Posts tagged iOS

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could?

It get’s really annoying when you’re filming things – for example something that you’re trying to get just right (e.g. that perfect skateboard trick) and you end up with fifteen “junk” videos in your iPhone Camera Roll.

Oftentimes you’re only a second or two into a video recording when you realize you want to trash it. It’d be awesome if there was a button to allow you to do so right from the recording view. 

There could be a “cancel” button next to the “record” button. Tapping the “cancel” button would display an alert asking “Do you really want to cancel recording this video?”, meanwhile the video would continue recording (incase it was an accidental tap).

In just 2 taps, you’d be able to stop recording and remove the unwanted file from your Camera Roll – before it even has a chance to get there. As it stands now, 4 taps (at minimum) are required to delete an unwanted video.

It’s also a heck of a lot easier to delete an unwanted video while you’re recording it – when it’s a few hours later and you’re looking at fifteen video clips with identical thumbnails, you’re forced to skim through each one to ensure you don’t delete the “right” one.

Ever since Apple introduced the iPhone 4 with an LED flash, people have been legitimately using their iPhones as flashlights.

I say legitimately because there were apps shticks from day one in the App Store that produced a solid white screen, aka “flashlight”.

There’s an endless supply of Flashlight apps in the App Store (some paid) that will turn on the iPhone LED light when launched. Some offer strobe lights, an S.O.S. light pattern, and other “neat” effects to help distinguish them from the competition.

Anyways, the purpose of this post wasn’t to discuss the 3rd party apps, but rather discuss whether or not Apple will ever officially recognize the LED light as a flashlight.

I purchased a flashlight app just because it promised to turn on the LED light immediately upon launch (and it does). I don’t use the flashlight all that often, but when I need to use it I want to access it quickly (which is why it’s in a folder on my home screen).

When I went into the wild in October, I didn’t even bring a real flashlight with me – I just relied on my iPhone. While the iPhone won’t ever replace a flashlight entirely (battery life, range, etc.), it’s perfectly good enough for fumbling under a dark desk looking for a plug, inspecting a used car’s engine bay, or finding your way around a dark room when you’re not near the light switch.

It’d be handy (but maybe overkill) to be able to access the “flashlight” right from the iPhone lock screen. It could also be available in the multitasking tray, or perhaps from Notification Center. This would mean that Apple themselves would have to build a flashlight app/widget, something I’m not sure they’d ever do.

Nevertheless, I think a lot of people use their phone as a flashlight, and having quicker access to it (without launching the iPhone Camera app and switching to Video > Flash On, or requiring a third party app), would be useful. 

There’s been lots of discussion about how the iPhone’s mute switch should behave. It all spurred from a NY Times piece about someone’s iPhone marimba ring interrupting a symphony performance.

John Gruber examines this and concludes that Apple’s current behaviour is correct:

I think the current behavior of the iPhone mute switch is correct. You can’t design around every single edge case, and a new iPhone user who makes the reasonable but mistaken assumption that the mute switch silences everything, with an alarm set that he wasn’t aware of, and who is sitting in the front row of the New York Philharmonic when the accidental alarm goes off, is a pretty good example of an edge case.

Whereas if the mute switch silenced everything, there’d be thousands of people oversleeping every single day because they went to bed the night before unaware that the phone was still in silent mode.

Andy Ihnatko then weighed in on the discussion with the philosophy that the mute switch should mute everything, no matter what app, what context, etc. He suggests that it’s essentially up to the user to be aware of this and if their alarm doesn’t go off because they forgot to un-mute their phone, that’s their mistake.

If screwups are inevitable, then the iPhone should choose to screw up in a way where the user feels like he understands what went wrong, takes responsibility for that mistake, and knows how to avoid repeating it. I shouldn’t be forced to consult a little laminated wallet card every time I slide a two-state “Mute” switch, to remind myself of all of the iPhone’s independent exceptions to the concept of “silence.” I can’t review all pending alerts and notifications to anticipate future problems.

