Whole Foods on Twitter I’ve always been a big fan of Whole Foods, and now I like the company even more. Last week they twittered: “$25 WFM gift card for first 5 people betw. 12-1 today at customer service desk in produce at [Austin, TX WFM] pass phrase: avocado!” They say they’ll hit up a new store this week. Hopefully Ann Arbor’s! They also sent a Twitter user a $25 gift card for being their favorite tweet of the day. What a fantastic relationship to have with your customers. Update: Looks like the $25 gift cards for favorite tweets are a regular occurrence. Awesome!
Four Seasons
I drew these back in January 2005 when I first got my Wacom Sapphire. Digital painting’s not my forte or anything, but I wanted to practice using the tablet. It’s always fun to find old stuff like this buried in a folder somewhere. As you can see, I went a little bird crazy. Amateur.
WALL-E: The Sequel A romantic comedy, WALL-E-2 centers on a love triangle between WALL-E, EVE, and her new love interest Auto-MATOR.
iPhone App: Telegram I’m very intrigued by this new application, which dubs itself “as personal as calling, as unintrusive as SMS and as instant as email.” Basically, it allows you to record short voice messages and send them to a friend or group of friends. It’s like push-to-talk with a twist. The interface looks great, it works internationally, and messages can be sent via WiFi or the cellular network. The cost is $9.99, and I imagine your friends must have Telegram too for it work, but this app could prove quite interesting.
I’m really digging the frenetic editing in Madonna’s new music video for her song “Give It 2 Me”. Conceptually, the video is very simple, but the editing helped hold my attention throughout. It’s a perfect complement to Pharell’s energetic and driving production.
Haptic Feedback on iPhone
In his review of iPhone 3G for USA Today, Edward Baig mostly regurgitates information that Apple has already made known: 3G is faster than Edge, the headphone jack is now flush, the phone must be activated in the store, yada yada yada. The article’s bore factor can be forgiven because (1) Baig did not have access to the App Store and (2) reviews like his are for the masses — you know, that largish group of people who don’t take part in obsessing over the conspicuity of two screws.
Well, those two screws were rather interesting to me. Suffice to say, I found Baig’s review to be quite dull. However, one bit of information hadn’t occurred to me before. I was intrigued.
Unpublicized feature: Developers can take advantage of the iPhone 2.0 software to provide tactile forced feedback. This is known as “haptics.” When my vehicle crashed inside Cro-Mag, the iPhone 3G vibrated.
Haptic technology does not interest me so much when it comes to gameplay on iPhone. After all, I’ve been acquainted with haptic feedback in gaming since the Vibration Pack was introduced for the Nintendo 64 controller. (And probably even before then. Baby toys, anyone?) The convergence of haptic and touchscreen technology, however, is quite a bit newer.
I first experienced it on a friend’s LG Voyager, which vibrates slightly when you interact with buttons on its screen. To be sure, the Voyager is crap, but I was extremely fond of its use of haptics. The subtle quiver under my finger truly enhanced the touchscreen experience, giving me the sense that I was interacting not with a smooth piece of plastic but with actual objects.
It is exciting to hear that third-party developers are taking advantage of haptics. I hope that Apple eventually employs iPhone’s built-in vibration to give users tactile feedback and an improved user experience in OS X iPhone. I don’t see why they would be opposed to it: it is not a gimmick and it enhances UX. I have a feeling that soon enough our fingers, along with our eyes and ears, will share in the pleasure of iPhoning.