Over several years, this site has managed to accrue over 70,000 words of content, articles, reviews and posts. It hasn’t been updated at all in recent months (years, in fact) as I have become distracted with new projects and online business ventures. Everything is going great, and I’m beginning to move back into doing freelance work in addition to running several successful design-related sites.

I’m very wary of removing this site completely - it has some great content and I know that various pages are still read on a regular basis. For that reason, it will remain for the foreseeable future (albeit heavily laden with links to and notices about the new website - davidappleyard.net. I hope that you will browse my new portfolio at some point.

So, it is with a great deal of respect and reminiscence that I effectively lay this website to rest. I urge you to redirect your attention to my new home, where I hope you’ll find content to enlighten and inform you.

Here’s to the future!

There’s no doubt that Apple manage to create a dramatic stir with product announcements, and it is always thrilling to watch the news articles roll in during a MacWorld Keynote. The MacBook Air was undoubtedly the most exciting announcement yesterday, with some expected features and some not so expected. The main question in my mind is who the laptop is aimed at, and who’s likely to buy it.

No optical drive?

At present, there are three ways to get music on your laptop - legal (downloading via iTunes), more or less legal (ripping from CD’s), and completely illegal (downloading from Bit-Torrent or elsewhere). Apple have more or less taken the middle ground out of the equation yesterday in the MacBook Air. People moving to Mac for the first time, planning on ripping their library of CD’s into iTunes to use on their iPod/Apple TV etc are going to be a bit stuck!

£1,199

That’s just ridiculous. Really. If Apple chose to equate the pricing to that of the USA, it should cost £900. That’s a perfect price point - smack between the MacBook and MacBook Pro. As it is, for £100 more than a MacBook Air you can get a base level MacBook Pro. For me, the decision would be a categorical no brainer. Whilst the thinness and weight of the MacBook Air is a huge bonus, it just doesn’t compare in any way to the power and features of one of their Pro laptops.

So, who will buy them?

First of all, I’m sure this laptop will be successful. Not on the scale of their existing notebooks, but certainly to some extent. I think the people who will fork over £1,200 will fall into two categories:

1) Business users, who need a second machine for traveling and working on the go. This is absolutely perfect, has great battery life, and will fit their needs to a tee.

2) People who just love style. Let’s face it, the laptop looks amazing. If you love being the centre of attention and crave others wanting to get their hands on your latest gadget this is perfect.

Macbook, Macbookair, Apple, Notebook, Price

Much has been said about the recent “drama” around the iPhone price alterations. In case you are completely in the dark, Apple basically knocked $200 off the price of the iPhone, only a month or two after it was launched. This is certainly an unexpected move from Apple but something which isn’t all that unusual in the mobile phone market.

To me, it seems that Apple have found success well beyond what they anticipated in the iPhone. I’m sure they knew it would be a resounding success, but the sales figures must have been even greater than they predicted. They are now benefitting from much greater economies of scale, and are able to produce the phone at a cheaper price. Couple this with the introduction of the iPod Touch which will bring even greater economies of scale and Apple are looking at an excellent financial outlook for the life-cycle of these products.

The price drop will have come because Apple are simply in a position to do so. They’ll be producing the device cheaper than at the outset, and will have decided that it is worth the risk to reduce the price and aim for a higher market penetration with increased sales in the lead up to the Christmas period. This is an excellent business strategy, and is likely to pay off for them. I can see their market share increasing dramatically over the coming months, and no doubt Steve will be reporting as such at the next major Apple conference.

Now has never been a better time to look into buying an iPhone, and I really hope that these price reductions will spread across to Europe around the product launch. If it is introduced over here with a similarly excessive markup, we’ll need to make the difficult decision of whether to buy and be an early adopter, or wait for a similar price drop to the USA.

I’m very surprised at the decision of Apple to offer a $100 store voucher to all those who have purchased an iPhone so far, but feel that it’s a remarkably ethical move from the company. I feel that Sean Sperte summed this up well:

Consider the statement he made during the music event on Wednesday, that Apple is on track to sell their one-millionth IPhone this month. Now consider multiplying that number by 100. Let’s just say, for example, that Apple will be giving away 600,000 store credits in the amount of $100 each. That’s $60M worth of “sorry”, and plenty of “we owe you one”.

Think about that. What other company has ever come close to voluntarily giving that kind of money back to its customers? Apple truly is one of a kind.

They are indeed!

Iphone, Price, Apple, Ipod, Marketing, Business

For those who may be interested, here are a couple of shots of my blogging setup, where design work is done from and Design Shack managed.

It involves a Macbook, Ikea desk, tropical plant, additional screen and Logitech Mac Keyboard & Mouse:

Setup,, Mac,, Computer,, Desk,, Arrangement

I’ve always been a fan of the Simpsons, but must admit that I found it most appealing when I was younger. Recently, I’ve preferred cartoons like Family Guy as it’s just a little bit more ‘intellectual’. Maybe not the right word to use, but it does appeal to a slightly more sophisticated sense of humour. When news of The Simpsons Movie leaked out, I was fairly indifferent - obviously hoping that it would live up to the phenomenal success of the cartoon.

I went to see it last week, and was suitably impressed. There weren’t all that many laugh out loud moments, but I definitely had a good chuckle all the way through. As I hadn’t seen the cartoon for a while it brought back lots of memories and was almost a little nostalgic! The animation was as ever excellent and they also introduced a 3D element which I’ve never seen in cartoons. It gave the movie a unique twist which it deserved.

The plot of the movie centers around the environment, pollution and recycling. I can almost imagine the brainstorming session where they decided that the plot needed to be relevant to the problems of today - environmental management was an obvious choice. That said, it worked well and the story flowed well in the essentially wacky Simpsons format.

It’s a great movie for children and adults alike, and certainly lives up to the cartoon. It won’t go down in history as an earth shattering success, but it’s enjoyable and will make you laugh. I was humming the “Spiderpig” song for quite a while afterwards…..

Simpsons, Movie, Cartoon, Film, Review

I’m moving on to new pastures as a designer, and the stock photography website which I launched almost a year ago is now up for sale. Check out the auction or take a look at the sale website and let me know if it interests you!

Our Stock Works is a fully completed stock photography website which launched in 2006. It currently has over 8,000 photos, and 600+ contributors who have uploaded images and are registered on the website.

What are we selling?

The sale will give you all the rights to Our Stock Works, including:

> The domain names ourstockworks.com and ourstockworks.co.uk
> All database files
> All website (PHP and HTML) files
> All photographs (over 8000)

Please note that the photographs are not being sold to you - the rights to these remain the photographers, but you have the ability to market and sell them under the ‘Our Stock Works’ banner.

We have a hosting agreement with a provider which offers the technology required to run the website and 40GB disk space and 150GB bandwidth per month, for 43 (around $80) pounds per month. We recommend keeping this package as the website is designed to run on this server - but you can obviously move elsewhere if you wish.

The website uses PHP and MySQL, and an advanced knowledge of these is essential to take over and run the website.

Read more

Ourstockworks, Site, Sale, Auction, Sell

Advent of wireless network services has had twofold effects on the networking industry. It has added more complexity and networking is no more a game of plugging cables. Only professionals with advanced certifications like Cisco's 646-588 and Citrix's 1Y0-256 can survive. On the other hand, now your high speed verizon wireless allows you to access your online storage even when you are on a go. High speed internet has encouraged even the domain name registration companies to come up with graphically enhanced web design.