Showing posts with label Apple. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Apple. Show all posts

Saturday, June 22, 2013

iOS Apps Which Work For Me (With Links to App Store)


Here's the list of apps which I find extremely useful and sometimes hard to find.

Apps for free MP3 downloads:
PocketTube - MP3 player and music tracks downloader from YouTube for offline listening
MusicVK - the app with huge library of any mp3 music which lets you download music on your iPhone for offline listening without opportunity to delete tracks (you must have an account in social network http://vk.com for accessing free content available on the web-site)

Apps for reading books:
File Manager - Awesome app which lets you download books in *.zip archives then it lets you unarchive it right on your device to read in various formats: pdf, doc, etc

Why I should always search @, dot, comma on my iPhone keyboard?



I know that whatever Apple makes is holy and isn't a subject for disputes, but this problem is so irritating that I can't handle it:

 

Don't pay attention for previous and next buttons - I use iOS beta. The problem is keyboard. I hate the fact that the keyboard is not permanent. It's one of the design elements which must be permanent in each app. No, they give opportunity to developers to torture us, users by letting them remove dots, commas and @ sign whenever they want to jeer. I am against it! Why each time I want to put comma I should care about pressing "123" button? It's ridiculous! Sometimes I'm so tired or hurry somewhere, and all I have to do is search comma, dot or @ sign? Apple, why don't you just leave me alone with one type of keyboard, e.g. like this one:

 
I guess that's the case where Google can teach Apple designers.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Apple - iOS 7. Coming this fall

We have always thought of design as being so much more than just the way something looks. Its the whole thing the way something actually works at some many levels. Ultimately of course, design defines so much of our experience. I think there is a profound and enduring beauty in simplicity, in clarity, in efficiency. True simplicity is derived from so much more, than just the absence of clutter and ornamentation. Its about bringing order to complexity.

iOS 7 is a clear representation of these goals. It has a whole structure that is coherent and its applied across the entire system. We've considered the tiniest details, like refining the typography, to much larger ones, like redesigning all the icons. And developing a grid system allowed achieve much harmonious relationship between individual. We also incorporated a whole new palette of colors. Distinct, functional layers help to establish hierarchical order. And the use of translucency gives you a sense of your context. This playings combined with new approach of animation and motion to creates a new sense of depth and vitality. The iPhone responding to your movements, drives the parallax to create a whole new experience of depth. In many ways we've tried to create an interface that is unobtrusive and differential. One where the design recedes and in doing so actually elevates your content. Even the simple act of changing your wallpaper has a very noticeable effect on the way your iPhone looks and feels across the entire system. While iOS 7 is completely new, it was important to us to make it instantly familiar. We wanted to take an experience that people know  very well, and actually add to it to make it more useful, to make it more enjoyable.

In addition to redesigned user interface iOS 7 comes with some great new features and enhancements. Now the controls you want to access quickly are all in one convenient place with control center. One swipe from any screen opens up a set of useful controls. And notification center is now available from the lockscreen, with a new added glance of your day. Multitasking lets you jump from app to app much more intuitively
It actually pays attention on which app you use the most and automatically keeps your content up to date in a background. The new camera app introduces a new level of ease and versatility now you can to swipe between modes from video, to still, to square, while using a new pallet of filters. Your iPhone know the time and location to each of your photos. The photos app uses this information to intelligently organize your pictures by clustering them into moments and collections. And now with iCloud photo sharing, friends and family can contribute their own photos and videos to your shared albums. With over 800,000 apps the App Store is now the largest marketplace. iOS 7 features popular near me - a new way to find accurate collection of apps based on the current location. AirDrop makes it easy to share to people near you, when you've got something you want to share AirDrop shows you the contacts close by, just select who you want to share with and AirDrop does the rest, and if someone is not in your contacts, they just activate their AirDrop and you can send them files too. Safari's redesigned user interface let you see more of your content, starting the full-screen browsing. The unified searchfield help simplify searching and there's a new view for your bookmarks and also a new way to see Safari Tabs.

