Attending Asymconf, IBM Almaden Research Center, San Jose, January 30, 2013. Will also be attending the Storyteller Workshop day before. If you’re interested in the “state, history and future of innovation as seen from a California perspective,” as presented by ex-Nokia analyst, Harvard MBA Horace Dediu, consider. Should be a great conference. Dediu is a compelling interpreter of data and trends – especially relating to the mobile industry and Apple in particular.

Asymco website is here.

Conference website is here.

Horace Dediu’s excellent Podcast, The Critical Path, can be heard here.

We’ve been a bit frustrated with the way Springboard handles “folders” in iOS, especially with the number of apps users are trying to manage seemingly going up, and also in light of the fact that the iPhone screen ratio is possibly about to change.

So we put together a concept video to try to generate conversation around the topic, which we wanted to start to circulate before WWDC.

Our primary objective was to see if we could envision a way to group apps without relying on the current “folder” approach, which we find awkward. This concept introduces virtual “pages” of grouped apps that can be titled (by the user, similar to how folders can be titled) but does not require the “drilling into and out of” folder actions that are currently deployed.

The user can simply pan (horizontally) between vertically scrolling “pages” in … Read More »

Screens from the Time-Warner Cable port of Intelevision for iPad.

All UI, graphics and animation by ADG.

Wow. Don’t get me wrong. I’m one of the biggest Apple fan-boys out there. But this morning’s announcement by Apple took the rug out from under me.

I don’t remember a major Apple announcement that didn’t make me want to go out and buy something that day. My response to the iPad? Meh.

Now, given my high hopes for a new device category (to in-part save the publishing industry which I’m really worried about – really), and my prediction – from 20 years ago – of what this thing should do, I was – to put it lightly – unimpressed today.

First impressions:

no phone?
multitasking?
no camera?
iPhone apps “pixel doubled”?
can that bezel get any bigger?
this is what print looks like in the future? (HTML? PDF?)
next gen print subscription models (I wanted the NYT 2010 reincarnation so bad …)

I … Read More »

I’m usually not one for predictions, but I’m going to go out on a limb here regarding Apple’s much fretted over announcement next week and make a bet.

Gartner says that downloads (not sales) of iPhone apps topped 3 billion recently. I’d like to know the distribution curve of active apps per phone (net of apps tried and then deleted) because if others out there are like me the original methods for managing apps have not kept up with the complexity of now having dozens of current apps.

The last major iPhone OS upgrade brought us the ability to search and shuffle apps around screens via the iTunes interface, but both seem like a patch and far short of Apple’s usual attention to detail. Given that new rumors have significant upgrades to iLife as well as a potential OS 4 … Read More »

The question constantly comes up on iPhone developer forums: what’s the best way to prototype an iPhone app concept without heading straight to Objective C?

There are great arguments for all of the traditional forms of rapid prototyping: paper, Visio, Photoshop layer comps, XHTML mockups, etc. But the two methods we’ve come to use more of over time are not the most obvious – certainly not the easiest.

As discussed in a previous post (here) we use Keynote (on the Mac) a lot for wireframe and rough prototype development. What’s key is the ability to work at pixel-perfect scale (to the target environment) and (as with Viso and other layered environments) to “page” through comps with perfect image registration. Unlike Viso (and Omnigraffle) I find Keynote much easier to organize and craft into everything from high-gloss presentations and walk-throughs … Read More »

AAA’s legendary roadside assistance is available easily through this app. Avoid waiting on the phone and receive confirmation that the information sent to AAA is correct. Using the location of your iPhone a roadside assistance request is a few simple steps away. Select the type of breakdown and AAA assures your information is delivered to a local roadside problem-solving technician for quick response.

ADG performed all the UX, design and graphic production for this application which launched in July ’09. Most of the app is actually HTML presented in an Objective C (iPhone app) wrapper which serves to capture the user’s location on launch. The challenge was to present a web app that looks and feels like the experience most users are familiar with in a native iPhone application.

Download the app here.

A sample of the design … Read More »

The HP 11C & 12C calculators (I’m talking back when these were physical hand-held devices, not an app on your phone or desktop) are held up by many as the best designed calculators ever, and I have to agree. High geek factor, but their physical layout and design was somehow incredibly different. I have to say that apart from some obscure Sony devices I’ve owned (that you usually only see in Japan), my old 11C (which I still have, it still works, and it’s still pristine) was as close to an Apple-like product refinement as I’ve found, outside of Apple.

Great to see that HP has now released a version of the 12C and 15C as iPhone apps (see the app here), and they’re getting rave reviews. But unless you’ve actually felt the real device, with it’s strangely … Read More »