iPhone Apps Design Mistakes: Disregard Of Context
My Clippings November 15th, 2009 by System
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The iPhone will always be part of a much bigger picture. How well you address human and environmental factors will greatly determine the success of your product. All too often, iPhone developers create products in isolation from their customers. In order to create really appealing applications, developers must stop focusing only on the mechanisms of the apps. Zoom out: understand the person using the application, as well as the complex environmental factors surrounding that person.
To better understand the context of these design challenges, we’ll highlight several levels of human and environmental factors.
Also consider our related articles:
- iPhone design mistakes: Over-Design
- iPhone App Design Trends
- How to Create Your First iPhone Application
Level 1: You Are Here. To Create An App That Customers Love, Zoom Out
Level 1: The app itself.
This is how many developers view their apps. As a developer, you have a vision of what your product should look like and why customers will turn their attention to it. However, if you observe your product so closely, you may put it in the wrong context and design it for the wrong purposes and for the wrong users. This is why you need to zoom out.
Level 2: A person is using this app.
That person has specific goals and challenges. In the section below we’ll start by exploring some of the most prominent — and most ignored — human factors pertaining to the iPhone. We’ll discuss basic physical ergonomics, visual limitations and common design mistakes.
Level 3: That person is using this app in a specific environment.
Step back and you’ll see that the app is a part of a complex social environment. It plays but a relatively small role in communication between people and helping people accomplish bigger goals. This is where the social components comes into play: networking, community, social-driven websites and applications and many other things create the environment — or the context — in which the application will be used.
Level 4: The environment is part of a greater culture.
Your ability to address the unique needs of different cultures will affect the success of your product. Ignoring them is too expensive, especially if your app sells worldwide. Here it is important to understand that the environment is a part of global networking. You need to be aware of cultural differences, traditions and metaphors in order to create an application that will not only gain popularity in certain local circles, but will also have a global success.
Tags: Apple, blockquote, cli, Extract, Google, Information, IO, ISO, ma, Mac, man, Photo, php, script, video, way, XP
Cheapism Helps You Find the Cheapest “Best Buys” [Frugality]
My Clippings November 8th, 2009 by System
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Thanks to the research power the internet bestows upon you, it’s easy to find the best of class and the most expensive in any given category. What if you want the best of the cheapest picks? Cheapism can help.
The premise of Cheapism is this: You don’t want the absolute best and premium priced item, you just want the best value among the cheaper options.
When you visit Cheapism you can browse their top picks for categories, read product reviews for products with budget-friendly prices, and read up on what to look for in economical products in the category you're researching. The latter might be the most valuable part of the site, the guides are quite detailed and offer lots of great information on shopping in the zone above cheaper-than-dirt and below ultra-premium—they even provide a scale for each product category showing where the common price divisions fall for that particular product.
Check out the link below to explore product reviews on everything from printers to coffee makers. Have a favorite site for finding great deals and comparison shopping? Let’s hear about it in the comments.
Gokivo updates navigation app for iPhone, lowers the price
My Clippings November 7th, 2009 by System
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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone, App Review
Several readers have urged me to try the Gokivo Navigator for the iPhone [iTunes link], so today is the day. The app is U.S. $4.99, but that only provides you with GPS navigation for 30 days. After that, the app costs $4.99 monthly or you can purchase a year of service for $39.99. That's quite a bit less that the AT&T nav solution [iTunes link], and makes the Gokivo app quite competitive. The app includes a Traffic Tracking Center, text to speech so street names are announced as you drive, and it has iPod controls so you don’t have to leave the app to change your music.
Like the AT&T app, if you are out of range of the data network, you won't get maps. And like most of the competition, Gokivo gives you an estimated time of arrival, distance to your destination, and your current speed.
The map doesn’t work in landscape view, which I consider a strong negative. It’s easy to navigate to your addresses in your Contacts app, and the feature is nicely integrated.
Continue reading Gokivo updates navigation app for iPhone, lowers the price
TUAWGokivo updates navigation app for iPhone, lowers the price originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Related posts:With a rebel Dell, Psystar tries more, more, more
My Clippings October 22nd, 2009 by System
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Filed under: Hacks, Mods, Snow Leopard
Psystar, that pesky little thorn in Apple’s side, has released Rebel EFI. According to Psystar, the app, available for $49.99 through the company’s site, “allows for the easy installation of multiple operating systems,” including Mac OS X, on a vanilla PC. Besides bypassing EFI requirements, Rebel EFI can also detect for Mac OS X compatible and incompatible hardware, and automatically download appropriate drivers. Skeptical? No worries: the app is free to try (as an ISO download), with a two hour time limit.
To each their own, and if running Mac OS X on non-Apple specified hardware floats your boat, then you should also be aware of the risks involved. In other words, back up your data if you are attempting such a thing. Second, and more importantly, there’s the issue of licensing: Apple prohibits the installation of Mac OS X on non Apple-branded machines.
Psystar giveth and Psystar must also taketh. One wonders how Psystar will react when people illegally use Rebel EFI, just like Psystar is allegedly misusing Mac OS X, as pirated versions inevitably circulate around the Interwebs.
Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
[via The Loop]
TUAWWith a rebel Dell, Psystar tries more, more, more originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Related posts:Tags: Apple, email, Google, Inc., IO, ISO, Leopard, ma, Mac, man, Snow Leopard
Adobe ships Lightroom 3 free public beta
My Clippings October 22nd, 2009 by System
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Adobe has introduced a free public beta of Lightroom 3, it software for digital photographers.
Adobe’s Julieanne Kost has created three videos which detail 25 new minor refinements in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 that could impact your workflow, these clips are available here.
Writing on the Lightroom blog, developer Tom Hogarty said, “We've come a long way since our very first public beta on January 9th 2006 at Macworld.(We didn't even have a crop tool in the first release!) For this latest release we went back to the drawing board and revisited what we believe are the fundamental priorities of our customers: Performance and Image Quality.
“Lightroom has been stripped down to the "engine block" in order to rebuild a performance architecture that meets the needs of photographers with growing image collections and increasing megapixels. The raw processing engine has also received an overhaul right down to the fundamental demosaic algorithms that now allows unprecedented sharpening and noise reduction results.”
Lightroom users can organize, enhance, and showcase their images all from within a fast application that’s available for Mac and Windows.
Some of the new features include:
- Brand new performance architecture, building for the future of growing image libraries
- State-of-the-art noise reduction to help you perfect your high ISO shots
- Watermarking tool that helps you customize and protect your images with ease
- Portable sharable slideshows with audio—designed to give you more flexibility and impact on how you choose to share your images, you can now save and export your slideshows as videos and include audio
- Flexible customizable print package creation so your print package layouts are all your own
- Film grain simulation tool for enhancing your images to look as gritty as you want
- New import handling designed to make importing streamlined and easy
- More flexible online publishing options so you can post your images online to certain online photo sharing sites directly from inside Lightroom 3 beta (may require third-party plug-ins)
Full release notes are located here.
Download the software here.
Tags: Build, cli, Google, IO, ISO, ma, Mac, man, Photo, video, way, wind, XP
Psystar, Apple file motions for summary judgment
My Clippings October 17th, 2009 by System
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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Apple Corporate, Hardware, OS
Apple and Psystar have been embroiled in litigation for quite a while now. At the core of the dispute: Psystar modifies Apple’s operating system software so that it can run on its clone machines. It then sells its computers with Mac OS installed to, well, anybody who wants one. As you can imagine, this does not make Apple happy.
Anybody familiar with The Great Clone Crackdown of 1997 will tell you that Apple likes to keep a very tight grip on any device that presumes to run its software. Apple points out that Windows machines are a mishmash of often conflicting hardware and suffer from quirks and errors and incompatibilities that such a set up can bring.
So Apple’s cadre of lawyers descended quickly on Psystar. In July of last year, the company sued Psystar for copyright and software licensing violations, quickly amending its lawsuit to additionally charge Psystar with violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
More than a year later, now that discovery has been completed, the two parties have each filed for summary judgment, which, in effect, asks the judge to rule in favor of the filing party because enough evidence has been shown that either makes or breaks the lawsuit.
Psystar’s argument, and the one covered in its motion, somewhat relies on the “first sale doctrine” which says that any purchaser of a copyrighted product can then take that lawfully-made copy and sell it, so long as no additional copies can be made. For its part, Apple says that when one “purchases” its OS, you are only purchasing a license to use the product. Its Software Licensing Agreement (SLA) quite clearly states [PDF link to Snow Leopard SLA] that the user cannot modify the software to run on a non-Apple system.
The idea that what you are purchasing is a license to use the product is pretty commonplace among software manufacturers, because, the argument runs, you can cut any software company’s profits off at the knees if every purchaser became an owner with free rein to redistribute the software. Apple states that no software company in its right mind would put the money into research and development of any software product at all if that were the end result of bringing its product to market. Groklaw suggests this could have ramifications for FOSS and and the GPL.
Continue reading Psystar, Apple file motions for summary judgment
Related posts:Tags: Apple, email, Google, Inc., IO, ISO, Leopard, ma, Mac, man, OSX, php, quick, Snow Leopard, wind
AVG releases version 9 – Free version to drop on October 15th
My Clippings October 6th, 2009 by System
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Filed under: Security, Utilities, Windows
AVG 9 is finally here — and like other 2009/2010 antivirus suites the emphasis in the new version is on speed, performance, and minimizing the impact on system resources.
Even the install process has been streamlined, with developers reducing the number of tedious, finger-numbing mouse clicks from 22 to 11. Thank you, AVG, for doing this. It’s a little thing, but no techy enjoys tapping “next” nearly two dozen times.
Grisoft says scanning speeds have been increased by as much as 50% and that version 9 also reduces Windows boot lag by 10 to 15%. The firewall is more intuitive and has been made less intrusive — another small but welcome change.
The paid versions are available now through the AVG web site, and we’ve been told that the much-loved free version will be good to go in ten days.
If you’re a believer in free antivirus, your preferred version will be up for grabs on October 15th. Keep your browser tuned to free.avg.com — that’s where the download will appear when it goes live. Of course, you’ll also be able to read about the release here at Download Squad.