No. I should slide the switch to “Mute,” and then the phone goes SILENT. If I miss an appointment because I did that, it’s completely on me. If my phone disrupts a performance despite the fact that I took clear and deliberate action to prevent that from happening…that’s the result of sloppy design. Or arrogant design, which is harder to forgive.

I tend to agree with Gruber, for the same reasons Dr. Richard Gaywood mentions:

Consider this scenario: the iPhone mute switch does, as Ihnatko wants, silence everything. I want to use it as an alarm clock with the phone on charge on my bedside table (a not-uncommon desire, I believe). I’ve done this with every cell phone I’ve had, back to 2000 or so.

So: if Ihnatko has his way, I cannot mute the phone or my alarm will not sound. I am forced to leave the phone’s sound on and be woken up multiple times a night by beeps and gurgles as I receive Twitter messages or spam emails and what have you. That’s clearly not what I want, and as it’s not how any cell phone I’ve ever used has behaved, it’s also not what I expect.

I’d say Apple has it just right in the current implementation.

BUT, there is one other idea; Profiles for iPhone.

Remember those old Nokia phones that had “ringtone profiles”?

For those of you that don’t remember, it was that phone you played Snake on (which is still better than any iPhone game I’ve ever played).

Profiles were great. They were a simple way to setup “blueprints” for various settings on your cellphone, so that the phone would behave a certain way when (and where) you wanted it to.

In order for some to realize the benefits of this, I’ve noted a few scenarios where Profiles would come in handy.

You could set one up called “Work” that would also have silent keytones, but wouldn’t even vibrate (which can be very disruptive in an enclosed meeting room).

You could setup a Profile for your phone called “Movie”. Your phone would only vibrate when it rings, and the keys would be silent.

You’d set one up called “Party” that would blow all the sounds and whistles. You’d be able to hear your phone ringing over the crowd on full volume (or feel the vibration if that fails), and you’d get the audible feedback when pressing buttons – assurance you may need after a few drinks.

You’d have another Profile called “Bedtime” that would have silent keynotes, and the ringtone volume turned way down. Perhaps you’d also choose a more soothing ringtone in place of your classic Old Phone or Marimba ringtone. That way you can hear your phone ringing in case an important call comes through, but you won’t be shell-shocked during your precious sleep. And of course you wouldn’t have to hear your Twitter push-notifications go off. Vibrate would also be off, because really, what’s more annoying than your phone sliding off your night table as you desperately try to grab it while your eyes are covered in morning goop.

These are the settings Nokia offered on the 3310 back in the day:

*Taken from Nokia’s manual for the 3310 handset

• Ringing tone: Sets the ringing tone for voice calls.
• Ringing volume: Sets the volume level for the ringing and message alert tones.
• Incoming call alert: Defines how the phone notifies you of incoming voice calls.
• Message alert tone: Sets the call alert for text messages.
• Keypad tones: Sets the volume level for keypad tones.
• Warning tones: Sets the phone to sound a warning tone, for example when the battery is running out of power.
• Vibrating alert: Sets the phone to vibrate when you receive a voice call or a text message.
• Screen saver: Sets the picture that is displayed in standby mode after a selected period of time (called ’timeout’).

So why doesn’t iPhone have Profiles? Probably because it over complicates the user experience.  

I can definitely see the complexity a profile feature would bring, but I can also see the benefits. In either case, constantly having to adjust my ringer volume and toggle the mute switch on/off can prove to be a bit annoying.

Imagine Profiles with location-based settings.

Your iPhone would know when you’re home, when you’re in the office, or when you’re at work. You’d be able to specify Profiles by location, time, or manually.

It could even do things beyond volume settings – it could turn your passcode lock on when you leave your home, or turn your screen brightness down in the morning so your eyes don’t bleed when you look at the screen when you first wakeup.

