Is it the end of apps for businesses?

Posted on May 13, 2012 by IdeaMonster

According to our calculations, about 2% of businesses need a mobile app. Another 50% needs a mobile version of their website. The rest might use a mobile site, but don't really need one.

A while ago mobile apps have become the new web pages of the modern times. Everyone seemed to need one, even for the most bizarre kinds of businesses. Right now the reality has become more like an internet bubble of the late 90’s, and overcharged apps can in fact be a laughable novelty. At first they were charged higher than web pages, but the market quickly caught up to that, and right now they’re about the same price. And that feels kind of justified, because it’s not so special anymore after almost a million apps and games on the market (iOS and Android combined). If someone wrote a million apps in about 4 years now, it must mean that there are plenty of app programmers out there.

The other factor is the mobile market fragmentation. With iOS and Android plus all the competitors, to have an app for everyone, one must develop for many platforms, often different technology-wise. Websites that stretch to the mobile screen size will simply eliminate the need for most apps. Sure – people trust apps more than websites, as some of the images are pre-cached and feel more responsive, but that will soon change with LTE coming to power in more and more countries each day.

But the most important thing here is to understand why do we need apps at all. Games, Entertainment and Social apps are self explanatory. Utility apps (like wikipedia, calculators, measure converters etc.) are a nice thing to have to. But who wants an app of a company that makes sugar-filled soda? Or cars? How many times do we change cars in a lifetime? Probably less, than we change smartphones, but all rare occurrences will surely do with just a mobile website. A small percent of people travels a lot, so they might need a hotel-chain app, but most will have to do with a generic “search all hotels” app, and that market is already saturated.

Who else needs mobile apps? Seriously. That doesn’t of course mean that apps are dead. They can still make impressions (and money) but mostly with a creative idea of their makers. Not apps made for a client. Think Opus, Instagram and such.

Do you know any business that’s not saturated with apps, and REALLY needs them?

Shifting trends

Posted on May 12, 2012 by IdeaMonster

I actually prefer to watch random episodes on the Web than have choice now!

It’s pretty common knowledge, that trends tend to repeat themselves in patterns over and over. It’s probably the most visible with fashion shifts back to the 80’s or 70’s, but can still be applied to a far more interesting topic – internet attention. When we’re online we jump from place to place, almost never focusing fully on the page at hand. Multitasking has taken a lot of “peace” from obtaining information, so we multitask like crazy and we don’t slow down.

In the web where you get everything you want right when you want it (preferably NOW), I found out that instead of watching an episode of South Park that I choose, I prefer to go to a site, that shows random episodes in a completely random order. Is it going back from pay-per-view to television “watch what we serve you” concept?

That is of course temporary and will probably shift back to active choices sometime soon, but does it apply anywhere else? It’s a little bit like the App Store selling models, with Freemium occupying most of the gaming charts nowadays, and people spending up to 91% of total game revenue inside the game. But at some point, they must realize that buying virtual coins for real dollards, that we can buy virtual hat with is not really worth it. Then the shift might go towards paid games and peace of mind. The one thing we can be sure of is that we won’t see many fans of ad supported gaming – mainly because nobody likes ads.

What does this pretty common knowledge teach us? Nothing new, but wether you’re making an indie App Store game, or a TV show watching website, it’s best to know what people want right now. Being creative AND riding the trend waves (creating trends is a completely different story) is the way to go no matter what business you’re into.

Fun fact: A British band – Brett Domino, recorded some nice (and funny) covers of well known artists. They are selling their album on iTunes BUT you can order a digipack from them to have it in a more touch-friendly / shelf friendly format. What’s so original about it? Well the boys supply you with the cover and a blank CD-R on which you can record their album from iTunes yourself. Why? To avoid paying double royalty to the authors of the songs, which is a brilliant idea really. They do get their fair share from iTunes anyway. So here’s a backwards trend of buying physical albums (a few years ago people actually preferred MP3’s, and now it’s slowly coming back) with an original twist to it. How cool is that?

