Jetplane Journal » JetLinks

Jetlinked: Goodbye Macworld

Adrian — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:11:37 +0000

From my day job: equinux has written about some of our Macworld experiences over the years and how we made the decision not to go back this year. It’s a good look behind-the-scenes at Macworld and worth reading if you’ve been or plan on going.

equinux blog: Goodbye Macworld

Jetlinked: iPad UI Roundup

Adrian — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:49:16 +0000

Sebastiaan de With has posted a very comprehensive analysis of some of the new UI elements introduced on the iPad:

As usual with a large Apple product launch, I’ve written up this post to round up the good, the bad, and the ugly of all the new interface and interaction designs that were set loose on the world by the company that’s regarded as the most influential and skilled when it comes to designing experiences.

Man, where do I begin.

He’s done a terrific job of scrutinizing all the videos and screenshots on various websites as well: Cocoia Blog

Jetlinked: 20 Beautiful Mac apps

Adrian — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 08:18:34 +0000

Designreviver has a nice list of 20 Beautiful Mac apps that is worth checking out. There are only a few picks I disagree with:

Pixelmator’s black icons on a HUD window background have always bothered me and seem like a bad UI choice
iStatmenus is pretty, but never feels very Mac-like
TuneUp is the antithesis of a beautiful Mac app. It leeches onto iTunes and looks & feels more like a Firefox plugin than a Mac app.

But the list has a few lesser-known entries as well, so it’s worth reading for a few gems that you don’t see on every other list (I’m typing this in blogo which I hadn’t heard of before…).

Link

Jetlinked: Simple Desktops

Adrian — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 14:10:31 +0000

I just came across a nice collection of simple, clean desktop backgrounds that I had to share. For example:

Head over to Simple Desktops to check them out!

JetLinked: Installing applications on the Mac still broken

Adrian — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 07:37:23 +0000

Lukas Mathis has posted some thoughts on the issues Mac newcomers have with .dmg files. I also talked about this issue a while back in a post on the most common issues switchers have, but it’s worth noting it again. I agree with his followup post that adding another file format isn’t really the way to go either – DMG files are a great feature to have – once you’ve understood them. But from a usability and customer support perspective, a simple zip file seems to be the better choice.

I’d still be interested to see what kinds of customer support issues you run into with zip files though:

Do people using alternative browsers, that don’t automatically open “safe” files like Safari does, struggle with them?
Do users who prefer to manually download updates have several versions of the same app sitting in their Downloads folder?
Are there any issues if users have a 3rd party archive tool installed (I’m looking at you StuffIt)?

But despite those questions, I think there is a valid reason to reconsider whether .dmg files should still be considered “best practise” for app distribution.

JetLinked: Tweetie for Mac

Adrian — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:18:49 +0000

Enough has been said about Tweetie for Mac, so I’m just going to link to it, in case you’ve been living under a rock and have missed it.

Bottom line is: The UI is fantastic, support for dragged in images is great and I believe it sets the bar a little higher for UI design on the Mac in general.

There are some additional features I’d like to see at some point, but from the look of the responses on Atebit’s Get Satisfaction page, some of them are already planned.

Support for stored searches
Sync state with the mobile version and across Mac

You can find out more about Tweetie on the Atebits website.

JetLinked: FutureTap on how-to acquire an iPhone application

Adrian — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 20:52:27 +0000

FutureTap, a new iPhone development shop, has just announced their purchase of “Where To”, formerly a TapTapTap application. What’s interesting about this story is how openly new owner Ortwin Gentz describes the process of evaluating the application’s value before making a bid for it.

It’s a fascinating look into the business side of iPhone application development that offers a lot of insight for investors and developers alike. I know Ortwin personally, so I know “Where To” is is very capable hands.

Be sure to check out the full story at futuretap.com and Where To in the AppStore.

JetLinked: iPhone headphone mod

Adrian — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:04:12 +0000

The original iPhone headphones are great in a lot of ways (sleek design, unobtrusive microphone and remote), but are a bit lackluster where it counts – sound quality. There are various 3rd party alternatives of course, but I’ve yet to see one with a mic / remote as nice as Apple’s original.

One iPhone user over at everythingicafe decided to take matters into his own hands and has modded his original headphones, replacing the earbuds with the in-ear buds from his Crossroad X3′s.

The result looks pretty nice and others have had success with this mod as well. (I’m not brave enough to try it with my Shure SE310′s though…)

Link to original everythingicafe post.

JetLinked: Gruber on OpenClip

Adrian — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 05:16:51 +0000

John Gruber takes a detailed, technical look at the OpenClip project and why it’s not such a brilliant idea from a technical standpoint.

I think given that Apple has already admitted they’re working on native copy / paste support this framework seems like a non-starter.

JetLink: Daring Fireball

JetLink: Skitch Public beta

Adrian — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 17:46:10 +0000

A lot has been written about Skitch since it was first released as an invite-only and later as a public beta over a year ago, however I was just using it (like I seem to everyday) and was wondering why Plasq still hasn’t officially released this gem. It boasts an image editor, screenshot tool, free online image hosting, easy uploading to FTP or WebDAV servers and much much more…

So if you haven’t yet checked it out, do yourself a favour and go take a look!

Skitch @ plasq.com