Month: February 2020

The Black Dock

The Black Dock

In June 2006, Apple shipped the plastic MacBook, available in both black and white. I received a black model at work sometime that year.

It was plastic, but at the time I thought it was beautiful. Little did I know that, at around the same time, a redesign of the Dock was taking place.

Now, I actually don’t know for sure the Black Dock was inspired by the black MacBook, vice versa, developed in unison, or just a coincidence.

The look

Sadly, I don’t have great images showing the Black Dock, but here’s what I have.

If you ignore the overdone reflections, the look of the Black Dock is actually pretty nice. Sadly, I don’t have a movie, but imagine swiping over the icons and only having the icons moving, just dancing above the Dock.

The behavior

The best part of the Dock redesign was how it felt. The platform … READ THE REST

Flipboard interlude (2011-2013)

Flipboard interlude (2011-2013)

Other articles about my Apple career:

Seed planted

My good friend Evan Doll left Apple around 2010 to co-found Flipboard, a very popular iPad application that was essentially a better version of Apple News (sorry Apple) with deep social integration.

It seemed like every six months or so, Evan would ping me and try to entice me to try out Flipboard. But I was happy where I was, working on the Eye Candy team. I was getting a little itchy, though, so his offer was always in the back of my mind.

Departure from Apple

I left Apple on July 1st, 2011. My initial plan was to take a bunch of … READ THE REST