Good marketing may get people in the door the first time, but good product design gets them in the door the second (and third, and fourth, and fifth) time.

- Shawn Blanc

Apple isn’t dominating because of clever marketing. They’re dominating because they make awesome products that people can’t wait to use. And when they roll out a new version, existing customers will wait in long lines again to upgrade, without thinking about it, because they know it will be great. They can buy sight-unseen because they trust Apple to deliver what only Apple can deliver, the perfect harmony between hardware and software.

And they know they’ll be able to simply turn it on and start using it.

So, I’ve been waiting for something like Crisp to happen. Brilliant tumblog theme from WooThemes. Simple functionality added to easily add link posts, image posts, and other types of posts from a single area on the dashboard.

I use MarsEdit primarily, so going back to the WordPress admin interface to post content was not my preference. However, I was able to make it work by simplifying the screen options (collapsed menu, single column) and using Fluid. I still use MarsEdit for my regular longer posts, but for everything else I am now using the Crisp tumblog area with it’s simple publishing options.

I’m happy.

Articulate Studio ’09 Released

I was a beta tester for these products, and was happy to provide my input and feedback, especially around the user interface and functionality. It’s a pretty significant upgrade, one that was long overdue, since Version 5 had been out, without any major updates, for several years.

Overall, the new suite is great for rapid development and the revisions and major changes they made really make it a much better product. I’ll have more on this once I’ve gotten more time to play with it.