How game design works – based on HungrySquid for iOS

Posted on May 7, 2012 by IdeaMonster

Our friends at Hype4 shared some of the knowledge about how the development of HungrySquid went, and also some tips on what they did wrong in the App Store at the beginning.

First of all, normally – as a company a game like HungrySquid could’ve been done in about two months. Since Hype4 was working on it overtime, it took about 4 months to complete. The idea was born last summer, when Mike observed some water ripples while throwing pebbles at a pond. The story was written quickly (available as a free iBook) and the game design followed. It didn’t look like it does now though. The first idea was for the tentacles to grow, instead of fluorescent goo, but with many intersections and shapes it just looked weird and unnatural – even for a squid in space. The game was developed using Cocos2D (and Partially Kobold2d) and most of the graphics were drawn in 2048×1536 resolution, even though the new iPad was yet to be announced. It’s sometimes good to trust your instincts, because it would be really hard to make the Retina iPad version.

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Mac OS X Lion made in pure CSS3!

Posted on February 9, 2012 by IdeaMonster

This is a stunning example of how the web can look in a few years

Some people seem to have a bit too much time on their hands, but let’s not complain because their work is astonishing. A while ago we’ve seen iPad running inside the browser, that was made with CSS3, and now here’s Mac OS X Lion, with even the login screen included. It’s a work in progress by a designer by the name Alessi Atzeni, and you can see it for yourself at:
http://www.alessioatzeni.com/mac-osx-lion-css3/

Browser version of Windows Phone interface for iOS and Android

Posted on December 3, 2011 by IdeaMonster

Microsoft is generally considered a non-creative, "suit philosophy" company. Sometimes though, it takes a step away from that and creates something cool. Bing, xbox, some recent ads and most notably the Windows Phone interface. The latter you can now preview on your iPhone or Android device inside the browser. Sure it’s not a full experience, and reminds us a bit of the Web iPad demo, but it’s a clever way to show how the interface is innovative and cool to use. Good job microsoft. To test it open this url on your phone:
http://aka.ms/wpdemo

Content Aware battle – Pixelmator vs Photoshop

Posted on November 17, 2011 by IdeaMonster

A while ago I tested the Content Aware Fill feature of Photoshop by removing myself from an image of some mountains. It worked surprisingly well, so I decided to do the exact same test with Pixelmator now. Above you can see the original photo. It took 3 separate content aware steps to do both images. The first step was for the whole part to be removed, and then the other two to remove little artifacts and errors afterwards. See the results after the break.

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Should we do more boxy-CMS-like projects, or go nuts and let them update it through HTML?

Posted on November 2, 2011 by IdeaMonster

Image credit: I Love Design.com

It’s 2011, so saying that someone should update their website through editing HTML files (or as some people say “programming” ;)) sounds quite insane doesn’t it? Maybe so, but is the ease of updating worth the compromises on quality? Sure, some CMS driven sites can be pretty interesting, but it’s hard for them to have a distinct style, that doesn’t look like it’s a set of boxy templates. Apple’s website seems boxy at first, but it breaks most template rules by having each page look completely differently – as if it was designed for a fine printed book, and not through a set of CMS templates. Sure the main page is just a big banner with some smaller ones below, and that can be easily customizable through some backend, but once you get to any page it will look almost like it’s taken from a full-colour manual, rather than one-design-fits-all-template.

The point here is – should smaller websites (like a small hostel, a pet shop, a cafe) really use CMS, or go for something unique, creative and new. What I mean is that they should have each page designed as a separate website, using a set of overall rules, but even breaking the text in just the right place. Sure CMS is necessary for news sites, blogs and e-stores, but the internet itself is actually going into stagnation.

We had that Flash-explosion a few years ago where websites were made into all-flash-all-singing-all-dancing animated multimedia presentations, and that was fun … for a while. Then Flash started to recede towards HTML5 animation and simplicity. But the CMS underneath it all is I think what keeps the real creativity still in the box.