In writing this post it’s evident why it’s not there – it’s just too complicated. It wouldn’t have to be something enabled (and pushed to the user to setup) by default, or something heavily marketed by Apple. 

I’d be interested in hearing other people’s opinions on this, so feel free to get in touch with your thoughts. 

I stumbled upon this the other day by accident when browsing through Calendar on my iPhone:

If you tap and hold on a particular date in Calendar for iPhone, the box will flash blue twice and a new event will be created. 

Saves you from having to scroll through the date picker – especially handy when dealing far into the future.

Why are images saved from Mail and Safari (or screenshots taken on the device) placed into the Camera Roll in iOS?

The Camera Roll album in the Photos application should contain the photos of people, places, and things you’ve photographed – not images saved from within the device (especially the screenshots taken with it).

With iOS 5 you can create albums on the device for images you save, or screenshots you take, but they’ll still show up in the Camera Roll.

It’s a bit annoying that the screenshots I take for work purposes (often containing sensitive information) show up in the camera roll that I jump to when showing a friend a photo I’ve taken.

Because I’m generally not using the iPad when I’m in a rush, or standing in line somewhere, having super-quick access to apps is not as important as it is with the iPhone.

I use my iPad primarily while eating breakfast, laying in bed, or sitting on the couch to get away from my desk. Generally I’m going through email, planning my day, or reading some news.

THE DOCK

My dock houses the apps I use most often; Safari, Mail, Daylite Touch, CNN’s website, Twitter, and iPod (I’m still using iOS 4 on my iPad).

Safari and Mail are used the way Apple portrays them in their marketing.

The iPod lets me listen to music while I shower (I just prop it up on the counter before I jump in).

Daylite Touch let’s me plan my day. The home screen in Daylite lets me see what’s going on today, tomorrow, and for the next 7 days. All appointments, tasks, project due dates, etc. are available on one page. I can also view my co-workers calendars, schedule meetings with other employees, and sort through tasks that need to be completed. I’m also in charge of marketing the app, so it just makes sense to have it on my dock.

Although CNN has an iPad app, I prefer to navigate the news on their website.

DEFAULT APPS

I’ve kept quite a few default Apps on iPad’s home screen.

Calendar, Notes, Settings, and Maps aren’t used all that often, but I like keeping them here.

I use Remote sometimes when I’m walking around the house cleaning things up, and have my music pumping in the background. The iPad’s large screen makes it easy to choose what I want to listen to next.

Photos is hands down the best way to share photos with friends and family. After returning from Israel, Italy, and Las Vegas last summer, I had a lot of photos to share with my family. I hooked up my PS3 to a 100” projector and started the slideshow. Unfortunately, people’s attention started to dwindle after awhile, and the screen itself is not nearly as vivd as iPad’s. Later on, I showed the same photos to my grandparents with iPad while sitting on a couch, their hand and mine both cradling my iPad, and it was much more intimate. A much better experience.

I use the App Store to download new apps and update existing ones, although it’s so painfully slow that I rarely launch it.

THIRD-PARTY APPS

I don’t use many third-party apps on a regular basis with iPad – I’m usually just checking email or reading on the web. I created some folders to house my games, entertainment, and reading apps. I also created a folder for my favourite websites.

I use PlainText pretty often. It’s used to take notes during meetings, and to brainstorm for upcoming projects. When I have to write a lengthy article, it allows me to get away from my Mac (and all the distractions it comes with).

I use Dropbox more on iPad than on iPhone as the large display makes it great for sharing work with people.

SketchBook Pro always amazed me when I saw the artwork that others created with it, so I thought I’d buy it when it was on sale. Unfortunately I haven’t had much luck with it yet, and find the UI to be quite confusing. I keep it on my home screen so that I’m likely to play with it some more.

As mentioned in my iPhone writeup, I go to movies quite often so having the Movies app on my home screen makes a lot of sense.

WeatherEye lets me look at the weather on iPad’s large display, although I normally am already aware of it as I’ve checked on my iPhone. The iPad IS however the best way to look at weather with WeatherEye.

