Experience, design & technology.

Posts tagged “iOS”

Call that a collage?

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Posted on September 29th, 2012

Um, what the hell happened to mixel? An original, fun and highly sticky app for iPad has become something very, very different. It has gone from this: to this: The original mixel was a joy to use, to play with, to remix. The new version, the ‘just add pictures’ version? Rubbish. Khoi explains that there were economic reasons for scuppering the development and maintenance of the iPad version, but it doesn’t sit well with me. He says that the app simply wasn’t social enough to be profitable. What were the hard costs of mixel that couldn’t be overcome? My suspicion is that it had something to do with the server/storage/web front end parts, that these costs weren’t offset by the (advertising?) revenue brought in…

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Slow show

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Posted on June 29th, 2012

Recently I bought a mac mini, for reasons I’ve mentioned before, primarily to take care of a little bit of iOS app-making. I was tempted at one point to splash out and buy one of the nice and light macbook airs, but at the time I wanted the best bang for buck, so I went with a compromise machine, the low-end mac mini. I decided to buy this machine whilst on the road, at this point somewhere in Mexico. I went with the lowest end machine possible, really, though I wasn’t expecting to be as wowed (in both the positive or negative) as has been my experience to date. I noticed Ben Brooks posting his thoughts on a similar purchase, made recently to replace…

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Waving away the cloud

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Posted on March 26th, 2012

I really like iCloud. It syncs my contacts, my apps, my photos and more, all without really asking for much in return. But there’s one area where iCloud falls over repeatedly – and it’s an unacceptable failure for a service which (at face value) looks like yet another move by Apple to dislodge the MS Office behemoth from the default position in spreadsheets, presentations and documents. The failure I’m talking about, is Documents over iCloud. At first, it seems like a dream come true. Syncing on an iOS device, just like dropbox for the mac. Sure it only works for 3 apps, but those apps are well designed, great to use and make for any must-have app list today. But the current implementation of…

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losing market share to Android

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Posted on December 21st, 2011

Losing market share is like the 90′s rearing its ugly head all over again. Market share is meaningful in some contexts, like when you’re competing with a monopoly like Microsoft, or struggling to sell burgers in an environment dominated by cheap and cheerful franchisees. According to new numbers from the NPD Group, the iPhone 4S launch delay didn’t hurt Apple from a sales perspective. Over a year past launch, the iPhone 4 was the top selling phone in all of Q3 2011, with the two-year-old iPhone 3GS coming in at number two. Interestingly, the HTC EVO 4G, Motorola Droid 3, and Samsung Intensity II, hardly the latest and greatest devices, rounded out the top five. While some consumers may have waited for the latest…

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linkbait

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Posted on December 21st, 2011

Taylor Hatmaker, for Tecca, gives us this stunning new insight, in a piece titled “The 6 biggest technology flops of 2011” While it’s no flop when it comes to sales figures, the iPhone 4S remains one of 2011′s biggest consumer letdowns… After spending the better part of the year salivating over a reinvented iPhone with a larger screen, a thinner profile, and other untold Apple-flavored wonders, Apple aficionados were presented with the iPhone 4S — a nominal upgrade over the previous model that touted the now much-parodied Siri app as its main selling point. Which apple aficionionados are yearning for bigger screens? Isn’t that the Android differentiator? And how does the iPhone 4S, the biggest selling iphone yet, compare with the $100M loss (otherwise…

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Why torture yourself?

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Posted on December 8th, 2011

John Gruber doesn’t buy the argument that Android 4.0 will force developers to build software for it, “like it or not”: “Whether you like Android or not, you will support that platform” sounds a little arrogant, but maybe that’s just me. But it got me thinking. Maybe “whether you like Android or not” is exactly wrong. I think maybe the biggest reason iOS has such strong developer support is that developers like iOS. They use and prefer iPhones and iPads personally, they like Cocoa, and they like the App Store. I tend to agree. I love the iPad, I love using it, I love creating things using it. I’m not even a developer (per se) but this thing makes me want to whip out…

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No sign of inflection, just yet

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Posted on December 7th, 2011

The numbers just keep adding up. Horace gives us the update on the US mobile phone market: The growth of smartphones reached 38.5%. The penetration should reach 50% by September 2012, with about 1.2% converting each month 50% by Q3 next year? Now is the time to be releasing that killer app, that great mobile web experience, those game changing interfaces and the next big thing. I hope you’re all hard at work..!

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