“Are you really featuring this app on BP?”, asked a friend who was peeking as I was preparing the screenshots for this post. Plex, the beautiful media center application for the Mac, has just announced their iOS extender app that…
Plex mobile integrates seamlessly with the desktop version. Stop watching a movie in your living room, and continue right where you left off on your iPhone or iPad. All of your ratings, viewed status and more is kept perfectly in sync.
I’m not sure about the design as a whole (it’s by no means ugly), nor am I vouching for its functionality. All I wanted was to highlight that icon. It’s just… yum. Screenshots follow… Read the full article →
I’m used to seeing podcasts being presented either as a download link, or a crude playback controller on a wordpress/tumblr blog. Sometimes the design might be tastefully done, but it’s still basic stuff. So when I heard about The Box, a new podcast by designer Tim Van Damme, I knew what to expect.
Or did I? Tim surprised the living daylights out of me with the slickest podcast page I’ve ever seen. It’s currently got just one episode in its catalog — an interview with Neven Mrgan — but by god is the site a treat to look at. Looking at the audio controller interface, which can be popped out into its own little window, would have been enough. Fluid ajax effects, perfect shadows, and excellent typography. The only thing I could complain about, is rather basic logo.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention, it’s also a great podcast for design nerds.
iOS 4 has been around for a while now, and the iPhone 4 makes iOS 4 look perfect to throw a wallpaper on. Still, wallpapers have been spread out far and wide, that a lot of people stick to the default wallpapers. So we’ve gone through the trouble of scrounging for some good ones, especially since we can see all the beautiful homescreens uploaded on homescreen.me. Rounded up are but a few stunning iPhone 4 backgrounds (and background packs) that fit perfectly behind your app icons without distracting your vision. All these wallpapers are retina display optimised, so iPhone 4 owners, go nuts. Read the full article →
I just saw it, but I already know this is it. Ever since the dribbble api opened up, we’ve heard of so many clients, it’s almost the new twitter client. Well here’s nibbble, an iPad web application based around the dribbble api, created by Nial Giacomelli (@nialgiacomelli). Nial is the same designer who created the “Showtime” web app for the iPhone some time back, so he’s obviously upgraded on this one.
nibbble is so fluid, you’d be wondering why you even need a dedicated native app on your iPad. Beautiful grids of ’shots’, tap to see the author, and tap to show the shot in a lightbox. It cuts out the comments and other dribbbely features, and is purely a way of browsing images. Best of all, it’s free.
UPDATE: I’m told it also works on the iPhone — one image at a time.
[thanks @nawong for sharing it with us]
Robocat Apps announced their new app Dunk for the iPhone two weeks ago. It is a client for the quite young but famous web service dribbble. dribbble, as you know, is a place where designers from all around the world can post whatever they are working on; a great resource for inspiration and to follow design processes.
And now, dribbble is native on the iPhone. The app is designed as gorgeous as you would expect it from Micheal Flarup. You do not necessarily need a dribbble account — if you are not yet invited to be a dribbble member, you can still watch the uploaded files in a really nice gallery, from which you can view the uploader’s profile and comment on images. What is quite strange is that Dunk just runs in landscape mode. It’s an obvious decision at the end, because dribbble users upload files with a size of 400X300 pixels or less — and for this size the landscape mode is suited perfectly. But though there are some missing features be sure to check it out, because it is really unique to use and provides stunning images integrated into a sleek UI. Get it for $1.99 on the App Store.
[Editor: I totally don't think this is a beautiful app. While the pixels might be alright, Flarup has messed with standard UI conventions. To bring up the menubar HUD, you have to tap the upper half of an image; to bring up the comments and info, tap in the lower half. What's the point of this? We've already established a single tap as a way to bring up the HUD, and push up to show comments and info. To add to that the HUD is not overlayed but a solid bar that slides down the image. I found it totally frustrating to browse Dribbble this way.]
Simulating real handcraft on digital devices have never been that sexy as with SwankoLab. It is a digital darkroom to edit your photos in the old-fashioned way — except you don’t need to be in a dark room. And it just looks stunning.
You can lay down your photo into the basic darkroom substances and ‘drop’ new chemicals, which effects on your photo are described on the bottle in your digital shelf. After you got the perfect formula mixed together just wait a few seconds and your new picture is finished. You can store favorite mixtures for multiple usage and buy additional chemical effects via In-App-Purchase. And because of the awesome UI and sound effects, SwankoLab may be even more fun to use than an original darkroom. We’d love to see something like this for the iPad, and perhaps more pressing is the need for upgraded artwork for the retina display. That’s $1.99 at the App Store.
A collaboration between Bohemian Coding and designer Kevin Kalle can only be a good thing. In fact: it is! The coming together of developer and designer made a new iPhone app, simply called Review.
Review is intended to be a test environment directly on the iPhone, which helps developers testing their UI elements’ quality directly on the new iPhone Retina Display. This is achieved with a simple uploader on the Mac desktop (OS X 10.6 required) and a gorgeous looking app on the iPhone, in which you can view the uploaded files. Uploading from the desktop can be achieved by dragging the files (including PSDs) onto the menulet of the uploader or by using a keyboard shortcut. Easy to use, stunning design and a really cool website. Get Review on the App Store for $2.99.
Would you look at that! We’re featuring one of our own sites!
Already introduced by the overlords at SA, Homescreen.me (or HS.me as we refer to it) is a place for you to show off your iOS device homescreens. Conceptualised by Preshit, the fabulous design work has been the work of Benjamin George (@benrulz). Bringing that beauty into fruition is the masterful ‘rails code laid out by Tinu Cleatus (@hackedunit). We hope you enjoy our work as much as we enjoyed putting it together.
The site is currently invite only as we sort things out to accommodate traffic, but you could very well get lucky with one by leaving your email address behind.
To see what homescreens are all about, check out the fantastic profiles of Kyle, Jonas, Viticci, Preshit, and Chris.
