design posts

The new iPad has lots of space. The screen offers 1024x768 pixels. That's way more room to work with than the iPhone gave you. And because of that room, it's time to re-think the way you designed iPhone applications. Things that worked well with the iPhone's limited space -- things that were meant to expand the device's virtual world beyond the screen's tiny reality -- are the things that you need to readdress and confront. Why keep using visual tricks when you can expand into real pixel space?

Take the traditional UINavigationController class for example. Its entire role on the iPhone is to provide the same kind of tree view used in Mac OS X's Finder windows (View > As Columns, Command-3). The animations as you select and push view controllers and the back button are both there because you can't reasonably see an entire tree structure at once, in columns, the way you do on a Mac.

It's this week! It's almost a sure bet that we'll finally, after all of these years, see the Apple tablet unveiled this week, and to celebrate, Frog Design (the company responsible for many of Apple's designs back in the day) has given Wired some old shots of prototype tablets from the Cupertino company ... from 1983. Of course, Apple has released tablet-like devices before, and they've been thinking about this type of computer for a long time. But back in 1983, they apparently commissioned some concepts for an unreleased tablet called "Bashful" (so called because it was designed to work with the Snow White "industrial design language" that Apple used back then in the //c and other releases.

As you can see above, the tablet isn't exactly "elegant" by today's standards, but it is interesting how similar it actually is to many of today's smartphones and handhelds, considering that we're talking about almost 30 years ago now. One model had a floppy drive attached (which was gigantic), and apparently they even considered a version with a phone on it as well. We still don't know for sure what Apple's release this week will look like, but it's fascinating to think just how far back the planning for this week's unveiling actually went.

When iTunes Connect returned after its Christmas break, developers noticed that things had changed quite a bit on the App Store approval front. Applications that had formerly taken ten to fourteen days to work through review were now getting processed in a couple of days or less. The upshot? Happier developers, better bug releases for users, and a healthier App Store ecosystem.

There's another consequence of the new, speedier approvals: the tablet. With the device due to ship March/April (late Q1, early Q2), and no announced 4.0 SDK, developers were left wondering how they'd have the time to bring their software up to date. Under the old review process even a single procedural rejection, which are quite common for small GUI details, would have exhausted nearly all of February in non-productive "wait mode".

With the enhanced review system in place, it's likely that developers will be able to spend those extra weeks refactoring their software, allowing it to ship in a timely fashion once the actual device appears on-scene. Apple is expected to push their SDK to developers within two weeks of their late January product announcement, probably by 15 February. Assuming a 2 April product launch, that leaves nearly six weeks to update and test software.

Not that developers are waiting. Many devs are already working on resolution independent versions of their applications. They are tasking their designers to re-imagine screens, to test hand-held cardboard prototypes, and otherwise start the process of scaling their products to new dimensions.

It should be noted that some of the App Store heavyweights have suddenly become quite tight-lipped in recent days, refusing to talk in any specifics about how their upgrade process is proceeding. The rest of us will have to get by on guess work, at least until the product announcement at the end of this month.

Without specific leaks regarding hardware changes (for example, will there really be a front facing video camera? and if so, will expanded Image Picker/Media Player classes support access?), it's hard to pin down exactly what new features can be leveraged in third party software. But it's a fairly safe bet that nearly all features available on the current iPod touch line will be in play on the new tablet. And that alone is enough to hedge some safe business bets about pushing forward with large screen development.

It's still too early for most of us to start playing -- those tight-lipped folk have a bit of the wild "Apple will kill me if I speak" look around their eyes -- but it's not too early to begin planning and working. Even without specifics, there are ways to move forward on the development front. Carpe diem. There's not much time left before the yet-unannounced tablet ships.

Dan Frommer over at The Business Insider had a nice, juicy tidbit to send out to anyone who is interested in Apple tablet rumors: he's apparently heard from someone who has seen the tablet's operating system, but not the actual device.

There were three little quotes from the mysterious source in Frommer's nugget of tablet gold:

• It's "pretty" -- obviously.
• "The UI has a good bit of new sexy to it."
• "It's a big iPhone, but it's not just a big iPhone."

Frommer goes on to mention recent reports that speculate that the user interface could have a "steep learning curve." However, he also brings up the very valid point that Steve Jobs would never let a product out the doors of Apple if it was difficult to use or required a lot of learning.

What's "difficult to use?" The original CultOfMac post Frommer alluded to was concerned about text entry, and cited Palm's old Graffiti method as something that people had problems with. Even Apple's own Newton MessagePad lost market credibility after its handwriting recognition was widely lampooned by the press. As for the rest of the user interface, it is impossible to imagine that Apple will introduce something that is harder to use than a Mac or iPhone. The "new sexy" could be the key Apple design touch that makes the UI something attractive, functional, and desirable.

Twenty more days... and I'm sure we'll hear at least twenty more rumors.

