Specifically, here are highlights from Piper analyst Gene Munster’s note this morning:

• 77% of iPhone 4 buyers polled in three cities (San Francisco, New York, and Minneapolis) were upgrading from old iPhones. That’s up from 56% last year and 38% in 2008, and represents brand loyalty that is likely unmatched in the mobile industry.
• 16% of buyers were switching to AT&T from other carriers, down from 28% last year. Apple REALLY needs to add another carrier if it wants to maximize sales. (Preferably Verizon Wireless, the nation’s biggest.)
• 54% purchased the $299 32 GB model, up from 43% who bought the 32 GB iPhone 3GS last year.
• 28% of iPhone 4 buyers owned an iPad, which confirms that the people waiting in line were the most serious of the Apple fanatics. Of the 72% who did not own an iPad, 39% said they would probably buy one within the next year, while 61% said they would not.
• 65% were Mac owners, down from 75% at the first iPhone launch in 2007.

The takeaway: Apple has a reliable stable of devoted users who will likely upgrade to the newest iPhone every year, assuming there’s nothing better on the market.

Pleased to say that this blog has been updated to WordPress 3 – ‘Thelonius”.  So far so good.  We’re going to get the Annunciation Interactive site updated soon as well.  From what I’m seeing, WP3 continues the evolution of WordPress toward a more general content manager versus its blog-centric roots…

Very cool infographic breaking down the advances pending in html5 as it is rolled out.  Good stuff.

The attached infographic shows the surface area required for powering the Earth with solar panels alone.

I’m such an idiot – just realized that Firebug has built-in speed testing.  That would’ve come in handy.

Mashable is back up – here’s the link.

Like many, I’ve had a long, strange relationship with Apple.  Since the 80s I’ve owned Apple II’s, Macintoshes, Performas, Quadras, G4s, G5s, Powerbooks, MacBooks, iBooks, iPods, iPhones, etc etc etc.  My disposition toward the company teeters between unabashed fanboy-ism to outright fury.

Because we live in an age of rapid progress, I can’t find fault with Apple for replacing their products more frequently than I can seem to purchase them – these days, that’s the way of the world to some degree.  Still, my ‘Apple graveyard’ could fill a garage.  Premium-priced devices that never seem to serve me for more than two years before emerging hardware or software renders them obsolete.

So here comes the latest ‘insanely great’ earth-shattering product – the unfortunately-named iPad.  My initial reaction is somewhat skeptical, though I love to see new form factors – I can’t wait to play with the interface.  That said, from what I understand, it’s a iPhone on roids.  No multitasking, no Flash, and no printing are all pretty big downers from my perspective, but I may end up caving and picking one up a bit further down the road.  For now, I’ve got my iPhone for the road and my MacBook Pro for everything else, and I don’t feel like there’s a void in my life…

I guess I’m just not big on “Magic” when it comes with a price tag.

I was a huge fan of Marvel Comics growing up, and love Scott McCloud’s books on comic art’s ability to communicate across languages via symbology, etc.  Found an article recently by Lukas Mathis of ignorethecode.net that applies cartoon principles to User Interface (UI) design.  Not quite ‘less is more’, but rather ‘just enough is correct’ – check it out, it’s an interesting read.

People are confused by symbols if they have too many or too few details. They will recognize UI elements which are somewhere in the middle.

The goal is not to make your user interface as realistic as possible. The goal is to add those details which help users identify what an element is, and how to interact with it, and to add no more than those details. UI elements are abstractions which convey concepts and ideas; they should retain only those details that are relevant to their purpose. UI elements are almost never representations of real things. Adding too much realism can cause confusion.