Update: Yes, yes! While most of your caught it, a few of our readers did in fact think that either our blog was hacked or we were out of our minds. Should’ve been obvious, the post was published on April 1st (April Fool’s Day) and on a Sunday, something that we very rarely do around here.
While writing about all the beautifully designes apps here on Beautiful Pixels, many a times, we come across apps that push the boundaries of how “sexy” the UI of an app can really be. Day after day, these gorgeous apps on the App Store leave us in awe with their remarkable pixel work, how simple colorful dots on the screen can come together to form something so incredible. But we seem to have landed upon something that is sure one of the, if not the best user interface you’ve ever come across. Meet, (the) Password Engine.
The Password Engine is a simply gorgeous iPhone app that helps you to keep track of all your passwords. It features a stunning collection of beautifully designed UI elements that makes using the app a complete joy. In fact, so well designed are these elements that even though they haven’t been updated for the Retina Display, they still look better than those ugly gradients you see in Tweetbot. The designer has made excellent use of a bar just below the status bar, which features a subtle grey-white gradient and displays the name of the app. This is very useful since I often forget which app I’m using within seconds of launching it.
Since it is a Password utility app, it obviously features a lot of text fields where you enter text. But instead of using those hideous custom fields, the designer thankfully stays true to the original principles of iOS design and uses the native text fields. The inner-shadows add that little glorious extra awesomeness to the app. The Password Engine also makes nifty use of On/Off sliders on the main screen. Those are my favorite of the UI elements on iOS, so I was glad to see so many of those on one screen itself.
Since most apps that use subtle or light colors are often an eyesore, Password Engine uses a bright blue and maroon color scheme to save you the trouble. This makes using the app a pleasing experience to your eyes, since you’re bound to keep using the app more frequently when you buy it.
Notice in the screenshot above, how the password strength is denoted using a blue bar. Quite easy to be missed, take a look at the little bump in alignment of the blue bar — if your password goes from “Weak” to “Good”, you can easily catch the difference. What a truly brilliant idea.
In our two-seconds of testing, double of which were used to launch the app, we found the overall experience to be at par with apps like Path or Tweetbot. Just one quick look at the app and it’s evident that the app has been showered with a lot of pixel love. It’s available on the App Store for just $1.99.