Blog

Interview with Albert Salamon, creator of Dominus plus

2012-02-17T22:58:34Z

Why working on something that nobody cares about? This is the nastiest though on a developer mind, perfectly justified by the amount of great apps that go absolutely unnoticed on the App Store. I have never bothered to download an alarm clock or a weather app before. I consider unnecessary clutter, often tackier than a Burberry check pattern wallpaper, contaminating your iOS device. Seriously: do you need an alternative alarm clock? Do you really need an app for that?

After years laughing about the thought of iPhone owners installing every new alarm clock app that comes out, I sunk in my prejudices as my curiosity betrayed me. Aside form the utilitarian factor of Apple's standard Clock, there is a vast room for innovation in this area. And the iOS platform simply allows great ideas come true. This is the lesson I learned from Albert Salamon, a Polish designer whose first iOS app has received the coveted FWA Mobile award. This my chat with him about his development experience, alternative clock apps and the fusion of software and art.

What type of background do you have? What interested you about the iOS platform?

In one way I am an absolute beginner in the iOS platform but in another way my education and experience lead me to this. I graduated from the Design Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw where for 10 years I taught visual communication. For 15 years I have been designing signs, ids, prints, web pages and information systems. But first of all, I am a user who grew up on the buzzing of programs being loaded to ZX Spectrum, the MIDI system on Atari ST, graphics and multimedia software from Adobe and Apple. I have used many operating systems and a huge numbers of programs – different kinds.

Oooloo - Your personal clipboard folder on the cloud

2012-02-12T21:39:00Z

Finding the right productivity solution to sync your To-Do list was confusing, if not complex two years ago. Fortunately, the advent of "The Cloud" and all it meant for our mobile devices also translated in the amount of options we have today to sync our To-Dos, projects and notes wirelessly. I have written about it many times and there isn't a clear winner. It's more like there's a good option for most users depending on your needs.

Rusty clipboard by Orin Zebest

And of course, if your mix is going to involve an iOS app, I need to know about it. And that's why I've stopped and checked out the new Oooloo by Lazy Appz - I know, this isn't the most encouraging name - juggling it with my usual The Hit List on the iPhone and OmniFocus for the Mac and iPad. If you thought that was too much, since last week I'm also going with Cultured Code's Things Cloud beta, but at least this is only for testing. This should give you a little background on my productivity front at the moment.

Oooloo [iTunes Link], is not your typical GTD client. Marketed as the "the artists' notebook", I think of it more of a customisable cloud-enabled clipboard. Why? Because it embraces the idea that people are different and love to tweak stuff to their preference instead of being subject to strict guidelines set by a designer.

This level of customisation makes me think that this might be a GTD app, although you could understand it as an online portfolio or a calendaring alternative. It's really that diverse. And Oooloo lets you to play this game giving you a limited type of inbox items with small differences that make them useful for only certain tasks.

Triple Town - Cloning for a good reason

2012-02-04T19:21:20Z

Developers usually complain about app discoverability - too many app for just a few visible App Store slots. Some new apps can go completely under radar unfairly while others make the news for the wrong reasons. This is the case of Spry Fox's latest creation, which was covered extensively by my Twitter peeps and gaming sites as it's decided to take 6Waves Lolapps to court over a series of similitudes with their own Yeti Town. The story caught my interest and I decided to download it and see what makes the game so good to be copied.

Triple Town [iTunes Link] by Spry Fox is a static match-three puzzler where you combine elements of the same type until you run out of moves. The basic 6x6 grid represents a portion on land that you're in charged of developing. The goal is to use an almost unlimited amount of basic supplies to end up with a decent size city with it's houses, churches and trees.

And the logic used here is not apparent from the tutorial but you get the hang of it before you end your first level. The learning curve involves getting familiar the items and their functions, which isn't what you would normally expect. As a side note, the clone game uses a different - equally weird - theme. First is the grass. Plain, simple common grass transforms into a bush combined with two other grass patches. In the same way, three bushes combined created a tree, and three trees a house. A house? Well, it's more like a hut made out of wood if that makes more sense.

The simple rule of combining items clears land, allowing you to place more items - normally grass - to continue with combinations. The level finishes when you run out of space, so planning and thinking two or three steps ahead is key. To make the task easier, there are a number of special items that drop from time to time. Crystals have the ability to substitute any item, behaving like a Joker in a card game. Imperial bots remove any unwanted item from the grid, something like removing a card from the table.

Download apps automatically on your iPhone without having to sync

2012-02-01T20:50:22Z

There is a small feature in iOS 5 that can get simply annoying, inconvenient and can get your iPhone to run out of space. In fact, the first time you notice you could think that somebody has been downloading apps without your permission. But how did this happen?

