Hypochondriac geeks

One of Business Insider's iPhone apps of the week is a blood pressure monitor. I thought I'd see what else was available and, sure enough,  Amazon have one:

The "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" section throws light on the type of people who buys this type of expensive (£119) tech-gadget in preference to a cheaper one (£9.99). They are the type people who also buy Wifi Bathroom Scales (works with Linux!), Lord of the Rings Trilogy - Extended Edition on Blu-Ray, and Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate. 

My boarding pass

I made a trip to Geneva last week. I flew on British Airways and, on the way back, used the BA iThing app to check in. It gave me the option of storing my board pass on the iThing. I did. It worked. Here is a scan of my iThing showing the boarding pass.

 And don't bother telling my that my inside leg measurement is coded in the 2D-bar code.

As I said.....

Confirmation of my posting that Google pay people to use Android - see this post on PaidContent.

Seasons In The Sun

I don't think I can manage this blog post without admiting that I like - up to the cheesy key change - Terry Jacks' "Seasons In The Sun". I think it's the Beach Boys organ riff and the Duane Eddy guitar line that appeal. I've known for years that the lyric is a translation of a Jacques Brel song but I'd never heard Brel's version until today when I caught Coverville's "The Seasons In The Sun Cover Story". Very interesting podcast and recommended listening.

Amazing fact number one: Terry Jacks was producing a Beach Boys session and got them to record Seasons In The Sun but they decided not to release it. Terry Jacks then decided to record it himself and released it - it sounds very like the Beach Boys version which Brian Ibott includes iin the Coverville show.

Amazing fact number two: Terry Jacks altered the song to be much more positive than the original English translation. He also omitted the following verse:-

"Adieu, Francoise, my trusted wife, without you I'd have had a lonely life.

You cheated lots of times but then, I forgave you in the end though your lover was my friend.

Adieu, Francoise, it's hard to die when all the birds are singing in the sky. Now that spring is in the air

With your lovers ev'rywhere; just be careful, I'll be there."

I guess Sting was familiar with this when he wrote "Every Step"

Finally, there are some truely dreadful versions to be heard on Spotify.

Wonderful Kate Bush Cover by Mike Scott

I've been catching up on my podcast listening since I came back from holiday. Thanks to Coverville, I've come across a brilliant track by Mike Scott of the Waterboys. It's a cover of Kate Bush's "Why Should I love you?" from "The Red Shoes". It's on heavy repeat on my iPod.

Steve and Bill

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates appeared together in an hour long session at "D". Wired Magazine has a video available here. Rather long for most people, but there are some real gems in there.

Jobs repeated his assertion that Apple is a software company, and said that Apple's success with iPod was due to this and the Japanese consumer companies' inability to do software. I was also interested in Jobs's several comments about his past.

When asked about the strengths of the other, Gates praised Jobs' aesthetic sense, and in the context of software design, rather than box design.

Finally, does anyone else think that there is a resemblance between Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking?

Steve says "Software replaces hardware"

It seems to me that when hardware designers look at the success of the iPod, they see MP3 chip wrapped in a nice package. Apple doesn't see it like that; it looks at the iPod as one component of a complete system - iPod, iTunes and the iTunes store - most of which is implemented software, not hardware. Apple's design culture is very software centric - yet they design some of the highest margin "hardware" products in the business.

This is a quote from Steve Jobs taken from a Time article about the iPhone:

"When you need to dial, it shows you a keypad; when you need other buttons, the screen serves them up. When you want to watch a video, the buttons disappear. Suddenly, the interface isn't fixed and rigid, it's fluid and molten. Software replaces hardware."

I believe in this philosophy. Design should be software lead. Software technology is the best way to deal with complexity; hardware should be built to provide a platform for software.