Apple Beats (on) Android?

Beginning with an engadging interactive genre and artist selection process, and finishing with slick typographical treatments and rich artwork composing the user interface, Beats Music is proving to be as catchy and stylish as it's headphone namesakes. To my surprise, it even streams entire albums like Spotify Premium and has a fun take on intelligently randomized streaming playlists like Pandora. While less than a day in, I am delighted thus far.

I have heard that Apple may cut the Android version, I hope it doesn't. As people discover it, I feel it could be the "iTunes on Windows" move that changes everything. Regardless, even if Apple bought Beats just for the brains, good move, Apple, good move. As Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam might playfully say, "Let the Beats hit 'em!"

Hiragana in a Wireless Bottle

Whenever I think of halting my study of Japanese, I hear a Utada Hikaru song, and, like waking to the voice of a love dreamt but never found, I remember why I wanted to learn Japanese in the first place.

12 hours with iOS 7: First Impressions

It is invitingly cool but familiarly cold. The move away from real world icons (skeuomorphism) to more abstract flatter ones, right now is still a bit off-putting for me. It prevents or slows down emotional connection. That is what was great about iOS and the Mac itself. Subtly familiar but digital. Now it is overtly digital, and in turn overtly unfamiliar. It is almost like experiencing one's parents getting major plastic surgery...

Connection is what Jobs understood. That was his genius. How to make the impersonal (code, computers, etc.) lovable. iOS 7 moves us away from that. Now it has to perform before even being close to loved because nothing is humanly familiar. That is not to say I dislike it. The more I use it, the more I appreciate it. However, it is different. Like a friend you grew up with who moved away for several years and is now back in the neighborhood. It is nice to see that person, again, but wow, have things changed!

As with any adjusted relationship, only time will decrease those inherently awkward moments as you get to know each other better. Thankfully, the more you get to know iOS 7, the more you find to like about it. Even if it does remind you of Ghost in the Shell. New cybernetic body same person? Or if you upgraded, like most, same body, different person?!

Welcome to the future.