Dan Bricklin @danb@qoto.org

Fascinated by how comics pass from an artist’s hand through to the printed page—or a display? I’ve spent years researching, interviewing, and developing *How Comics Were Made: A Visual History from the Drawing Board to the Printed Page*.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/glennf/how-comics-were-made?ref=3pmfzo

It’s now live on Kickstarter! If you’d like to a rich history of 130 years of newspaper cartooning told with original art, printing artifacts, and much more, help me make it a reality and get youself a copy!

How Comics Were Made is a visual history of printing cartoons currently funding on Kickstarter, 76% to the goal with under 70 hours to hit it. @glennf exhaustively researched this 288-page full-color book for years, interviewing dozens of mainstream and alternative cartoonists, and I really hope it gets made. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/glennf/how-comics-were-made/

Prediction: Face computers like Apple's Vision Pro will become a norm -- if not the norm -- for that most mundane but essential of tasks: Office work.

For all Apple's talk of "spatial computing," the discoveries of the early adopter's of Apple's take on them, all point to their primary utility being mundane but -- at the right weight and price point -- subtly transformative:

They'll supplant the many screens we rely on already.

my latest:

https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/apples-new-face-computer-is-for-work-788e2750

Piano: Flowing Tiles

"Interactive Note Display: Experience the thrill of a game-like environment as notes float onto your piano, guiding you through each song.”

I love how it calibrates where your piano keys are positioned without having access to the camera.

/via https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6472594978

#visionOS

I built a visionOS app, and it's been approved in time for launch on Friday. It's called Spatial Symphony, and it's a synthesizer controlled entirely through hand gestures 🤌 I wrote about building the prototype, attending Apple's labs, and more here: https://www.hackingwithswift.com/articles/265/shipping-a-visionos-app-for-launch

The first release of Internet Explorer (1995) is closer in time to the Apollo 11 moon landing (1969) than now.

If you missed the livestream of Insanely Great last night, it’s up on the CHM YouTube channel already https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl__10euTRo

I'm delighted to be able to announce that @ismh has started working with me on my apps.

Bringing someone on isn't something I took lightly, but I have recently been really struck by how the way I had viewed being a "true indie" wasn't serving me. Instead, I now have a mindset of “Independent as in Freedom, not Independent as in Alone”, which I think will serve me (and my customers) much better into the future.

https://www.david-smith.org/blog/2024/01/23/independent-as-in-freedom/

Wow. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3Sh6mu4zbs

All the amazing visionOS apps we've seen are pretty much 1:1 Microsoft's Hololens demos from 2016, but backed by a real OS, SDK and ecosystem. No smoke and mirrors, no 'concepts’, no 'Contoso’. Apple doesn't have to fake it.

Execution is everything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0FCZRFh2Ec

You better not shout, you better not cry

On this day forty years ago, the Apple “1984” ad ran on television for the first time.

At 1:00 am.

In the sign-off slot before broadcasting ended for the night.

On station KMTV in Twin Falls, ID.

For a total airing cost of $10 (compared to the $80,000 cost of airing it on 1/22/84 during the Super Bowl)

The 1983 premiere qualified it for the 1984 Clio awards. It lost out to Wendy’s “Where’s the Beef?”

🥽 Prediction: #VisionPro will REQUIRE an in-store visit—for a time—to give the 1st users/reviewers the best experience.

Some % of owners will have the wrong fit, fail to follow instructions, or simply misunderstand what they’re buying. They may not even know there’s a problem!

Experiences are likely better with a store visit, making a better launch for a new platform.

Then at some point I think they’ll open up to full-remote orders.

#AppleVisionPro #visionOS #AR #VR #SpatialComputing

This is a great read by @tvaziri on the myth of movies only using practical effects:

http://fxrant.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-most-egregious-example-of-we-didnt.html

I remember listening to @lisamelton talk about the determination the early Safari team had in not committing any code that had any performance regressions, no matter how small.

I miss that Apple.

Exciting news for Firefox users on Android! 📱

Get ready for the debut of open extensions on Firefox for Android on December 14th.

But guess what? You don't have to wait!

Check out this blog post to get a sneak peek today: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2023/11/28/open-extensions-on-firefox-for-android-debut-december-14-but-you-can-get-a-sneak-peek-today/

DPReview, a site that nearly faced a link rot crisis of its own, is now publishing some really smart analysis on the lacking permanence of the internet era. https://www.dpreview.com/opinion/0517674260/web-rot-is-erasing-our-images-and-videos

Apple Event - We hope to see you on September 12, 2023 at 10:00 a.m. PST https://www.apple.com/apple-events/

A weird feeling as I’ve dedicated my career to sharing others’ achievements but I’m talking a moment to celebrate myself. I’ve been promoted to Vice President of Developer Community at Microsoft!

When I heard the news I went on a virtual thank you tour, to teachers who supported my curiosity, to bosses who were welcoming…