Apple’s iPad Cons and Pros
This is what we make of Apples iPad presentation — a new beautifully and smartly designed new device, which is clearly oriented towards education market and execs on the go. Read More
UI Design & Web Usability Blog
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Jan 29th, 2010
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Jan 21st, 2010
Apple Tablet Confirmed by The Wall Street Journal
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.
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Dec 10th, 2009
Google Chrome Beta for Mac speed test
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.
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Nov 10th, 2009
Apple’s MagicMouse – Most usable mouse ever
MagicMouse is a great a very well designed device. I got it on the first date they were available and spent about 10 days using it. The mouse is great. Very responsive and precise. Still runs on the original batteries with about 40% charge left which means it will go for about about 3 weeks.
The gestures work great. Very usable . Especially swiping back though web pages. Scroll with momentum works and feels exactly as one in iPhone, which is very intuitive and beats Logitec’s Hyper-fast scrolling feature.
Apple's MagicMouse
The only 2 things bother me so far and they are really minor. First is that the thumb is positioned over 2 movable parts which creates a strange feeling that took me few days to get used to. The other thing is that if your hand are wet for any the fingers won’t “swipe” over mouse plastic making gestures almost impossible.
So if you live in a hot place with high humidity without an air conditioning MagicMouse not may be a mouse of choice for you. In any other case – highly recommended.
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Nov 10th, 2009
OpenOffice Mouse – 7 buttons for each finger
After debut of Apple’s Magic Mouse - a super well and smartly designed piece of hardware OpenOffice Mouse produces mixed feeling. The bulky and very impressive design that places 7 buttons under each finger might require an extensive training to use. (Piano players will have a definite advantage using it). Thumb button makes it look like a toy form Master Mind.There is differently coloured version of on OO website but it doesn’t really help.
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Nov 4th, 2009
Touch screen tactile feedback and user satisfaction survey
A survey recently conducted (France, Germany and the UK) showed 38% were planning to get a touchscreen on their next mobile phone while only 47% of people who already owned a touchscreen said they would get another one. In other words, less than half of touchscreen owners thought they’d stick with the technology on their next purchase. Apple has a high customer satisfaction rate and since iPhone is the only available device iphone users don’t really have a choice.
As a designer I can’t help but love the idea of one surface that becomes what one needs it to be at the moment. I’m not moving back to physical keyboard. At least on my phone.
I don’t play many games on my iPhone and when I do tactile feedback is not something I miss.The possibility of tactile feedback was mentioned in the original iPhone patent application and last year Apple filled “Keystroke tacility arrangement on a smooth touch surface” patent. It desscribes various tactile feedbacks on a smooth sureface keyboard such as:
- Braille-like dot pairs or bars at key centers
- Articulating frame that protrudes at key edges during typing
- Articulating frame that deforms surface cover at key edges during typing
- Rigid frame under key edges with compressible key centers
We may see it implemented in rumoured Apple Tablet Mac that supposedly should surface in next few months. So it looks like touchscreen are going to become smarter and more “user-freiendly”.
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Nov 2nd, 2009
Useful text editing shortcuts (Mac OS X)
I came across few useful text editing shortcuts for Mac OS X @ www.ss64.com – a site dedicated to all kinds of applications/os syntax…
Editing Text (email, TextEdit, Pages, etc)
⌥ ← Move one word left ⌥ → Move one word right ⌘ ← Beginning of line ⌘ → End of line
Scroll one page up (cursor retains position)
Scroll one page down (cursor retains position)
⌥ Move one page up (reposition cursor)
⌥ Move one page down
⌘ ↑ or 
Scroll to beginning of document
⌘ ↓ or 
Scroll to end of document
Add shift key ⇧ to the above to also SELECT the text.
⌥ ⌫ Delete word
⌥ Del Delete next word
⌥ Scrollbar Jump to exact scrollbar location
⌥ Scrollbar arrows Scroll page at a time (page up/down)
⌥ Volume up/down Open Sound preferences
⌥ Brightness up/down Open Display preferences
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Sep 12th, 2008
iTunes 8 and mysterious absence of song rating keyboard shortcut
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?