Maybe we should think about it – maybe the web after a few years of finding it’s way, is actually going back to imitating fine-printed books, magazines and brochures? Maybe the attention to every detail, every word and every image would lead us away from square thumbnails with “float: left;”, a small margin and justified text on their right side?

I sure hope so…

Is web 3.0 a mix of 2.0 and 1.0 ?

Posted on October 16, 2011 by IdeaMonster

Web 1.0 was all about creating content – articles, news topics, how to’s – you name it. Websites were hubs of information rather than a site with videos od a dog on a skateboard. Then the revolution came and the main focus on the web shifted from articles to people. Web 2.0 was all about being social online. And people loved it! Sure it’s counter-productive most of the time, but how convenient, right? You can now see updates and pictures of your “internet friends” from all over the world, and you don’t even need to meet with them for coffee to know what they’re up to.

Web 2.0 has generated an impressive amount of content and lured non-power-users into the internet. The amount of valuable content declined rapidly, and dogs on skateboards started to be the main focus online. Sure if you need information there’s wikipedia and wolfram alpha, which in fact is an answer to all the lazy people who can’t look up the answer themselves. So there’s more and more “social” content, more and more ads, but less quality content to browse through.

The answer? Well all those websites with funny pictures and subtitles encouraged people to at least write something under the pic. That’s creative sometimes, right? And then they share it with their average of 450 friends (who really has that many?) and it becomes another dog on a skateboard. Question sites are actually a true sign of change – people can ask about anything, and complete strangers may answer their question, which is then rated as the most valuable answer. That’s building a knowledge base right there. But when blogging shifted from serious articles towards “what I did last night with my facebook friends” I guess the last parts of web 1.0 died that evening. Facebook is trying to swallow some of that 1.0 juice by adding wikipedia answers to it’s searches, but seriously – who uses that?

Is internet eventually going to be about porn, shallow relationships with people and funny pictures only? What do you think?

Simple vs overblown designs – how the focus shift from content to form-factor

Posted on October 12, 2011 by IdeaMonster

When the web first started, all websites were just about presenting content. Or to be more precise – information. It was a simple, high contrast design, with white background, black text and blue, underlined links. It’s been many years since then, although I remember using a lot of these principles when building websites back in 1998. They were easy to read, and the lack of multimedia due to slower connections at the time, was in fact a blessing that let us fully appreciate content.

Now all of that has shifted towards shocking the user with jQuery animations, smooth scrolling, effects and gimmicks. I’ve been browsing through a lot of award winning websites – mostly portfolios for online companies – and I noticed that the amount of content they communicate now can be summarized in a few bullet-points. Surely if it’s purely about the design, it’s not a bad thing, but sometimes we really want to read more and don’t want to be treaded like idiots who can only comprehend ordered lists.

What do you think? Should we simplify the websites, relying more on bullets and eye-candy, or should we balance it better with longer pieces of text, that actually say something?

The more heads the longer the development

Posted on October 5, 2011 by IdeaMonster

Sure people can fool you with washed-up phrases like “there’s no I in TEAM” and such, but the truth in the design community is a little different. Actually the more people involved in a project, the more fragmented it will be. Think of it as an android headset, with all the resolutions, different processors and performance, and a design needs to now fit it all.

With iPhone’s it’s a bit easier – there’s the iPhone (sure, two resolutions, but that’s easy – just double) and you can create something for it actually being sure it will look and work the same. Well let’s not jump into that analogy too far, I hope you got it. The more people involved, the less stable the design is. Thus the best teams are usually the smallest.

Thinking about the successes of recent years in mobile apps and games, (well aside from Rovio) most of the biggest, most creative ideas came from small, 2-3 people teams. Sometimes it can even be a one person, and then the vision is completely as it was imagined from the beginning.

