Design Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Rogue Amoeba on creating the look of Piezo

by Mike Schramm (Feb 16th, 2012)

Christa Mrgan has published an interesting post at Rogue Amoeba about developing the look and feel of that company's Piezo recording software. Rogue Amoeba is known for simple, intelligent designs. It's fascinating to see how the company works from beginning to end, first defining the app's ...

Early Apple employee Jerry Manock remembers Steve Jobs

by Kelly Hodgkins (Feb 10th, 2012)

When you think of notable, early Apple employees, you think of the big names like Steve Wozniak, Andy Hertzfeld, and John Sculley. Beyond these key names are a multitude of lesser-known people who played a crucial role in the early years of the company. One such employee is Jerry Manock, who ...

VP of iPhone and iPod Engineering David Tupman leaves Apple

by Mike Schramm (Feb 7th, 2012)

David Tupman, the VP of iPhone and iPod Engineering at Apple, made his exit from Cupertino at the end of last year, according to reports at 9to5Mac. Tupman, who grew up in the UK, has a background in engineering, and has been in the position ever since the introduction of the first iPod, all the ...

Adobe drops Creative Suite subscriptions to prepare for Creative Cloud

by Megan Lavey-Heaton (Jan 13th, 2012)

As of Thursday, Adobe has dropped sales of suite edition subscriptions to prepare for the upcoming Adobe Creative Cloud service. Subscriptions to the individual applications remain available. Those interested in subscribing to a suite edition must purchase the software instead. Adobe quietly ...

iPhone icon cupcakes look touchable, tasty

by Mike Schramm (Dec 29th, 2011)

We haven't posted a really good iPhone cake in quite a while now, so here we go: Reader Tim sends in this set of cupcakes that his girlfriend made him for his 21st birthday, and boy do they look good. There are a few things that, as Apple obsessive, we would call out in there, including the ...

On UI inconsistency in iOS 5

by Chris Rawson (Dec 6th, 2011)

A while back, designer Jake Marsh commented on an inconsistency in Apple's use of linen textures in iOS 5 (hat tip to Daring Fireball). In both OS X Lion and iOS 5, the linen texture is "underneath" other UI elements in almost every instance. In Lion, linen textures lie beneath the Mission ...

Megaphone, a big honkin' amplifier for your iPhone

by Steven Sande (Dec 3rd, 2011)

There are a lot of powered amplifier docks for the iPhone and iPod touch, and sadly most of them are lacking in beauty and originality. Italian design firm en&is is bucking the trend with a unique unpowered amplifier that is a large, swooping ceramic horn. The Megaphone ranges from ...

TerraRay for Mac doubles rendering speed and drops price for 1 week

by Mel Martin (Dec 2nd, 2011)

I've enjoyed using TerraRay for some months. It's in the tradition of terrain creation apps like Bryce, but at a much lower price. I don't think it is quite as photo realistic as some other 3D landscape programs, but it is continuously upgrading features and quality. TerraRay 6 is just out, and ...

Inside Susan Kare's 'iconic' sketchbooks

by Mike Schramm (Nov 23rd, 2011)

We've mentioned Susan Kare and her work on the site before, but it's a story that's always worth repeating: She's the woman behind some of Apple's most iconic, well, icon designs. Kare was working as a curator at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco when her friend Andy Hertzfeld asked her to ...

Former Apple interface expert rants on Microsoft's "Vision of the Future" video

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (Nov 10th, 2011)

A few weeks ago Microsoft came out with a future of productivity video proposing a very touchscreen-based future for us humans. A former human-computer interface inventor for Apple, Brett Victor, has picked apart this video in a beautifully designed "rant" on his site, essentially taking ...

Where's my Water creator goes from QA to hit game designer at Disney Mobile

by Mike Schramm (Nov 7th, 2011)

Tim FitzRandolph joined Disney Mobile's gaming team from the lowest rung possible: The Quality Assurance department. Game testers often work long hours on early versions of unfinished games, and FitzRandolph's first job was no exception. "I studied film studies and nothing to do with games, ...

Apple-themed pumpkin carving for Halloween

by Mike Schramm (Oct 29th, 2011)

The good folks at MacRumors have done us all a favor and rounded up all of the Apple-themed pumpkins they've seen this year so far. Most of them, like the one carved by Sbrocket seen above, have focused on Steve Jobs in some way, which makes sense given that everyone's still thinking about ...

Pixelmator 2.0 released with new tools, content-awareness, Lion support

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (Oct 27th, 2011)

I ditched Photoshop for Pixelmator about a year ago, but there were a few things missing in Pixelmator which caused me to fire up Photoshop once in a while. I also recently bought Aperture in an effort to better organize and retouch photos I started taking on my new Canon Rebel. Pixelmator 2 ...

iPod designer Tony Fadell takes on thermostats with Nest Labs

by Dave Caolo (Oct 25th, 2011)

Tony Fadell, Apple's former Senior Vice President of the iPod Division, oversaw iPod and iPhone development between 2001 and 2009. Ten years after his most iconic project first saw the light of day, the "father of the iPod" has a new product: Nest, a home thermostat that's smarter than the average ...

Apple design and the little things

by Kelly Hodgkins (Oct 25th, 2011)

Updated to link the source post. Apple is known for its attention to detail. The layout of its stores, the design of its icons and the colors used in its promotional materials are all carefully planned. This attention to the littlest of things even appears in the iPhone 4. As pointed out by ...