Since version 4.3.3, the standard behaviour is that every time you download an app from iTunes on your Mac or PC, this purchase will be synchronised directly on the iDevice using that iTunes account. For families sharing iPads or iPod Touches, it means that when daddy buys a Poker game, it will automatically be downloaded to his iPhone but also to his five-year-old son.

There is an easy solution for every user without needing to tinker too much with the device, but I recommend you check the settings on both your desktop and mobile devices. I also suspect that when iTunes asks you to verify your identity asking for your iTunes ID password for no reason, it's getting ready to sync. On your Mac, you only need to go the preferences window on iTunes and right under the Store tab - with that green shopping bag - you can select which type of purchases to download automatically. Just make sure automatic downloads are unchecked for apps.

On your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, disabling automatic downloads is also easy. In my case I've chosen to allow my laptop to sync and I simply switch it off on my iPhone. This can be useful if you want your iPad to get the latest games, but not your iPhone when you're out and about. Simply tap the Settings icon, scroll down to Store and chose the type of content you want to have downloaded automatically: music, apps or ebooks.

PressReader 3.0 or Newsstand? Finding the best the way to read newspapers on your iPad

2012-01-28T20:03:01Z

A lot of things have happened in the publishing industry since I last reviewed PressDisplay's Press Reader for iPad. The last version of iOS brought the equally loved and hated Newsstand and more recently, iBooks 2 and iBooks Author entered the equation to revolutionise textbooks. So how are these innovations changing your reading habits today?

Keeping up with the latest trends, Press Reader [iTunes Link]has introduced a new set of features that feel like a departure of its original purpose. Let me explain. When I first tried Press Reader I was overwhelmed by the amount of content available on its original format. Similarities aside, this was the first app that truly felt like a digital kiosk, allowing users to download PDF-like files with the original format and composition of the print edition.

And of course, these weren't just some cheaply scanned newspapers. Press Reader also understood the text intelligently, allowing you to link, search, export and read back to you from a plain text version of the articles. Quite impressive. The skill set mentioned along with the pricing model and the amount of titles available made Press Reader my app of choice. Don't get me wrong, I love buying The Observer and open its bag full of supplements and promotional flyers. But I also love downloading and reading it in bed.

When Newsstand for iOS was announced I felt the whole model was laughable compared with the bundle offer I was getting from PressDisplay. Sure I like how the information is presented but unlike games and apps, I don't think I need the iTunes / App Store experience. All those ratings, rankings and user reviews aren't necessary. I have chosen the papers I like to read some time ago and I'm sure I won't be changing every week depending on a What's Hot list.

On the good side, Apple has worked to nail the user experience making these virtual papers and magazines a pleasure to read. This is obviously a hit and miss depending on the publication but we've reached a point where the majority have had some time to refine and polish their Newsstand "apps" now. Surprisingly coming from Apple, there isn't much consistency or rules to follow, meaning you could end up with landscape-only newspapers for instance.

Four ways to remove your pictures from Photo Stream in case of emergency

2012-01-25T21:42:27Z

Having a picture of your genitals displayed on your living room's TV wasn't probably what the team of Apple engineers considered when working on Photo Stream. One of the potentially most useful features in iCloud just happens to be the most annoying. The brilliant service that backs up your pictures automatically to the cloud can turn into a nasty surprise if you don't control the snaps taken with your iOS devices... And users are learning the lesson the hard way.

Let's rewind to last June when Apple introduced iCloud. Advertised as "automatic, effortless and free", it isn't exactly foolproof. The back up service for all your pictures taken with your iOS devices automatically pushes a copy to all the other Apple products linked to that iCloud account, including your Apple TV, home iMac or your kid's iPod Touch. The service does not only manage to keep a safe record of your shots, but also fix one of the most annoying bits for every iPhone user: importing your pictures to your desktop.

If you're using the service, there's a reason why you're reading this post. Like many of us keeping every IIII picture taken with your iPhone cannot be a good idea. Unlike that camera roll where you can delete those blurry, embarrassing or simply compromising pictures in a couple of taps, Photo Stream doesn't have the option. Why? Many of us are still asking the same question and I don't want to be misleading: there's no easy way to do it.

I have, however, scoured the support forums and got some ways to get around this issue. I also noticed that this seems to be a very popular request from users who would like, or desperately need, to delete individual pictures from Photo Stream. I'm hopeful someone will look into this issue and introduce a reasonable way to do this in a future iOS update. In the meantime, we can try these solutions:

The Journey Planner series - Next Bus London

2012-01-22T18:30:14Z

After a couple of weeks of testing is now time to return with a post for the London Journey Planner series. If you missed the introduction and the review for Bus Checker, my goal is to complete a guide with the iPhone apps that use the live departure feed of Transport for London - basically, testing and reviewing the apps that tell you when a bus arrives to your stop.

