Mad Men will make you a happier person. It’s the US show about a 1960’s Madison Avenue ad agency that will make your teeth whiter and it’s coming to the UK on BBC4 – tonight. Created by Sopranos writer Matthew Weiner, it’s a realistic portrayal of a lost time in advertising and American history, before equality, smoking related illness and car seatbelts. Cigarettes, whiskey and discrimination is encouraged in the workplace, but as you’ll find out, not without consequences. The show has a great cast and production values, so satisfaction is guaranteed. AMC’s site for the show also has some nice clips of Ad Legends.

Michael Mace, a former VP at Palm, recently proclaimed the death of the mobile application. His position is summarises thusly:

“The business of making native apps for mobile devices is dying, crushed by a fragmented market and restrictive business practices. The problems are so bad that the mobile web, despite its many technical drawbacks, is now a better way to deliver new functionality to mobiles. I think this will drive a rapid rise in mobile web development, largely replacing the mobile app business. This has huge implications for mobile operators, handset companies, developers, and users.”

Mace provides a history of the mobile application space as he sees it from his time with Palm. He describes the rush of developers to the Palm platform 10 years ago and how interest in the creation of native apps for the platform has waned. He also quotes a colleague who left the mobile app game because he couldn’t run a profitable business there.

Sorry, but it’s simplistic to assume that native mobile apps are now dead in favor of web mobile apps. Mobile is just seeing the same tension that we see on the desktop between native and web apps. On both mobile and desktop, neither is a clear winner and there are many working to increase the functionally of their application “stack”. Just this week, Adobe launched 1.0 of their AIR platform that further blurs the line on the desktop. It is catching the attention of desktop application developers and I would not be surprised if we see a mobile version of AIR sometime this year.

Does a developer care if their application web or native? I’d argue no, they care about what functionality their chosen framework provides. Look at what Opera is doing with their mobile browser. They are turning it into an application framework as much as a great browsing tool, even giving developers the ability to “widgetize” an app. If there’s something on your mobile that has the hooks you need to build an app, does it matter if the API’s come from a browser or from the operating system? As Webkit builds out it’s offline storage mechanism, your mobile web apps can run seamlessly alongside native apps even when on an airplane.

As the stack currently exists, native APIs for mobile allow access deeper into the device. This includes the ability to read and write to a user’s contacts, calendar, tasks, photos, videos, SMS, email, camera, GPS and voice. Web browsers lack this functionality. The richness of experience that these features provide provide a ‘wow’ that’s pretty tough to match in a browser.

Browser app or native app aside, the more important change that we are seeing is the opening of the mobile platform. In the article, the certification and requirement to work with carriers was noted as an unnecessary hurdle and I agree. Carriers have a history of stifling innovation in order to milk as much cash out of their pipes as possible.

Apple’s iPhone is an attempt to break that strangle hold by offering a device designed without carrier limitations. This week they release their SDK and if Apple does so with no limitations, then it will be successful. Developers should be able to create an app, upload it to the iTunes store and pick their desired monetization scheme. If Apple puts anything in the way of the interchange between users and developers, then the SDK will fail, just as Michael Mace predicts.

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As designers, we're wrongly perceived as custodians and exponents of creativity. This matters because business currently overvalues creativity. To avoid the inevitable backlash, we must lead our clients' perceptions.

 

Hide Your Shame: The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. Come shop with us!

The last week was full of cool things, John Hicks and the gorilla icon for Silverback, the new BBC beta site, and the very useful 10 Phrases Every Freelancer Should Kick-Out of Their Vocabulary article from Freelanceswitch are just three examples, below we list some of the best articles we read during this past week.

If we missed something that you think it's really good, leave a comment and we will check that out

02/29, Friday

Smashing Magazine Best of February

Confirmed: Live Video On YouTube This Year

Fentix Cube

Evolution of Dance Tribute

jQuery Tutorials for Designers

02/28, Thursday

En Bloc

Adobe Cards

Silverback

10 Phrases Every Freelancer Should Kick-Out of Their Vocabulary

Google Docs Gets A Visual Overhaul, Now More Office Like

Increase Your Morning Productivity with the 10 O'Clock Rule

Idea: A new typography term

BBC

Kevin Ledo: The Guiding Light

37signals Featured in Wired (March 2008 issue)

02/27, Wednesday

Sarah France: Method

Aesthetically loyal

02/26, Tuesday

Navigation Menus: Trends and Examples

Less is More: 10 Methods to Be More Productive, More Profitable, and Happier

Arcade Fire Poster, MidAmerican Tour Side 1

6 Adobe AIR Apps to Check Out

Shintaro Kago cover for Vice Magazine

AIGA

70 of the best logo design resources

Write Just One Thing Today, and Write It Well

02/25, Monday

Progress