I thoroughly enjoyed reading through this extended profile of developer Patrick Welker’s setup, as interviewed by tech writer/blogger Shawn Blanc. We share a lot of software in common, and I dig his hardware setup, though mine is far more compact and travel friendly due to my style of work.
Designer Khoi Vinh:
This inverse relationship between active user input and automated output is wonderfully consistent with how real people use mobile software. Unlike desktops, mobile devices are more often than not complements to other, real world activities, where ‘computing’ is not the main activity. Phones and tablets are used in situ, and so their software cannot afford to demand high levels of input effort.
The development agency Monterail wrote a cool post recently talking about how great Trello and a Kanban methodology works for project management. I’m not a PM at my current day job, but I’ve found for both my work and personal workflow that Trello is pretty awesome. My usage is so simplistic it’s pretty hard to argue that in my case it’s only a step or two above glorified to-do list, but for me the big difference is the visuals. I can easily see if I’m getting slammed with priorities or what’s left at a glance; I’m never losing context and sight of the big picture.
Cloud based solutions like Dropbox take care of 90% of my cross file sharing between my Macs and my iOS devices. But sometimes I just want to send a quick audio file, video, or pdf to my iPhone. Or there’s a select photo I just took on my iPhone that I want to get to my Mac, and Apple’s iPhoto/Camera Roll workflow is just too slow or cumbersome.
That’s where the new Instashare app works really well. Dead simple UI on your Mac, iOS devices, and as long as the app is open on both sides and you’re on the same wifi (or Bluetooth), you’re good to go. Crazy fast transfer speeds too.
It’s a free download in the App Store, and only a buck to remove ads from the iOS version, a no brainer if you find it at all useful.
There are so many native iOS weather apps released on a regular basis that it’s reached a point of near self parody. But Sun is different: web based, fluid, minimal, with some slick off canvas navigation for getting around. I’m still sticking to my own custom web weather app, but it’s awesome to see we have great options out there.
If you’re writing a web app and care at all about the iOS market, startup images are important. Yet when searching around for more detailed help on my Blue Drop weather app, it was hard to get a definitive answer on both code and image requirements for different iOS devices.
But when I stumbled on Taylor Fausak’s site after a few Google searches, the answer was obvious. On this post Taylor goes over proper startup images for just the iPhone 5, but he also wrote earlier about how to handle other iOS devices.
Every few episodes the Iterate podcast team add an extended roundtable discussion to the mix with generally great results. No exception here: host Rene Ritchie gathers a mix of mobile app developers to predict where the iOS and Android app economy will shift in the long run.
Software developer/startup founder Dan Newcome:
The value of the Web is the content and connections. Just let me use the Web. I don’t care that much if I get slightly jerky scrolling, or if the list doesn’t seem like it’s infinitely scrolling off the edge of my little iOS world.
There’s a reason why this short post made the front page of Hacker News for 24 hours; If there’s anything that I’d like to see end in this new year, it’s the “native apps for everything” trend. Native apps are great, web browsers are great; but neither is great for everything.
I generally dislike iOS third party apps that mirror or attempt a slight tweak on good Apple default system apps like Music or the Alarm Clock. Yet this new app by Simple Bots is awesome. It’s pretty and has slick gestures, but the key advantage here is speed. I can set my morning alarm in about 10 seconds: a swipe up or down followed by a quick pull to the left and I’m done.
The Ashbury and Ashbury design shop blog:
There’s a writing angle to the whole thing that needs some airing. The whole story is already being co-opted as a case study in the importance of clear communication and getting the tone right. This worries me, because that’s exactly what it isn’t, at least not in the way that’s being suggested.
More than almost any of the many other articles regarding Instagram, this one nails why Instagram is in such hot water with its users. I myself don’t plan on quitting Instagram immediately, but for now my main photographic attention has shifted to Flickr.