In the second episode of this guide I'll have a look at Next Bus London [iTunes Link] by Jeevan Takhar. I've you've been searching the App Store for a bus tracker app, I'm pretty sure you've spotted this icon before. I'm not a fan of text used in icons, but in this occasion, the image of the front of a double-decker bus and the words "next bus" tell you what this is all about without strange metaphors and interpretations of TfL's official logos. This is at least is a good start.

The simplicity continues the first time you launch the app: you'll notice the very simple UI without any custom element except the subtle transparency on the bottom bar. In fact everything looks minimalist, neat and tidy. The default view is a map with your current location and a number of standard red pins to indicate the stops nearby. Once you tap on them, the actual letter that identifies the stop is displayed along with the direction of the traffic and the lines that stop there.

Up to here, this is a very conventional behaviour. Tapping on the station details gives you a list view with the departures and the schedules for every day of the week with their expected frequencies - the sort of thing you see on the posters.

Super Crate Box - Probably the most frustrating touch controls on iOS

2012-01-14T10:49:13Z

The hectic jumping and shooting in a setting reminiscent of the ol' Donkey Kong, the endless quest to collect crates and the short lived adventures of a micro hero can only mean one thing: the Dutch indie studio Vlambeer has completed and launched its award-wining survival platformer on the App Store successfully.

Super Crate Box [iTunes Link] originally debuted on PC as a free game gaining the respect of the gaming community and industry accolades. The biggest recognition comes, however, from fellow iOS developers inspired by gameplay mechanics. Muffin Night and Ninja Fishing by Angry Mob Games and Gamenauts respectively seem to distill ideas from the Dutch duo. But that's a different story.

After this long wait and only after the App Store submission orgy that is December, we get the iOS port out of nowhere. The first impressions count, and seeing iCade compatibility on the description is always encouraging for retro heads. The pixel graphics are welcoming and the newcomer could never guess the survival challenges, frustrations and difficulty ahead. I never played the Mac or PC versions, so I was technically a virgin too.

Super Crate Box simply throws you at it: a simple scenario where mindless creatures fall from top to bottom down to a pit. No instructions given. Only you and a gun. And some wooden crates with mysterious contents.

Five reasons why texting apps like WhatsApp and iMessage are killing SMS

2012-01-07T09:59:45Z

Many could see this coming: the end of text messages as we know them. From carriers around the world offering SMS bundles and packages as part of their contracts, all that people ask is that the smartphone in question will be able to run WhatsApp. I witnessed this recently at an Orange shop where a surprisingly knowledgable salesperson was asked if Nokia's Lumia 800 could be able to run Viber to make free international calls.

I acknowledge I'm an appfreak and maybe my point of view is distorted. I'm not expecting top management in carriers to keep track of the most downloaded App Store apps. Even if they hear the Viber ringtone every ten minutes in their offices. It doesn't take much effort to realise that an app that allows users to surpass the carrier dominance over messaging is now being bundled with the most popular smartphone - the iPhone and its iMessage, and that WhatsApp is the only non-game app that seems to keep up with the pace of Angry Birds on the charts.

1. Out of the box texting alternative

There's nothing to setup and no sign-up forms. In an effort to keep things simple for the user, you're asked only once if you want to attempt to send your texts using iMessage - directly from the same app where you use to send your SMS. There are some glitches when either sender or receiver isn't connected to a 3G or Wi-Fi network, but in my experience so far, iMessage tries to deliver it even if it has to do it both for free and on traditional SMS - yes, those duplicates you get from time to time.

MyBoxApp and Reeder - Premium apps for free or a piracy scam?

2011-12-29T20:30:08Z

The holiday season is the perfect excuse for discounts and giveaways. With new users unpacking their iOS devices and the festive spirit going around, this time of the year is always a time for free apps and freebies that we all love. You get initiatives like Appvent Calendar where you get not one but two gifts every day, but I'm not going to talk about its awesomeness because you already know about it.

Many developers also throw sales for their titles while others join forces with bundles under different themes. These are popular all year round, but there was one in particular that caught my eye since the moment I heard about it: MyBoxApp. I won't link to the page for the reasons explained below.

The project advertises itself as a Christmas giveaway where users can download for free one app every day for the next 12 days. In fact, they compare it to Apple's own "12 days of Christmas" in its description (If you're in the US, this is a series of iTunes gifts you can get in Europe during the holiday season). The only condition to obtain the free app of the day on MyBoxApp is to tweet a predefined message, similar to the tweetblasts used by the MacHeist bundles. Great reward, little effort and huge exposure for the initiative.

In a couple of hours, a simple Twitter search clearly showed this was gaining traction in the Spanish speaking Mac user community after the promotion was featured on a prominent Apple news blog. Up to this point everything looked normal. The big draw for the third day of the promotion was the fantastic Reeder app by Silvio Rizzi. This app normally retails for £6.99 / $9.99 and it has never been reduced its price before - let alone gone free.