Graphical User Interface Design - Rossul Design » Apps

Apple Tablet Confirmed by The Wall Street Journal

admin — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:59:29 +0000

It is almost certain a new device is going to be unveiled next week. We’ve heard many name variations such as iSlate and iPad –both are Apple’s registered trademarks– Apple Tablet, etc. It seems like Apple’s plans are big this time; they aim to re-shape the publishing industry (which is in an apparent crisis) as they once re-shaped the digital music industry with iTunes and iPod. Making it easier for people to access media content for an affordable price has proved to be successful. Here is a short recap of what we know so far:

Apple has been discussing with book, magazine and newspaper publishers possible ways of cooperation.
NYT Chairman Arthur Sulzberger, when asked about the new devices, said “stay tuned”.
Orange Chief confirms Apple Tablet With Built-In Webcam
Apple has been negotiating with TV networks CBS, Walt Disney and ABC for a monthly subscription service.
There have been rumors that Apple is going to work with Electronic Arts to position the new device as a gaming platform.
The device will have a web camera and be capable of live web streaming
Apple has been promoting an idea of backing-up users music online and accessing it on an connected device. This also supports the recent Lava acquisition. Its technology may very well find its way to iTunes 10.
Apple’s new $1 billion data centre in North Carolina is under construction. MobileMe will most probably have a major upgrade, possibly the “Mobile iTunes” version, and as the name suggests, possibly other things related to “Me”.

Nowhereelse.fr has obtained what it says may be a video of the long-rumored Apple tablet. Whatever it is, it looks pretty cool already:

Last year, Apple’s focus shifted from computer production to content delivery. The turning point was dropping “Computers” from the company name. Since then their devices are just one unified platform that makes it easy to delivery content to end user. And, this strategy pays off very well.

Android Market and Apple’s App Store

admin — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:47:35 +0000

As Android Market has grown to about the 20,000 apps mark, it is interesting to compare two different approaches to User Experience. While Apple sets up very strict approval rules in effort to assure only well done and polished apps get through to an end-user, Google doesn’t set any approval process at all. Aesthetics have never been Google’s concern although it’s nothing-gets-in-the-users-way approach has became a signature style on its own. And it does work very well on the web, but for mobile apps it may not.

In many cases visual aspects of apps and UI become the very corners that are being cut in order to minimize product-to-market time and expenses. As a result, we see less-than-inspiring graphics, confusing User Interfaces and an overall lack of consistency. One of iPhones’s strong points is the well-designed default UI elements that help to assure some level of consistency across various applications. After all, apps are just tools running on a mobile device and shared layout principals help a great deal in minimizing learning curve for users.

Below is a screenshot of Apple Store’s Movies App that uses default iPhone library elements as well as a very similar app from Android Market.

Movies by Flixster (Android)

Movies (Apple App Store)

Google Chrome Beta for Mac speed test

admin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:35:03 +0000

Safari is the fastest browser on a Mac platform, approximately 12% faster than Chrome Beta according to Computerworld. Chrome easily leaves behind FireFox and Opera in JavaScript rendering performance.

SunSpider JavaScript Benchmarks of Mac Browsers (Shorter bars represent faster performance)

On the Windows platform Chrome 3.0 shines as the fastest browser, leaving Safari behind. We might expect a speed boost in the final version of Chrome for Mac, although Google has made no claims regarding Chrome JS rendering speed on Leopard.

JS rendering performance is important for websites and web apps that rely on JavaScript to provide rich functionality. Gmail, Google Maps, Flickr, a9, online text editors and any other site that uses AJAX.

iTunes 8 and mysterious absence of song rating keyboard shortcut

admin — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 02:27:23 +0000

I love iTunes. Have been using it since version 1 (or 2 – can’t remember) but certainly for a long time. At the beginning I hesitated to switch to it completely - my pal for a long time was Panic’s Audion. iTunes won. Since then it’s been my jukebox of choice. It keeps getting better and better. If sometimes I forget why I like it one look at MS Video Player gets me back on track.

But there is one absolutely mysterious question I can’t find an answer to. There is no keyboard shortcut for song rating. I can pump up volume using keyboard. I can even put the iTunes window in the Dock (Command-M), I can turn the visualizer on or off, I can do lots of very useful and not so useful things using keyboard shortcuts. I can even mute the sound while it keeps playing (!) - something which probably only a real iTune Pro would need. ….. But I can’t rate a song! Instead I have catch my mouse, aim at the song, right click and then chose rating from a menu.

I rate songs 10-15 times a day (well, I buy lot of music). I never even wondered what might be a shortcut for muting a song while it is playing…

I purchased CoverSutra ($22!!!) for this single feature. The app does many other not-so-needed tricks. It provides a descent user experience modestly sitting in the top bar and puts a nice CD cover image on my desktop.

So, I’m not upset. I rather curious why Apple, a company that spends so much efforts designing user experience and is a pioneer of user centered GUI design, would ignore this extremely useful feature?