Looking for an alternative to Google Reader? The might I suggest Skimr, a rather minimal web app which will let you read your feeds right there in the browser. It shows your feeds in a big, bright and beautiful single-column list, and when you open a feed it shows you the articles in a similarly cruft-free view.
It’s just about perfect, as long as you don’t have more than a few feeds.
Imagine the scene: You are a student in England, living in a broken-down house further broken down into noisy, thin-walled apartments (or “flats,” to use the local term). One of your junkie friends has sold you a (totally legit, honest) iPad for just £50, and you need somewhere to stash it for both security and protection.
You look around your decrepit kitchen and see a chipboard door hanging from one of the cupboards. You rip it off and attack it with a saw, screwing and glueing until you have a sturdy box for your non-stolen tablet. To close the hole in the top you pull the artists beret you’ve recently taken to wearing from under a pile of dirty laundry and cut it to fit over the gap. Behold! An iPad case.
But what to do next? If your name is Eric Rea, you quickly form a company called Fine Grain, open up a Kickstarter project and start hawking your new invention under the name “BOWDEN + SHEFFIELD Minimalist iPad Cases.”
![Pop: An iOS Writing App That’s Nearly Too Minimal [Review]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Screen-Shot-2012-04-20-at-12.23.36-AM.jpg "pop for iphone")
Pop creates a dead simple writing environment on the iPhone and iPad.
Minimalism is a fascinating thing. Our world is getting increasingly loud and busy, yet many are starting to want more minimal and distraction-free experiences. Apps specifically are another way that the minimalism trend can be observed; more and more applications are getting back to the roots by cutting away superfluous effects and features.
Pop is a perfect example of how minimalism manifests itself in a basic iOS app. Unlike other writing apps for the iPhone and iPad, Pop is just a blank pad to jot down text. Nothing else. Nothing at all… But really, that’s all there is.
Looking resplendent with its iMac adornment, this super-cheap desk is entirely made out of cardboard.
It was designed by Hong Kong born Savio Ku, who is at the University of Portsmouth in the UK, as part of his final year studying 3D design.
What started off as an off-the-cuff joke by Steve Jobs at September’s iPod Event has become an actual sub-industry of the iPod accessory market as manufacturers churn out watchbands by the factory full for the new, touchscreen Nano. The only problem is the cheapness and unimaginativeness of most of these solutions: either they are cheap rubber shells to encase your Nano in or simple straps onto which you are meant to clip your Nano.
They don’t pass muster. MINIMAL’s latest, Kickstarter-funded line of iPod Nano watchbands are something different though. They’re not just functional… they’re gorgeous.
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