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.
Acrylic Apps’ Times for the Mac was quite early on with this ‘virtual newspaper’ on the desktop concept. Fluid skeuomorphic layout, constantly updated via RSS, but unfortunately, it only had the boring desktop to display itself on.
Dustin Macdonald has taken that same magic and ported it to the iPad, and it (seems to) fit just right. Some people like these real world metaphoric UIs in their apps, while others prefer a more straightforward digital view. We’ll have a review on SA soon, but if you’re not too keen on wise words, follow along and check out the Times app in all is glory. It’s $7.99 to buy.
Justin Williams from Second Gear has coded a rather pretty and feature rich writing application for the iPad and iPhone.
The App Store description:
Elements is a beautiful, versatile text editor for iOS. Elements allows you to view, edit and share plain text documents on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. All of your data is stored on your personal Dropbox account so that its accessible from any device you have.
It really is as simple as entering your Dropbox credentials. Nice features like Word Count, and a universal ’scratchpad’ (seen below) for editing text. I’m yet to decide on how much of a crutch a thumbnail based navigation is in comparison to the commonly used list; it’s probably worth it for the cute way they animate while switching orientation. The app will show up in the App Store in a few days at $4.99, and we’ll have our review on SA by then. Read the full article →
Says Tony Blessander about the Warn Me app, in his portfolio:
GV Qualité contracted me to create the design of their speedcam detection application for iPhone. A futuristic, glossy black interface with stylish red LED lights helps the driver keep track of speed cameras throughout France and other contries.
Sold! Now, where is it?
Never underestimate the brilliance of Philipp Antoni (@PhilippAntoni), I’m told. Creatively arranging pixels for huge companies, Antoni has been producing beautiful free artwork for everyone to use. This time however, and I don’t know when this was released, it’s a super awesome searchpage.
Gone is all the clutter, and in comes the ultra minimal Google search page. But it’d be silly if that was it. The entire page is interactive with a good amount of Ajax thrown in. Just hover over the Google logo, and choose from Twitter, Wikipedia, and YouTube. You can change languages on the fly, and even use keyboard shortcuts as displayed by clicking the faint i button in the lower right (thanks Chris!). And last of all, it comes in two variants: A vibrant original, and a sleek grey. You choose.
UPDATE: The grey version at go.frenchlabs.net was created by @DamienErambert, @hanejutsu, and @Lifely, based on Antoni’s original script.
Update II: Our reader Drew Covi has found out that the Konami Code works on these pages. Thanks Drew.
What’s the one thing you don’t have to force yourself to check every day? Email. Everyone checks their email. It’s not something you have to go to, it’s there. One of the problems with a lot of ‘apps’, is that you have to launch them and interact with them to make it something of a habit. Certainly, integration with the OS, cloud, and social networks is helping them be more part of our workflow, but they’re still a step away.
I remember we talked about Momento a while ago, and while it was and still is a beautiful app, journaling is still a chore you forget about. OhLife is different. OhLife practically has no user interface. It’s email. Read the full article →
A traditional analog clock is far more telling of the time than a digital one. At least in this day and age. At least to me. It exhibits a much more emotional sense of what that space means to you. So it’s odd that so much of our planning is done in a list, with numbers to represent time.
Designed and developed by Jake Yanchar (@diacarta), Diacarta is an iPhone app that presents your day’s activities along the hands of an analog clock. Not just that. It denotes those activities using icons that represent most of what we do. You can define those activities by adding more descriptive data, or not. You can create new activities based on a blank icon, and it will adapt itself into your schedule. You can drag your activities around the clock, as they snap into slots and spatially arrange themselves appropriately. All of this is presented in a UI that looks like an old piece of paper you discovered between the folds of an old english literary text from the library.
Mind you, I have not used this application, so don’t hold it against me if it sucks big time. While I’m sure these skeuomorphic user interfaces look pretty, a modern categorised list might just prove to be more functional. Either wait for a review on SA (we’re waiting for the 1.1 feature update), or risk it for $2. More screenshots and video demo after the fold. Read the full article →
Speaking of tutor apps on the iPhone, here’s something that a friend of mine recommended I check out. It was released early June, so pardon my lateness in reporting. It’s the Michel Thomas language tutor app for the iPhone.
Michel Thomas, of whom I first heard of after finding out about this app, devised a way of teaching new languages without requiring any ‘effort’ on your part. Your job is to relax, and just listen. And this philosophy carries through to his app, where the ‘listening’ screen, which is vividly animated with soothing colours, and features just a play pause button. This is a welcome change from the traditional audio based apps which show you the current playback position on a straight timeline. If you do need to shuttle back and forth, hit the pause button, and you spin the trackhead around the button, which is much easier to do, and gives you a better idea of where you are in the lessons. Another great example of thoughtful design.
Add to that the app features flash cards for revising, effective chaptering, providing a way better experience than an audiobook. The app is free, and comes with a few preview lessons, after which you in-app purchase hour packs for either French, Spanish, Italian, or German. You can view demo videos on the site.
While the app is loaded with language tutor apps, here’s a more challenging application from a user interface standpoint. Voice Tutor is going to give you coaching on singing, training your voice to hit those smooth high notes you’ve always yearned to hit but failed at before — well, at least that’s what the description says. Perhaps we could ask Brandon to test exercise his vocal chords. The app is not live yet, but will be soon, at a decent price of $4.99.
Anyway, the app is very pleasant to look at, which is no surprise considering Taylor Carrigan has designed the entire app, and its icon. Carrigan is the same guy who creates those awesome free icons — including two fantastic icons for Chrome and Notational Velocity which you can’t miss out on. Read the full article →
