iPads are becoming more and more useful for the creatives

January 24th, 2012

iPad has transformed from a tool to consume content to something that can be more useful for content creation

Sure, it did start as a content consuming device initially, with all the “sit in your comfy chair, watch a movie, read a book, post to facebook you’re sitting in your comfy chair” babble. But with releasing a much powerful iPad2, and an upcoming retina display iPad3, more and more companies are making add-ons and apps that can actually do a lot for the creatives. Sure we don’t have photoshop yet, but there are plenty of CSS/HTML editors with FTP support and preview, there are tools for sketching layouts, for UX designers, VJ’s, DJ’s and regular musicians.

More and more DAW apps are appearing in the app store, a trend started with FruityLoops, expanded by GarageBand. These are for now simplified, but more and more things are bound to appear. Remember this – 4 to 5 years ago computers most people used for recording their albums were about the power of the iPad. And if the iPad3 will be significantly faster it’ll encourage bigger DAW’s to come to the platform as well. Ableton Live for iOS anyone?

NAMM this year was actually dominated by iOS – we’ve seen external sound cards (some quite robust), guitar and drum effects, and even an akai dedicated MPC interface (the MPC FLY). This all proves that it CAN be used to create things, and maybe that change is needed to switch from the old ways of thinking and jump into the new. New possibilities await us right ?

Is IE 6 finally going to die?

January 4th, 2012

For years web developers have been begging and petitioning for this to happen. Now it's finally just around the corner.

Microsoft has launched a campaign of it’s own to free the world of it’s dreadful (to developers) browser from yesteryear. Go to http://www.ie6countdown.com/ to see for yourself the steady decline of usage which is now finally below 10%. That means that web developers no longer need to put time and effort to make an IE6 specific version of their websites. Ain’t that a nice new year’s gift? Microsoft thinks so too, even though the decline in IE6 doesn’t necessarily result in an incline for newer explorers. More and more people are turning to chrome and firefox. Which is fine, cause anything is better than IE6. And a year from now at this rate it will finally be extinct.

Quicklook not showing photoshop files? Here’s the fix!

January 1st, 2012

A lot of people have been struggling with quicklook and Photoshop, so who's to blame here? Adobe or Apple?

Neither. In fact in most cases the blame is on the user side. First of all check your file handling, because maximize compatibility might be set to “Never”. That’s one culprit that does that. Did that help? If not there’s another thing that makes QuickLook show only a white rectangle instead of the PSD file. The problem is the color profile – you have to embed it in the file or QuickLook will be VERY confused. Poor ol’ QuickLook. Doesn’t matter if it’s CMYK or “DISPLAY”, just remember to embed it while you’re saving your PSD’s and all will be fine and dandy.

That helps A LOT while browsing for that one PSD from a year ago ;)

Pixels – an amazing short film you simply have to see!

December 23rd, 2011

Not often do we see something so stunning visually, that we can't stop thinking about it over and over.

How was it done? What substances were they on? How many people did it? The design and final effects are nothing short of breathtaking. See for yourself:

Skitch came to the iPad!

December 23rd, 2011

The annotations just got a lot more fun!

After Evernote acquired Skitch – the annotations editor, some people were afraid that it will cease to exist and instead be merged into the evernote app itself. Good news is that it’s not entirely true, since the Mac app is now free, and we just got our hands on the iPad version which is even better.

To review and annotate designs has never been easier and more fun. Touch controls for apps like that are an amazing improvement of the workflow. The only downside is that it sometimes freezes the iPad completely, but I guess it’ll be fixed. You can download Skitch for iPad for free below:

http://itunes.apple.com/pl/app/skitch-for-ipad/id490505997?mt=8

Physynth – amazing user interface design

December 19th, 2011

Every now and then in a sea of copycats we see something truly new and unique that catches our attention

Physynth stands out not only for it’s musical capabilities, but most notably for great and innovative design. It uses the iPad’s accelerometer to simulate light and shadows on it’s surface. That means if you turn your device to the left, the shadows of the knobs and dials will go to the right and so forth. It all looks so “real” and “artificial” at the same time, that it really catches attention.

The app is just 1$ and it’s available at:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/physynth/id469924626?mt=8

The Verge sums up iOS UI updates!

December 14th, 2011

The Verge has posted a very detailed view on how the iOS UI has changed and improved (along with the list of added features) over the years.

It’s an impressive post, full of images, and it makes you think about revised UI in your own projects too. The image on the left shows how little really changed in fundamental elements, and yet how fine it still works today, with more modern features on top of those designs. Do you think that changing the design completely every few years is THAT important? Because the original iPod design came from the 60′s and didn’t change much after that. Some good designs are here to stay. The only thing dreadful on the image on the left is that terrible “Music” logo on the icon. Why is it dark? Why doesn’t it match the phone icon, the voice recorder icon or the SMS icon? OR for that matter the previous iPod icon. A white icon on an orange background would look MUCH MUCH better.

You can read the full Verge post here

Android Ice Cream Sandwich finally has integrated credit card purchases!

December 11th, 2011

Finally Google has come to it's senses about their Android Market app quality.

It took a while of sms, freemium and ad based Android Apps, but now apparently the new version of google’s iOS ripoff original operating system has credit card information built in the way Apple does it. That allows the users to purchase the Apps more efficiently, which in turn can lead to better apps for the platform, which right now is treated by developers as a side dish to iOS. Do you think this move will improve app quality in the market?

WebOS will go open source. Will it influence phone makers to switch from lawsuit troubled Android?

December 10th, 2011

HP has just announced, that their palm inheritance - the Web OS, which ran on the discontinued HP TouchPad disaster (and post-Palm phones), will go Open Source!

This means that it’ll eventually be available to phone makers the same way Android is today. And with all those legal battles, Carrier IQ’s, viruses, malware, piracy and whatnot it might not be a bad choice for the likes of HTC (or even Samsung) to quit the Android platform once and for all.
Web OS is actually a well designed, intuitive and original piece of software, unlike Android, so it’ll push the market forward instead of just being a poor (but popular) copy of iOS. The repeating story of windows poorly copying Mac OS comes to mind here, doesn’t it?

If it all goes through, making mobile apps and games will be harder than ever, with way too many platforms for indie developers to successfully develop for. But in any case this is good news, because I much prefer Web OS over Android, and would like to see the platform grow. Exciting times with Windows Phone 7 gaining market share we might have a re-shuffle of the mobile system ranks soon.

An awesome collection of commercial use fonts for 49$ ?

December 5th, 2011

MacUpdate posted a new bundle deal in which you get $700 worth of apps, fonts etc for $49,99. Those deals are pretty common lately, and they usually contain one gem, that’s worth the whole deal. This time it’s a bundle (300$ worth) of 6200 commercial use fonts, so getting that for fifty bucks is a great deal!
Go and buy it at: https://www.mupromo.com/

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