Menus and toolbars are one in the same. If you’ve seen them on one operating system, you are probably not shocked by what you see elsewhere. However, a new patent by Apple filled in the EU is revealing details of a new system that could change how we think about them forever. While the details are hard to envision from only a picture, it appears that Apple is attempting to remove the need for the menu/toolbar, which appears at the top of Mac OS X. This is interesting because Apple appears to be planning this implementation for Mac OS X and iOS, which will further unify the two platforms. What is more interesting,…

Though the technology world is admittedly a bit obsessed with Apple, it’s hard to blame them. After all, the Cupertino-based company wouldn’t inspire so much chatter if their products and services were merely ordinary or everyday. Apple seem to have a knack for creating things – both technology and services – that provoke discussion. But why is it that their competitors – everyone from Google, Microsoft and Amazon to Sony and Samsung – fail to inspire the same sort of fevered adoration or initiate industry-changing shockwaves? What lessons are they failing to learn? Here are three things all…

After my outrage at iTunes 10, you may think of me as a nitpicker. Well, you know what, guilty as charged. And while we’re picking nits, I’ve got some frowning to do about Twitter. That sidebar is getting more brutally ugly and obtrusive by the day; multiple links to who I’m following, a search bar that goes largely unused, a yet-more-unused Lists pane, and… who with an IQ over 70 actually follows the trending topics? I mean, Twitter is still pretty simple stacked up against, say, Facebook, but hey, Biz, can you tone it down? Just a bit? Y’know, streamline that experience? You’re probably ready to…