I’ve read a few opinion pieces recently claiming that because iPhone X is one year ahead of schedule, iOS 11 isn’t quite ready yet for the new screen and interaction patterns. I didn’t think those were more than attention-grabbing speculations, until I’ve noticed some jarring inconsistencies in UI. Today, let's look at the multitasking mental model on the iPad and iPhone X.

A product called “Totm+Travl” showed up on my Apple News feed yesterday. It’s an Apple Watch charging dock. I always felt that most of these docks only offer purely aesthetic value, something that does nothing more than looking nicer on a bedside table. Considering how expensive these docks can get, I never considered purchasing one.

Totm+Travl is a charging dock that’s finally different. The Kickstarter page touts a few key features that were compelling at first and really clicked for me after thinking about it.

Phil Schiller once described Apple’s hardware philosophy as (somewhat grandiosely titled) “Grand Unified Theory of Apple Products.” During an interview with Backchannel, he elaborated:

“Each one is offering computers something unique and each is made with a simple form that is pretty eternal. The job of the watch is to do more and more things on your wrist so that you don’t need to pick up your phone as often. The job of the phone is to do more and more things such that maybe you don’t need your iPad, and it should be always trying and striving to do that. The job of the iPad should be to be so powerful and capable that you never need a notebook. Like, Why do I need a notebook? I can add a keyboard! I can do all these things! The job of the notebook is to make it so you never need a desktop, right? It’s been doing this for a decade. So that leaves the poor desktop at the end of the line, What’s its job? Its job is to challenge what we think a computer can do and do things that no computer has ever done before, be more and more powerful and capable so that we need a desktop because of its capabilities.” - Phil Schiller

One of my favorite things about walking around in cities is discovering wonderful spaces in unassuming neighborhoods. Most of the residential buildings in Taipei are rather uninteresting, cookie-cutter slabs of concrete and steel. In the west side of Zhongshan Park in Da-an District, however, things felt more lively. Expressive storefronts lined up the alleyways with brushes of greeneries. Among them, a specialty matcha cafe named “Matcha One,” with its wooden fences and all-glass storefront, felt almost too modern among its well-aged neighbors.

COFFEE DPT is literally surrounded from three sides by bamboo bushes and buildings and yet feels open and inviting. Perhaps because the table area is located right alongside the passageway connecting one of the Huashan 1914 Creative Park complexes and an open parking area, COFFEE DPT brings people watching and seclusion to the same cozy lot of about forty square feet.