My iPhone home screen has changed quite a bit since it was first featured on First & 20. Part of this change came when Apple introduced folders in iOS 4 – the rest with changes in work and life.

THE DOCK

I’ve left the dock alone, as it works logically for me. I’ve thought about putting the Messages app on the dock, but I prefer it’s original location for aesthetics (don’t like having the two green icons together), and because I’m used to it.

Phone: After all, the iPhone IS a phone. I find myself using other forms of communication more frequently (SMS, Email, Facebook, etc.), but I still make good old-fashioned phone calls everyday.

Mail: I use this multiple times daily, to check both work and personal email accounts. Definitely one of my most used applications.

Safari: Not something I use super frequently, but I use it often enough to warrant keeping it on the home screen. I leave it on the dock because I’m used to its location.

Music: I use the Music app daily, at the gym or on bike rides. Sometimes it even reminds me to go to the gym if I’ve been lazy.

DEFAULT APPS

Before I decided which third-party apps made it on my home screen, I had to decide which didn’t. I immediately got rid of the Voice Memos, Stocks, YouTube, iTunes, and the Contacts applications. I’ll rarely use any of these applications, and have never, even once, used the Contacts application.

Messages: Default location, used very often. Didn’t move to the dock as I find the icon too similar to the Phone app icon.

Calendar: I use the iPhone Calendar to keep track of my personal appointments.

Photos: Used quite often as I’m into photography.

Camera: I had always used the camera quite often, and with iPhone 4, I use it even more.

Maps: I often use Maps when looking up the phone number for a restaurant, or finding an address when Navigon isn’t able to.

Settings: I wouldn’t need this on my home screen if I could adjust brightness and Wi-Fi settings from the status bar.

APPS FOLDER

When iOS 4 was first introduced, I created a whole bunch of folders (games, entertainment, news, etc.) and stuck them on my home screen. About a week later I realized that I didn’t use most of these apps that were previously on other pages, and that it took an extra tap to access apps that I did use on a regular basis. 

I’ve now created one folder called “Apps” to house everything that my home screen can’t fit, that I need quick access to or use often.

Movies: I go to the cinema quite often, so I use this app quite frequently.

Calcbot: I’m terrible at math, and enjoy the robotic sounds this calculator makes when doing calculations. Sometimes I miss the larger buttons of the default calendar though.

Notes: I use Notes primarily for lists of good restaurants, music and movies to check out, etc.

SoundHound: Used pretty frequently to find out what song is playing on the radio. Without quick access to the app, I could miss a song.

App Store: More often than not, I’m browsing the App Store for marketing reasons or to update Apps, rather than actual App shopping.

PlainText: I use PlainText to jot down marketing ideas when they come to me (unfortunately I can’t use this in the shower), as I know they are automatically backed up via Dropbox.

TD: The horribly-made-but-forced-to-use app to access my online banking.

Pastebot: Primarily used to send screenshots taken with iPhone back to my Mac (for work), but also used as a storage space to access important images (i.e. the photo I took of my new Dudley lock combination).

Navigon: Since my car was stolen last fall I no longer have a separate GPS device in my car, so I rely on this. Great for business trips too!

WeatherEye: Replaces the default Weather app – more detailed information, and usually more accurate.

Flashlight: Not something I use too often, but when I do, I need quick access to it.

Clock: Used mostly for alarms, but also to see what time it is when I want to Skype my friends around the world.

THIRD-PARTY APPS

I’ve very picky about which third-party apps make it to my homepage. The application has to be useful, used frequently, and (generally) have a well designed icon. My home screen is all business. Games are stored in their own folder on page 2, although I rarely use them. At one point Angry Birds was on my homepage, but after losing my save file 90% of the way through the game, I stopped playing. Cut the Rope was also on my home screen until I realized it was much more fun on iPad.

