient added functionality for duplicate applications? Apple needs to make these guidelines more clear, and I have a sneaking suspicion that they are, so they can avoid this mess every time they deny an application because of duplicated functionality.

David Brooks of the NYTimes:

This observation is then followed by a string of ethereal gottas and shoulds. We gotta have smart regulation that offers security but doesn’t stifle innovation. We gotta have rules that inhibit reckless gambling without squelching sensible risk-taking. We should limit excesses during booms and head off liquidations when things go bad.

It all sounds great (like buying a house with no money down), but do you mind if I do a little due diligence?

In the first place, the idea that our problems stem from light regulation and could be solved by more regulation doesn’t fit all the facts. The current financial crisis is centered around highly regulated investment banks, while lightly regulated hedge funds are not doing so badly. Two of the biggest miscreants were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which, in theory, ‘were probably the world’s most heavily supervised financial institutions,’ according to Jonathan Kay of The Financial Times.

(Via Marginal Revolution.)

Threats, bribes, and shameless corruption. The Washington Post has a long-ranging story on Fannie Mae’s business — securing special favors and winks and nods from government oblivious, or all too knowing, of the monster it created.

This is what happens when government is allowed to intervene in the economy to further its goals:

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac enjoyed the nearest thing to a license to print money. The companies borrowed money at below-market interest rates based on the perception that the government guaranteed repayment, and then they used the money to buy mortgages that paid market interest rates. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan called the difference between the interest rates a “big, fat gap.” The budget office study found that it was worth $3.9 billion in 1995. By 2004, the office would estimate it was worth $20 billion.

As a result, the great risk to the profitability of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was not the movement of interest rates or defaults by borrowers, the concerns of a normal financial institution. Fannie Mae’s risk was political, the concern that the government would end its special status.

So the companies increasingly used their windfall for a massive campaign to protect that status.

The company is not subject to market forces, because the government will bail them out. Instead of focusing on sound business, they focused on receiving special favors from the government. The Clinton administration allowed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to become this corrupt because they provided affordable loans, which fulfilled Clinton’s agenda of increasing home ownership, even if it meant complete and utter corruption in Fannie Mae and government.

The Bush administration fell into the same trap with their “Ownership Society” goal. The ends for both administrations justified the means, and now we are seeing the results. This is what happens when government is allowed to intervene in the market so forcefully.

Crooked Timber writes on perhaps the most dangerous effect of this financial crisis - the discrediting of free-markets, even if they are not to blame:

Very roughly speaking, when a crisis occurs that is difficult or impossible for the prevailing wisdom to explain or deal with, intellectual entrepreneurs have an opportunity to create a new (partly self-reinforcing) collective wisdom. We’re most likely in just such a crisis now. Which set of intellectual entrepreneurs are going to succeed in reshaping a new collective wisdom – economic nationalists like Sarkozy and Putin, social democratic globalizers like Dani Rodrik, or some other crowd entirely – I have no idea.”

Unfortunately, whether the free market is to blame or not (and in this case, although partially at fault, companies were encouraged by law to give risky loans, and interest rates were too high in 2003), it tends to receive all of the blame. Even if government involvement played a large part in crises, people tend to respond that we need more government power, effectively calling for more poison that lead to the sickness.

I dismissed Microsoft’s first new Seinfeld ad because it didn’t say anything to me. It was kind of funny, in the way a random YouTube video can be amusing, but is meaningless and thus forgotten in a few minutes.

The second ad, however, grabbed my attention. I wasn’t immediately sure why — on the face of it, it didn’t seem dramatically different than the first. So I watched it again, and I still wasn’t quite sure, but I felt like I was missing something quite obvious.

So I asked on Twitter: what do you think the ad means? Faruk Ates replied:

the way I perceive the ads, it’s a lighthearted way to present a metaphor: MS = out of touch w/ppl, they’re gonna try and improve.

Faruk’s interpretation is, I think, absolutely correct.

50 seconds into the second ad, after sitting down for an odd dinner with their “normal” host family, Gates and Seinfeld are in their room, and Gates asks why they’re staying with this family. Seinfeld replies:

Why Bill? Because as we discussed, you and I are a little out of it. You’re living in some kind of moon house hovering over Seattle like the mother ship, and I got so many cars, I get stuck in my own traffic. We need to connect with real people.

The ad ends with the phrase “Perpetually Connecting,” which morphs into “PC.”

Before analyzing this ad, let’s discuss a central criticism made of them. Some have said the ads fail because they are not trying to sell anything specifically. No product is shown, no features shown, and no value explained. But that isn’t the point of the ad campaign — the point is to revitalize Microsoft as a brand. Whether it is successful on those grounds or not is a different question.

There are two parts to this ad. First, there is, as Faruk explains, the admission that Microsoft is out of touch with real people (”hovering over Seattle like the mother ship”), and that they are going to try to fix it. This is quite well done; the ad is subtle enough that the viewer can get the point without it being directly spelled out, which makes it feel genuine. The problem, though, is also a result of its subtlety. How is Microsoft out of touch with “regular” people, and what are they going to do to solve it? I can’t answer either question from the ad, even with a general answer, because the ads offer no problem to solve. It’s a start that Microsoft recognizes they have erred, but an apology is useless without recognizing what they did wrong and how they can fix it.

The second part is Microsoft’s attempt at (re-)establishing their mission. They are attempting to answer the most important question a company can ask: why do we exist? Their answer comes at the end — perpetually connecting. Microsoft exists to “connect” people.

Unfortunately, their new company focus, as defined in this ad, suffers the same problem that most company’s mission statements suffer: they don’t mean anything. “Perpetually connecting” is corporate language designed specifically to be vague, so it can mean whatever you or the company wants. It sounds nice, but it means absolutely nothing. And the reason for this is that Microsoft has never really had any mission, so Ballmer is attempting to create one now, some thirty years after it should have been created.

Apple’s mission is clear, and always has been: to break conventions and do great things. Even the name and logo evoke this — their first logo was a drawing of Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree, and since has been an apple with a bite taken out of it, representing the fruit of the tree of knowledge. That’s a company that knew who they were and what they wanted to do.

This vagueness permeates Microsoft’s products. My issue with Windows has always been how poorly thought-out it is. It feels like a school project where the tasks are delegated to different group members, they each do their parts and then just stick it together the day its due; it has no unifying concept, no central idea. You can’t “get” Windows — you can only learn to work around it.

Just consider the Zune and Xbox Live marketplaces. There should be one marketplace, where you can buy music and video that can be played both on a Zune and Xbox. You would think that is how it works, but it isn’t — the Zune and Xbox marketplaces are entirely separate. Good luck trying to play a movie you rented on Xbox Live on your Zune. There is no reason for their separation, but it exists because Microsoft has no real unifying vision for what they are trying to do.

These are not Microsoft’s “Think Different” ads, as some have claimed. That ad campaign worked because it was a return to Apple’s original and already existing vision and, if you’ll forgive me, it was genuine. I have no doubt that Jobs, and Apple, as an organization believe every word of those ads.

But I also know that Ballmer has no more of an idea what “perpetually connecting” means than I do.

The ads are full of promise, but fail because they don’t really say anything. Instead, they show Microsoft to be exactly what we already thought they were — a mindless, direction-less corporation. And it’s really too bad, because the format they are in is quite promising. The ads are cleverly-written, even irreverent — but ultimately meaningless.

Update: Looks like my timing was appropriate, as ValleyWag is reporting that Microsoft is canceling the Seinfeld ads.