The Panic office →
I’m already a big fan of Panic’s Mac app Transmit, so maybe I’m a bit bias here. But these offices are gorgeous. Love the multicolored, diagonally striped carpet on the main floor.
I’m already a big fan of Panic’s Mac app Transmit, so maybe I’m a bit bias here. But these offices are gorgeous. Love the multicolored, diagonally striped carpet on the main floor.
I’ve seen a lot of tech buzz about this app and deservedly so: it’s a hell of a lot easier for developers that have HDPI to open up a special “non HDPI browser” via this app vs. trying to switch resolutions repeatedly. Well worth a look.
Macaw looks very impressive. As the narrator mentions in this twenty minute video demo, you can get into dangerous territory when a web design tool tries to also be a full WYSIWYG code generator at the same time (maybe I’m just picky, but as cool as Sketch is as a program, it’s HTML/CSS export options are not as great as I’d like.) Macaw seems to take a really balanced approach: fundamentally a design tool, but with most of its settings and tools rooted in HTML/CSS fundamentals.
Perhaps most importantly, while the app is native, it apparently renders all of its content in actual HTML. No more gradients, font styles and other “Photoshop only” actions that look very different once they actually get rendered in browser code.
I’m keeping my eye closely on this one.
Kathy Sierra:
If your UX asks the user to make choices, for example, even if those choices are both clear and useful, the act of deciding is a cognitive drain. And not just while they’re deciding… even after we choose, an unconscious cognitive background thread is slowly consuming/leaking resources, “Was that the right choice?”
If your app is confusing and your tech support / FAQ isn’t helpful, you’re drawing down my scarce, precious, cognitive resources. If your app behaves counter-intuitively – even just once – I’ll leak cog resources every time I use it, forever, wondering, “wait, did that do what I expected?”.
Every choice is a cost. It’s an utterly simple principle, but it makes me step back and reconsider a lot of design choices made, both professionally and in side projects.
Kevin Whipps writing for iPhone AppStorm:
The thing about Vesper is that it’s great to use and sure is pretty. But if my notes are trapped on my iPhone, it’s pretty much useless to me.
Bingo. Kevin also goes after Vesper’s creators for their lack of Markdown support; not as critical in my mind as syncing, but it’s still a problem.
Developer “m50d” on Github:
A cup of coffee might not be worth £2. But happiness is, and that’s what I’m buying. If you want me to buy your thing for £2, it had better bring this much joy into my life. Otherwise, I’d rather have another cup.
Even though I consider myself quite technically proficient, I’m still often guilty of forgetting passwords all the time, and sometimes using duplicate copies all over the place. Enter 1Password, recommended from endless coworkers, bloggers and tech sites.
I broke down and bought it for half off over the weekend. Hopefully you will soon as well.
Even with a split second pause for the Ruby based gem to kick in, it’s awesome typing ‘gs’ into Alfred and getting back inline Google results. Author Aviv Kiss notes its a “hacky attempt”, but for version 1.0 it’s smart workflow, one that makes me optimistic on more complex upcoming Alfred workflows.
From the Forecast.io blog:
So why does it feel as if the average native app is so much better than the average web app?
The reason, I think, is this: it’s easy to make web pages. Anyone with a text editor and a browser can do it. You can learn the basics and actually publish a website in a weekend, as an amateur, without much trouble. Making a native iOS app, by contrast, is difficult and time consuming: you have to pay Apple $99; you have to download XCode and learn how to use it, along with a strange language called Objective-C; you have to create, sign, and upload certificates; you have to compile your code and figure out how to run it on your device; and you have to publish it for others to see, which requires navigating all the rules, regulations, and technical issues surrounding the App Store. All these things make for a large barrier to entry that just doesn’t exist on the web.
Almost any modern web designer now has to decide between potentially thousands of custom web fonts. To rapidly prototype different combinations in the browser, even with good front end development chops, can be pretty time consuming.
Typecast is a web app that tries to address this problem. You get a much more visual, WYSIWYG interface for trying out font combinations, but with the advantages of actual font rendering in the browser. I don’t see a personal need for the app given the cost ($29 a month isn’t a minor expense) and considering at my day job we’re mostly focused on Proxima Nova. But especially in an agency environment, this could be a huge time saver.