Siri is now even more helpful and informative. We've integrated Twitter and Wikipedia. And with new male and female Siri's sounds better than ever. Siri: Okay I found this on Wikipedia. And Siri can assist you in a new ways by doing things like changing a settings on your iOS device. Siri: Okay, Bluetooth is on

iTunes radio is a great way to discover a music. We've created many featured stations drawing from the best selections of songs online. Its easy for you to create your own stations.  And when you hear something you'd like to purchase, its just a tap away.

iOS 7 brings with it the most significant changes that we've made to the user interface since the introduction of the very first iOS. To create it we brought together a broad range of expertise from designing to engineering. With what we've been able to achieve together, we see iOS 7 as defining and important new direction, and in many ways a beginning.

Friday, June 14, 2013

Is there's no SINGLE BUTTON AirDrop for turning it on for EVERYONE in Control Center?


You have to swipe to the Control Center, then you should pick the AirDrop icon, and only then the option of sharing for everyone appears. That is too much steps for making your phone available to someone who also has an iPhone. Too much steps.

Have they took pity for space which they so much not enough for the Control Center?
I suppose so. Do we need AirDrop then? Yeah sure we need, but will break our fingers while searching ways to drop files. There was always an alternative: To not share content, I suppose that what users will choose very often - since AirDrop is not another option to simplify life, its just complicating it by offering people to go through another UI bureaucracy...




Multitasking has always been a smart way to switch between apps. Now it’s even smarter. Because iOS 7 learns when you like to use your apps and can update your content before you launch them. So if you tend to check your favorite social app at 9:00 a.m. every day, your feed will be ready and waiting for you. That’s multitasking in iOS 7. It knows what you want to do before you do.

 I don't understand designers of iOS 7. Are social bandwidth are such a great deal for users? I understand, we lived in the past era and went through hells like GPRS, now we can't unstick such a stupid technology as EDGE from our airs? Finally its way better to spend resources for things like making content offline much more easily. Why we always have to be attached to the Internet connection, while everything could be cached for us in iOS the way we have opportunity to access most of thing offline on PC.

More catching options!


I think that they're doing wrong thing now with the whole design on iOS 7, I liked the Scott Forestall's design and simplicity and this concept sounds dearer to me if it would came true at Apple http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv-r9UTGri4

Another horrible thing about iOS 7's task manager

You know what! I'm tired of it. Apple, stop shocking me!

Finally I'm the one who pays you a thousands of dollars for what?
For ruining my task manager? Why they're so rude at Apple?

WHY TASK MANAGER IS SUPPOSED TO BE A FULL FREAKING SCREEN?


Stop ruining my user experience!

Control Center? Too late, losers!

Why Apple are so slow with such rudimentary things? Yes we understand that its needed to show users that you're innovating in one parts while forfeiting the others, but company which focus on product shows only contumacy and absence of flexibility.
Dear Apple users, you have to panic!!! There's no Personal Hotspot available from the control center!
That's a real reason to panic! Seriously! What steps you have go through to access your Personal Hotspot today?

You have to:
1. Press lockscreen
2. Swipe to unlock your screen
3. Swipe screen to page with settings icon
4. Find settings icon
5. Press settings icon
6. Swipe down a little bit
7. Press "Personal Hotspot"
8. Turn on the Personal Hotspot
9. Get back to your computer, check your wifi settings
10. Find an iPhone in the list of your WiFi
11. Connect

And if you just turned on your iPhone and if its still searching a network, then catch a disappointment! You have to wait until this device will find a 3G network so that Personal Hotspot became available on your computer.

The connection to WiFi on many computers takes a whole 5 or 10 seconds! Why do I have to wait so much time until my phone will find freaking 3G networks and until that I should just sit without availability to connect through WiFi to my Phone. Does it even a logical?

Screw it!

oooooh, I'm so tired of those COMPLEXITY when it comes to something where you hear the word "WiFi". I don't even understand now whether I should feel positive about this word or I should avoid it!

I don't like new control center in iOS 7

First thing I don't like about the interface design: its just freaking heavy - it covers the whole screen, which is totally not Apple way - I got used to simplicity use - now it looks like stupid Android systems, because only Android can make the screens be covered with the whole panel.