CNN: Not a huge fan of the CNN iPhone app, so I have a bookmark to the Web app, which is designed quite well. I wasn’t really a “news junky” until the iPhone came around – now I seem to check it multiple times daily.

Things: I use Things for personal projects that I’m working on. I also use it as a to-do list for things like camping trips and vacation planning.

Daylite Touch: Our company not only makes Daylite – we use it to run our own business. Daylite let’s me see what meetings I’ve been invited to, what my co-workers schedules look like, or see any tasks that have been delegated to me. It does a lot more than this, but these are the things I personally need access to when I’m mobile.

Facebook: I’m pretty active on Facebook, so I use this app quite often. I do more browsing than posting from iPhone, but I’m able to see what friends are up to, find out event details when I’m out and about, and update my status to let my friends know where they can find me.

Tweetbot: I manage several Twitter accounts (my personal account, and the Marketcircle accounts). Being able to quickly monitor the search strings I’ve setup is incredibly useful – especially during product launches.

Hype Radio: An alternative to the Music app when I’m sick of all the music I already have. Hype Radio brings The Hype Machine, a great website for discovering new music, to iPhone.

Reminders: With the new location based notifications, this app is quickly becoming a favourite of mine.

WhatsApp: I stayed away from 3rd party messaging apps for a long time, but now that some of my closest friends are living in other countries, it lets me keep in touch with them with in text-message-style for free.

Skype: More and more of my friends have moved away to other countries and Skype lets me keep in touch with them. The 3G video calling works really well.

Whenever I go to a track day event I shoot a lot of videos with my iPhone. 

I then end up with a Camera Roll that’s filled with a bunch of videos – sometimes upwards of 20 or 30 clips.

Afterwards, when I go to show a friend one of the videos I’ve taken, I’m forced to flip though several videos until I find the one I’m looking for.

As you can see from this screenshot below (videos were taken at a drift event this past Sunday), it’s hard to tell one video apart from another. 

Being able to “favourite” videos would be useful, but sometimes it’s not a favourite video that I want to show – it could be a video of a certain car, etc.

Having the ability to choose your own thumbnail for a video would help solve this problem.

Here’s what YouTube does:

In this case, the second of three thumbnail options best represents the video.

If this video was part of a large Camera Roll library (I have over 1,500 items in mine), it would be easy to identify right away.

More often than not, the thumbnail your iPhone uses for a video (the first frame recorded) does not represent the video very well.

Having an option to choose between a few different thumbnails would greatly increase the user experience when sharing something with a friend. 

Fingers crossed, but I’m not holding my breath.

I don’t think this is a big deal for Facebook, but it is for Twitter.

I use Daylite Touch for all of my business appointments, meetings, etc., but I use iCal and Calendar for personal stuff.

I was just adding a doctor’s appointment in my calendar for late July that starts at 8:15 am. I want to be reminded of this appointment a couple days before, but NOT at 8:15 am!

The appointment is on a Tuesday, which would mean the alarm would sound at an ungodly time in the morning on a Saturday! I never get up early and I sure as hell don’t want to be awoken by a nasty beep-beep-beep 2 days before a doctor’s appointment when I’m trying to catch up on sleep.

It would be great if you could set your own reminder time in the Calendar app. My fingers are crossed for the final release of iOS 5 – I haven’t played with it yet so if it’s already there, touché.

In the meantime, however, why should we be limited to these default options?

Something like this (similar to what we have in Daylite Touch) would make a lot more sense:

I know you can do this with Reminders in iOS 5 but I don’t want to use a to-do app to schedule a calendar appointment. 

I recently had the pleasure to interview Christopher Downer, a user interface designer at Realmac Software.

Tell us a bit about yourself. What are your hobbies? Where have you traveled to?

I’m a 20 year old UI designer currently living in Brighton in the UK and working at Realmac Software making awesome things. I have a broad range of hobbies from playing sports like soccer and golf, to skiing, watching films and travelling. I’ve travelled mainly throughout Western Europe and been to the USA a couple of times, but I hope to travel all over the world throughout my life.