This is a pretty wandering post over at the NZ Herald (it starts out with a screening of Avatar, and drops a few local actor names before getting down to business), but it eventually gets to an interesting premise: what will Apple's hardware look like not in 2010, when we're all breathlessly awaiting the tablet, but in 2020, ten years from now? Of course we're talking about complete speculation here -- not even Apple knows what they'll be doing in ten years. But it's not like we haven't done it before: Apple's devices are smaller, faster, and more powerful than ever. What will they be like ten years down the line?

More gesturing and intuitive human interfaces seem like a good guess -- with the iPhone, the accelerometer has been used in all sorts of interesting ways, and it's probably not far until Apple figures out a way to track movement in 3D space, either by moving an iPhone or a controller around, or as the piece suggests, by tracking our body in some way. Slimmer display screens and extra battery life will be in the future as well. And the article mentions solid state storage, but if our predictions for this year are any indication, Apple will try to move off the hard drive as much as possible, and start placing data for multimedia and other files in a cloud server, accessible via Internet whenever they're needed.

Like I said, interesting thought experiment. What do you think Apple will be like ten years from now?

We brought you a sneak peek at ColorSchemer Studio 2 last week, and I'm excited to share the news that it's available today. Any screen-based designer should be excited, and with the new CMYK support and advanced color manipulation tools, anybody who works with color at all should have a look. Some highlights from the new release:

• CMYK color support
• Color management/profiles
• GalleryBrowser: browse (and grab from) over a million palettes from COLOURlovers.com, right in the app
• LiveSchemes, advanced color/harmony manipulation
• Variations palette
• Color Libraries
• Favorite Colors color groups
• QuickPreview now has a wide selection of layouts to work with
• See the sneak peek for some more coverage on new features

ColorSchemer Studio 2 costs $49.99US and has a free trial available. The exciting news is that TUAW has 3 ColorSchemer Studio licenses to give away to the color lovers among our readers. Just leave a comment mentioning what new feature you think will be the most useful to you, and we'll randomly select 3 winners from the entries on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009.

Here are the rules and a link to the legal statement:

• Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older.
• To enter leave a comment describing which of the new features you're most excited about
• The comment must be left before Tuesday, December 8th, 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Time.
• You may enter only once.
• Three winners will be selected in a random drawing.
• Prize: Full license for ColorSchemer Studio 2
• Click Here for complete Official Rules.

Good Luck!

As part of my trade, I work a lot with colors. ColorSchemer Studio has long been a valuable tool in my toolkit for picking out color schemes based on solid color theory. It had its shortcomings, though, and some other tools had surpassed it, both on the desktop and on the iPhone. However, I got a sneak peek at the up-and-coming version 2.0 of ColorSchemer Studio, and I'm willing to say that it's poised to regain its lead in the field.

ColorSchemer Studio 2 adds an amazing number of new features, and improves on just about every aspect of the existing toolkit. Firstly, I want to highlight that it can now work entirely in the CMYK gamut, if you choose. Screen colors are adjusted to a CMYK profile, and there are export options to match. That's a big deal for those who take their colors off the screen and into the real world. Even though many modern presses can actually get better color from an RGB file, CMYK still rules in the world of offset printing. While it's a huge step for this app, it's not the coolest part ... read on for an in-depth preview.

A little while back we posted about the unboxing of an Apple job offer, and now here's another unboxing having to do with becoming an Apple employee -- Mac Rumors has shots up of an unboxing of one of the t-shirt giftboxes recently given to AppleCare call center staff, and once again, even in something that the public was never really supposed to see, this company shows just how much care and attention they put into their design. From the way the t-shirt's folded, with the stark three word design sitting perfectly centered, to the embossed gift note and company stickers, clearly this is a company that believes presentation is important.

In fact, it almost makes me want to go over to Apple's Jobs site and start looking for myself. Apple, any interest in hiring a witty, sarcastic and cynical blogger? I'll work for peanuts!

We asked our colleague over at Download Squad, Matt Heerema, for a designer's eye view on the new iMac 27" model.

Designers everywhere will rejoice at the announcement of the 27" iMac. With a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels, you are just 160 pixels shy of a full, pricey 30" monitor (2560 x 1600). My current design setup (17" MBP, 24" Cinema display) nets me two 1920 x 1200 screens, though only one of them is really useful at a time.

My current Photoshop or Fireworks workspace occupies about 1500px of screen (with however much height is available at the moment). The 27" iMac means I would have a spare 1000px to have a browser with a full-width Web page open for reference, or possibly my coding environment (usually Textmate or Coda), for which 1000px would definitely be sufficient.

This side-by-side workspace would mean massively efficient flow. Combine that with the intense specs of the iMac (quad-core processor & boatloads of RAM, anyone?), and you have the ultimate designer machine. Also: The 27" will handle DisplayPort input as well as output, allowing it to double as an external display for yet another computer, in a pinch.