Do you remember how easy it was to switch your apps in iOS 6? I believe the control center must be fit in the same way on the screen. At least as users we should have choice to the controls which isn't covering the whole screen!



Finally the keyboard covers only half of the screen! Not the whole screen, its stupid!



And that's the people who's trying to affect on you subconsciously, hypnotically by putting those little indicators at the beginning of the page. (Oh - don't you see we are so simple, so cute, we are take so small space on your screen)


So my first requirement to Apple: GIVE ME BACK MY SCREEN SPACE

Google Chrome keep giving me "This is probably not the site you are looking for!"

What an annoying error. And that's a company that tends to be innovative, while they can't keep their commit on simple things like just using THEIR OWN SERVICE: http://images.google.com

So folks, you are no more able to use Google Images Search service, because Google Chrome very often don't want you to do so!


I hate double purchasing in App Store

App Store already made me purchase twice some apps when I wanted the same apps for iPad.

But the most annoying thing for me is being unable to recognize whether I've already paid for App or not in iPhone - because apps which i already purchased keep showing me the same price tag. And only when I tap on that price then choose "buy" it notifies me that I've already purchased that.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Questions for iOS 7, major update

Will it have one button for closing all applications?
Won't it cause any problems with performance on older iPhone and iPad versions?
How does it looks like on iPad?
Will it be supported by iPad 1?
Does the brightness and personal hotspot will operate the same way?
Will it will be easier to see cellular data consumption? Right now in iOS 6 you need to perform too many steps to do that.
Is there gonna be an option "disable EDGE"?

iOS 7 release date, features, apps & screenshots

So, iOS 7 its an another big thing which Apple puts to show that its still on the throne for the innovations. In haven't edited the post http://www.earlfox.com/2013/06/will-all-skeuomorphic-design-elements.html because it was written almost 30 minutes before WWDC begun, my words was:
Seems like Apple is going to make significant changes to iOS design. And you know what - I'm totally for it.
I like the simplicity and many features iOS can offer me, but its look haven't changed for a very long time.
 Before I said this words nobody knew how much changes they will do in iOS 7, nobody even knew that it will be the 7th version of iOS, but I kinda felt that iOS will be the first subject to change significantly, that's why I've tried to do my best to make a public prediction (does the personal web-site is good place for it?). You can see the timing of that post, since it was posted within blogspot platform, there's no way I could change displayed dates of the post.

 At the time I write this post, my current phone is iPhone 4S, and I am kinda very slow at changing devices, since I've got too many other things to follow, and its totally in my fashion to make arrangements in a time manner:
 - My phone will be totally worthless when iOS 11 will appear, that's why I'll purchase a new phone when that will happen.
 - I don't like the screen of iPad mini, because I don't like the fact that I downgrade to the lower resolutions, that's why I'll purchase it exactly two years later after first iPad mini retina release.



The beta version of iOS 7 is available for the iPhone now, with an iPad version coming in the next few weeks. The final version will come in Autumn, which is just in time for the iPhone 5SiPhone 6iPad 5 and iPad Mini 2.
So approximately I'll purchase my iPad Mini the next summer at Jun 12, 2014.

Watch Apple History Timeline

Apple CEO Tim Cook testifies about avoiding taxes


I just found out that Tim Cook is a great spokesman, he was so prepared at the court, provided responses was so awesome, that at his speech even court become a Worldwide Developers conference!± (Because he spoke about the same things which usually featured on WWDC)
In the beginning he told so much impressive facts, then he brought some statistics about App Store which we used to see a lot on developer conference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7H1Y6Nr3c4
Also it was surprising to see the way McCain at the same time admiring Tim Cook, and trying to get more taxes from him :) Last half of the video they discussed the AOI, Apple's mysterious Irish subsidiary. Of course I'm unaware why they have to discuss with Apple's head whether AOI really part for offshore tax shifting, but probably that's just they way to test individual for his honesty and management style.

I liked the way McCain finds new words to add: you can see he's told in the beginning that Tim Cook is tough guy in the Apple, then he explained that he did it "in a complimentary fashion".