Is it even possible to create something good with a team larger than two people anymore? Well we just need to wait and see.

Tablet interfaces, web apps and oh, I’m back!

Posted on September 29, 2011 by IdeaMonster

Been away for quite a while, since I’ve been working for one Apple related blog, but now I decided that it’s time to be more creative, instead of repetitive. So CreationMachine is officially back in “business” (whatever business it is) and you can expect more updates soon.

A couple of interesting things happened when I was gone: first and foremost some Android tablets were trying to beat the iPad, the Kindle Fire was announced (and it can shake things up finally), and there’s an explosion of Web Apps led by Financial Times, that withdrew from the App Store to cut the Apple Tax out of it’s subscription. We’ll be seeing more and more of those kinds of apps in the near future, so HTML5 is something to keep an eye on. Especially after “Hype!” and “Edge” by Adobe, which are in fact targeted at app developers and designers.

So there are things happening and there’s been changes, but not too many apparently, so we’ll manage somehow. Just need to redesign the site and connect it to my wider network, so an official start will happen soon. And when I say “soon” it really means soon or it’d drive me crazy ;)

Garageband for iPad

Posted on March 13, 2011 by IdeaMonster

I was so excited for GB that as soon as it hit the app store, I got my hands on it and I can only say : Whoa!
But it’s not the fact that it’s such a great app by itself that is appealing. This is a complete package – many instruments, many ways to tweak and multitrack recording. That all combined (though limited) can mean only one thing. Someone will make an even better app in the near future because apparently tablets are our future. They already accept MIDI and some USB sound cards, so the next logical step instead of bringing a laptop along for gigs is taking a tablet + a smaller, usb powered audio interface. Touch interfaces can bring many instruments in one, additional drums, kaoss pads, synths. This could be a good addition for both DJ’s and electronic musicians.

Oh and those smart instruments – they suck. Sorry. Those chords sound nice, but lifeless. There’s no beauty in ultra-perfection. Skip these and play the real things :) Even if lousy.

Oh and “sampler” here is actually useful. You can record your own soundbanks and play that live. Awesome’o 2000! :)

How did Apple’s Website change over the years

Posted on February 12, 2011 by IdeaMonster

Apple has always been known for superior product design. But does it also apply to it’s website? We looked back into the web archive and came up with images from nearly every year, starting in 1998. The last picture is from 2011, and there’s very little change between 2008 and today. Take a look:

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My thoughts on tablet vs mouse designing

Posted on January 30, 2011 by IdeaMonster

It struck me a while back when I saw some designers using ONLY their tablets for all of the work. I mean even moving around the OS and launching apps. Right now desktops are basically having three input metods for designing. One is the graphic tablet, then we have the mouse which is still holding strong, and a new addition – a touchpad. Since the touchpads are pretty new and currently kinda low-res you won’t really have that much control over what you do, but soon that might change too.

I design using both the mouse and a Wacom tablet. The mouse is essential for most designs (well, for me) because simple shapes –> rectangles and ovals are easier to adjust with the mouse. I was trying to recreate the same level of precision on my tablet, and maybe it’s due to it’s relatively low-resolution but it was much harder. Still tablets are good for drawing things, for adding texture with various brushes or masking. For me the best way is to simply use both devices.

Also, the main difference between the mouse and the tablet is – if you’re using a tablet to design something for a couple hours you’ll actually feel more accomplished than if you’d just use the mouse all along. That’s probably due to the fact that using a “pen” makes it seem more like a real creation – our analogue memories kick in and bring us some positive feedback from kindergarten.

What do you prefer?

iFontmaker – make your own fonts on the iPad!

Posted on January 20, 2011 by IdeaMonster

Whoa, this is actually pretty amazing. I mean the idea is simple enough and many apps made use of the “drawing” ideas, but not like this. Still it would be worth nothing without the ability to export the font … which it HAS! For 8 bucks it’s a steal and you can have your OWN fonts to use for logos and websites in no time! Perfect!