What was your first job?

Funnily enough my current job is my first one. Before that I was a student at university studying Digital Art & Technology.

How’d you get into user interface design?

I just happened to ‘stumble’ upon it really. I was browsing DeviantArt one day when I came across the world of “Deskmodding” on Windows XP and I wanted to do the same. I started out by making and sharing icons for a while before I decided to take it seriously and it branched out to interface design and I haven’t looked back since.

Any formal training, or mostly self taught? 

I’m entirely self taught. I had taught myself to use Photoshop a couple of years before I started icon design and really just practiced then ever since with the help of various articles and tutorials along the way. I started to do a lot of research at one point into the technical side of things and am still learning with each thing I make.

Do you have a favourite project that you’ve worked on? 

My favourite project I’ve worked on is also my most recent, and that’s Realmac’s new application, Analog.



I’ve learnt a lot in designing it and it’s great to see it’s evolution. I am still quite fond of my work that I did for the Movies Now iPhone application which now sadly defunct. Looking back at it now, there are some things that I would like to change, but it was an app that I used quite frequently which was great.

Is there anything you hate working on? 

I can get quite frustrated at times when I need to design around a particular problem and can’t seem to find a solution around. It’s sometimes similar when designing icons and you just cannot think of a perfect or feasible metaphor for something like an action that is unnatural or uncommon. I do hate working in Adobe Illustrator though. I avoid it where possible but sometimes it’s not always an option.

What blogs/books/magazines do you read? 

I wouldn’t say that I subscribe to any particular blog but I do use Twitter very regularly and it’s great as lots of links to various blog posts are shared by some of the people I follow. 

Sebastiaan de With’s blog was one of the first design blogs that I read and I learnt quite a lot from that. As for books and magazines, I don’t usually tend to read a lot of them, sadly. I’ve been doing a lot more reading since I got my iPad and apps like Flipboard are great for that.

What’s your hardware/software setup look like? Any favourite applications? 

At work I have a 27” iMac which I use with a Magic Trackpad, and at home I have a 13” MacBook Pro that is badly in need of an upgrade. Hopefully Apple will announce new models during WWDC, or I’ll get an SSD for it.



As for applications, aside from Apple’s own which I use daily, they include Adobe Photoshop (It has it’s problems, but I could not work without it), LittleSnapper, Twitter, CoverSutra and Chrome.

If you had to pick one person as being the most influential person in your life, who would that be, and why? 

Good question. It’s one that I’ve not really thought about. I’d probably say my parents. They’ve always supported and encouraged me with whatever I’ve wanted to do in life, which I know some other people may not have had. I’ve been inspired by various famous figures throughout history such as Martin Luther King Jr, Steve Jobs and Henry Ford to name a few.

What have you failed at in life, and how have you learned from the experience? 

Early on when I was designing I was never happy with anything I designed and I felt like I kept failing and wanted to give up. But I kept trying and it’s most definitely paid off. It does sound so cliché, but practice really does makes perfect. You’ve just got to keep at it and remain dedicated if it’s something you really want to do. I think that goes for most things in life.

What do you like to do in your spare time? 

In my spare time I usually like to relax by watching TV shows, listening to music or watching a movie. I also usually do some designing in my free time, things that I wouldn’t usually get to make at work and it’s a great way to keep on learning and improving. 

Lastly, if you had to pick another career, totally out of the design realm, what would it be? 

I was never sure what I wanted to be when I was growing up, and I’m still finding it hard now to decide what I would like to do if I wasn’t a designer. Probably something to do with geography. More specifically island geography. It’s something I find really fascinating and I love learning about it.

Thanks again Chris for the interview!

The first review of Daylite Touch for iPad, in the form of an exclusive sneak peek from the AppStorm team.

We submitted Daylite Touch for iPad to the App Store earlier this afternoon - shouldn’t be too long before it’s available to everyone :)