AVG releases version 9 – Free version to drop on October 15th originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sponsored Topics:
Download Squad – AVG – antivirus – Security – Microsoft Windows
Tags: cli, email, Google, Inc., IO, ISO, ma, man, Microsoft, php, security, wind
Adobe Flash CS5 converts Flash to iPhone apps
My Clippings October 6th, 2009 by System
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Filed under: Developer, Games, Adobe
Flash is coming to the iPhone! Well, sort of. Adobe is showing off a new feature of Flash CS5 Professional that will convert Flash/Actionscript into iPhone apps. The public beta of CS5 with Flash Platform is due out later this year, but for now, you can test out some iPhone games that were created with the new system. For comparison, check out the puzzle game Chroma Circuit on the web and then on the iPhone.
This is good news for Flash developers who want to get their games into the App Store without having to write iPhone-native apps themselves, especially because it allows them to reuse the same code on the web or on Flash-friendly mobile platforms. This might mean that we’ll see some of our favorite Flash time-wasters on the iPhone, too. There’s also the possibility that the App Store will be flooded with the same awful Flash games that plague the web now. Developing a lame Flash game for the web doesn’t have the same $99 pricetag that signing up for the iPhone developer program does, though, so that might keep the quality of iPhone game offerings from taking a huge dive.
Adobe Flash CS5 converts Flash to iPhone apps originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sponsored Topics:
iPhone – Adobe Flash – App Store – Download Squad – Flash CS5 Professional
Tags: Apple, cli, email, flash, Google, Inc., IO, ISO, ma, man, php, script
Use SUSE Studio to Build a Linux OS From Scratch [Operating Systems]
My Clippings September 30th, 2009 by System
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Think you can make a better fast-booting, Chrome-focused OS than Google? Want to craft a custom Linux system that boots from a USB stick? SUSE Studio gives you 15 GB to do exactly that, and you do it all online.
SUSE Studio is what powered the fan-made “Chrome OS” we posted yesterday, which, in that case, was a semi-stripped-down system loaded with the developers’ version of Chrome, Google webapp links, and OpenOffice. If speed and cloud computing aren’t your bag, you can create a fully functional system with Firefox, 3D graphics, and whatever apps you can find installed. Want your system to start up with an AWN dock and Launchy keystroke launcher running? Not a problem.
Even if you don't know all that much about Linux, it's pretty easy to build a system you can boot from a USB stick or live CD/DVD, run inside a virtual machine program, or actually install it—or, heck, even test it out in your web browser.
Here’s a basic walkthrough of building a system with SUSE Studio. In this case, we’re looking to build a GNOME-based system that would boot fairly quick and use Chrome for most of its functions, and use GNOME-Do as the primary application launcher.
Get an account, choose your desktop
First things first, you’ll need to grab an invitation and account from SUSE Studio. While it’s invite-only at the moment, I received my invite only 10 minutes after registering and filling out a quick survey that suggested it would boost my invite reply time. Once your invite arrives, you can sign into SUSE Studio with your Google or Yahoo account, or any OpenID provider. Not sure how to nab an OpenID? Here’s a quick video tutorial.
Once you’re signed in, head to your “Home” screen and click the “Create new appliance” link in the upper-right. SUSE Studio calls each bootable system you create an “appliance” throughout the process. You’ll be asked to choose your “base template,” which includes the GNOME and KDE desktops, a Just Enough OS (jeOS) option, and server or command-line-only choices. Most folks will want to lean toward GNOME or KDE setups, as they're the most familiar graphical environments. If you're familiar with Linux enough to know how to build a login manager and desktop from a command line system, though, go ahead and play around—you can't really hurt anything.
Tags: Build, cli, command line, Google, IO, ISO, Linux, ma, Mac, man, quick, script, video, VirtualBox, way, wind
Appsync for OS 3.1
My Clippings September 27th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from Google Starred
Appsync (installd) is now available for iPhone OS 3.1 (& iPod Touch).
Appsync is a mobileinstallation patch for OS 3.x. As one knows in order to install cracked iPA files via iTunes, we need to install appsync (3.x) or mobilesintallationpatch (2.x)
How to install Appsync for OS 3.1
- Open Cyida
- Add the hackulo.us repo (http://cydia.hackulo.us)
- Search about Appsync in Cyida
- Install “Appsync for OS 3.1?
- Enjoy!
For more information about how to use Appsync please read the following articles:
- Installing ipa on the iPhone, Step by Step Guide
- AppSync & installd
- Installous & iPhone OS 3.0
- Mobileinstallation Patch for iPhone OS 3.0
Related posts
- AppSync & installd
- Installous & OS 3.1
- Installous & iPhone OS 3.0
- iPhone OS 3.1 Released
- Mobileinstallation Patch for iPhone OS 3.0
- Installing ipa on the iPhone, Step by Step Guide
- Jailbreaking iPhone OS 3.1
- How To – Upload Photos and Videos from iPhone 2G and 3G!
- Stacks v3 (alpha) for OS 3.0
- Get unlimited App on your iPhone