Now, where did I put my credit card?

This is exactly the kind of thing we love to see here at TUAW (and thanks for sending it along, Danny) -- Glyph of the Twisted project got a job offer from Apple last week, and over on his blog, he posts a set of unboxing pics. Which might sound silly (an unboxing for a new hire packet?), but when you're talking about Apple, it's worth it. It turns out they put nearly as much thought into the design of their paperwork as they do into the rest of their projects. From the iconic folder to the way it's organized, designed, and laid out, getting a job offer from Apple isn't just super exciting, it's apparently a thing of beauty.

To tell the truth, we half expected him to turn the folder over and see the words "Designed by Apple in California." Good luck to Glyph with his job, and it warms our hearts here as Apple fans at TUAW to see that something the company never expected to be shown to the public was assembled with such care and thought.

During the existence of the iPhone, shopping has always been the domain of Safari. Browsing web-based stores could be extremely awkward, thanks to bitty drop-down menus and inadvertent "quick views" of garments that you can't seem to click out of. No longer, my fellow clotheshorses. Today, Ralph Lauren launched a unique iPhone application integrating social media with fashion design and online shopping, called Make Your Own Rugby [iTunes link].

The app centers around Ralph Lauren's Rugby line, launched in 2004, that is inspired by the Ivy League atmosphere circa 1940 and that targets preppy college students. The company describes Rugby as "preppy meets urban," though you will only qualify for street cred through a few light touches such as embroidered skulls. The fact that the skull is embroidered on a varsity sweater probably won't do you much good in the back alleys, but you can hope.

The MYO Rugby app allows the user to select a blank rugby shirt, polo, sweater, or jacket from a set of stock designs and customize it with as many distinguished crests, football-themed patches and letters as they want. You can use it to design and purchase clothing for yourself, or you can be a little more creative (and financially devil-may-care) and make designs to be displayed for browsing in the application or to share with friends.

We reported the Infectious "Cut to the Core" design contest a while back, but the winners have just been announced and their designs are truly gorgeous. I rarely sticker my computers, but the Infectious skins are vinyl and won't leave a mess behind when you remove them. These designs are created to work around the glowing Apple logo on the top half of your notebook computers, and the winners really hit the mark.

Congratulations to Jun Nuñez who takes home first prize of $1000 for his vision of the Apple logo as the pulsing heart of a robot with ReCharged. Kudos as well to Aren Vandenburgh and his design "Creative Workflow, Dimo Trifonov and his old-school rainbow striped Back to Basics and to Jamal Issawi and his arcade game-inspired Mac Man.

You can buy the winners' designs directly from Infectious for your 13", 15" and 17" Mac laptops. Skins cost $29.99 each. Check out the winners in the gallery, below.

Want to sketch out your iPhone apps? There's a notebook for that.

App Sketchbook is a pretty nifty notebook for iPhone developers who want to sketch out their products out on paper as part of the brainstorming process. App Sketchbook has three pre-drawn, full-sized iPhone templates per page with ruled lines beneath for notes. A pixel ruler runs alongside the template. You can use them in conjunction with iPhone UI stencils to get your ideas down on paper.

The App Sketchbook is a wire-bound notebook with 100 double-sided pages. It costs $12.95USD.

Edit (1:30 PST): Apparently make that $16.95USD as apparently the Web site updated right around the time I made my original post. A screencap of the original price is available here.

I've been playing with the hyped-up Booyah Society app for about a week or so now, and I don't think my reaction is too singular: it's not all that great. The idea is certainly a good one: take your real-life achievements and turn them into a game, complete with points and an avatar, but in practice, it's not quite there yet. Achievements are honor-based, which means you can make as many or as few points as you want just by punching anything in, and while the avatar is pretty nifty, it doesn't seem like there's that much to do with the little guy besides spin him around until he gets sick. That's not to say that the potential isn't still there -- the app's "Booyah" recommendations can give you some interesting things to do if you need them, and if they ever get the app using some actual iPhone mechanics (how about traveling a certain distance according to the GPS or playing a certain song or sound into the microphone?), it could be really addictive. But they're not quite there yet, and while we don't have any info on how many downloads they've gotten, the App Store rating is less than impressive at two-and-a-half stars.

And they're not giving up yet -- they just announced a giveaway of up to $1000 over on Facebook. You'll have to log in to see it, but if you become a fan of their service and fill out a quick sweepstakes form, you're entered in to win a $500 Apple gift card for yourself, as well as a chance to give $500 to five more friends.

Sure, the contest is blatant promotion (and it might even just be a shot in the dark to try and grab a Facebook audience). But what will be interesting here is to watch and see what happens with the app -- these guys have a legendary game development background (coming from Blizzard Entertainment), and at least $4.5 million in VC financing already. Whether they sink or swim, they're making for a very interesting case study of big-time development on the iPhone.