Author: Rajat Sharma

Just over a year ago, we introduced you to a new series of posts here on Beautiful Pixels that we titled ‘The Platter’. This was our way of sharing all the interesting & must-see design-centric links with our readers. We published our first Platter back in February 2013 and since then, we’ve served 38 Platters so far. We’ve received some tremendous feedback about this series and have continued to make improvements to it. Starting today, we’ve made some modifications to the format of the Platter. Don’t worry, we’re still sharing some of the best stuff that we come across —…

Before Mailbox hit the App Store, I hadn’t even considered email to be like a To-Do list, with each message akin to a task to be accomplished rather than something to open and dismiss/delete. In a case of happy coincidence (or not), the release of Mailbox coincided with me starting a job, so the idea of considering emails as tasks didn’t just become a lifestyle choice – it became a necessity. When SquareOne was launched, I was wondering if it was going to be more of the same. Thankfully, it isn’t. It’s a whole new take on how email is…

Ever heard the term ‘Less is More’? Of course you have. I do wonder, though, if the folks who designed iTunes have. Even on a top of the line Mac or PC, iTunes is a bloated, barely functional mess, whose raison d’être seems to be the prevalence of iOS devices. If that seems harsh, I encourage you to try to maintain a 15,899 song library on iTunes without at least one moment of hair-tearing frustration per day. With that out of the way, I’d like to talk to you about Vox, a music player for the Mac. Vox feels like…

As someone with a full time day-job, I have a bit of a commute. Passing the time can be quite the challenge. Books are always a great idea, but between my iPad and documents from work, my bag gets quite heavy. In such a case, I’d really rather not carry a 1000 page book. Enter Marvin, an ebook reading app on iOS. Initially an iPad only app, the relaunched, Universal, iOS 7-ready Marvin supports EPUBs, which is a DRM-free format for ebooks, stored either locally or downloaded via Dropbox. This Dropbox integration is the real clincher for me, since I’d…

As a former BlackBerry user, I can testify that typing on glass isn't the most intuitive thing in the world. The lack of proper feedback means that I end up making a whole lot more errors than I would if I could actually feel my way around the keys, much like I can on a physical keyboard. So, if you own a modern touchscreen smartphone, you can either opt for something like Typo (please don't), or you can get your hands on a keyboard replacement app on Android. However, if you're on iOS, you're out of luck. Or are you?

When major events like CES roll around, we all go through News Overload – an incessant barrage of articles, from multiple sites, most of which are repetitions of each other. In such situations, going through my news feed isn't just a chore, it's borderline impossible. Enter Reconnaissance, a feed reading app for FeedWrangler. Its unique way of handling the litany of news stories I get on a daily basis (but especially during CES-like events) is what made me pick it out of the crowd.