Is Flash based e-learning gonna die soon? Will HTML5 take over?

Posted on August 19, 2012 by IdeaMonster

The death of mobile flash may have even more consequences than we initially imagined

Flash for mobile devices died a couple of days ago, and apparently there wasn’t a web-wide mourning vigil cast. Nobody cared. Most of the video sites are adding a HTML5 player now, so soon flash video will be gone too. Even Adobe has put out their own HTML5 authoring tools, leaving flash for desktop animation, presentations and e-learning. And for a while we would’ve thought it’s gonna stay that way. I mean Flash is definitely fantastic for making animated movies and clips. It’s also pretty good for presentations and e-learning solutions. But that last part might change soon too.

Most companies (including big corporations) that use e-learning solutions don’t really care what technology they’re using, as long as it works. And that worked out pretty well for e-learning delivery companies, because on most laptops and desktops Flash does work well. But there’s a slight change now, that apparently many of those content creation companies didn’t notice.

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Flash is gone from mobile devices!

Posted on August 14, 2012 by IdeaMonster

Steve Jobs must be laughing hard now!

For a while there was an argument that the iPhone is inferior to Android devices, because they CAN run Flash. Nobody really cared that it was eating up battery like american kids are eating up fastfood. The sluggish performance didn’t matter either. It was as if Flash was awesome, and the lack of it on iOS was a real dread. Well apparently Steve Jobs was right in his open letter about Flash. The technology is now proven NOT RIGHT FOR MOBILE DEVICES. It took a few years for Android to realize that (or for Adobe for that matter) and tomorrow it’s being pulled from future OS releases.

The web will never be the same again… Oh wait, Flash usage on the desktop web has shrunk due to all that fuss significantly too :O

Metro interface will now be known as “the Windows 8” interface

Posted on August 10, 2012 by IdeaMonster

Microsoft is changing ... again

The name “Metro” was used to describe the colorful tiles and typography of the next generation mobile Windows platforms (at first, then came the redesign of the desktop experience as well). Well not anymore. Microsoft has been trying to quit using the name Metro for some time now, but without stating what the new name would be. And apparently the best choices are the simplest ones, as the new interface will just be called “Windows 8” from now. At least that’s what zDnet says.

I think it’s good. The metro name wasn’t really explaining anything, and the tiles do look like windows, so it fits, even if by a stretch. Besides it’s much simpler and better for the brand. Too bad that probable reaction of consumers to the desktop windows 8 might be a big disappointment for the Redmond company.

the Olympics is 6 times more expensive than mars exploration

Posted on August 10, 2012 by IdeaMonster

With the olympics budget NASA could've sent 6 rovers to the red planet

According to the calculations of the Atlantic Wire it cost $15 billion to host this years Olympics. At the same time the cost of sending the Curiosity Rover to Mars was somewhere around $2.5 billion. That means, that a little over two weeks of gluttony in front of the tv cost exactly six times more to organize, than a mission that can actually change mankind. Pretty sad. Even sadder when we think what that kind of money (15 bil) would do if used to feed and educate the needy.

Pixelmator 2.1 is here – alignment guides look awesome!

Posted on August 9, 2012 by IdeaMonster

Another step closer to ending Photoshop rule

Sure it still has a long way to go, but at $15 Pixelmator is what their slogan says – an image editor for the rest of us. The amount of pro and semi-pro features though, put it a little above that line. And yes – it can open and edit PSD files. The new version added a couple of nice features, and one that is simply groundbreaking. But more on that later. First we get some vintage and depth of field effects that are a bit Instagram’esque, but higher quality. That’s the “for the rest of us part” – easily applying filters to our photos for them to get that “hipster look”. But what’s truly awesome about this release are the alignment guides – sure they’re sort of present in Photoshop, but not as precise and user friendly as here. This is the way to do guides, no questions asked. You can even align objects to the same spacing, as other on-screen objects have, along with precise pixel info right there on the image. This is awesome and hopefully PXM will get the much needed layer styles to become the image editor of choice for even more designers.

The App is available as a free update on the Mac App Store. Visit their site at www.pixelmator.com for some nice preview videos.

iPhone 5 will have a larger screen after all

Posted on August 8, 2012 by IdeaMonster

Apple quietly confirms a taller iPhone screen

Recent pictures from the iOS simulator show, that there are now 5 rows of icons on the iPhone home screen. Sure – there are a bit smaller icon margins on that shot, but it most definitely confirms a larger iPhone screen for the next device. The horizontal resolution is said to stay the same, so most apps would easily scale up (especially the ones that scroll) and the vertical res is said to be somewhere around 1100 pixels. We’ll see how Apple will handle games – hopefully not via a letterbox, but there seems to be no other way :(

Amazon sells more ebooks than real books in the UK

Posted on August 6, 2012 by IdeaMonster

Reading is changed forever

Apparently after the US market (which is not that surprising), now the UK customers of Amazon bought more ebooks, than their paper counterparts. It’s good for the environment – maybe some trees can be spared (printing things like the Twilight saga is a waste of paper for sure ;)) and also it means people are building up their ebook libraries, that will be moveable much easier, than real books. Imagine moving to a different apartment and taking just the kindle from your bookshelf. Sure, purists still believe paper is the only right thing to read, but apparently there aren’t many purists in the UK anymore ;).

And with low power consumption and long life of the Kindle, it can easily be charged by solar. Amazon should make the back into a solar panel and we’d have a book that’s “always on”.

iOS 6 won’t have the built in YouTube App

Posted on August 6, 2012 by IdeaMonster

Seems like Apple is moving away from Google for good

The new maps – ditching the ones provided by the search giant, were no surprise, but this certainly is. According to Apple, the YouTube app removal is due to the end of the licensing agreement. Of course Google will put out their own, free YouTube app for iOS devices, and YouTube still works in Safari, but omitting it from the OS will certainly confuse some less technical users. Apparently war with Google is well underway.

Mountain Lion is here

Posted on July 25, 2012 by IdeaMonster

Everything just works

After installing the recent OS X on the 2011 Macbook Air, I can honestly say it definitely got faster, but most of the new features are rather invisible. Contacts app and the new calendar still look pretty ugly, but the new notification center is a much better piece of design and to some – more widely used. Right now all apps seam to be working right, with no errors or freezes. We’ll see how it turns out in the long(er) run.

UPDATE: Twitter integration (the system-wide one) is hidden in Mail,Contacts & Calendars. Not that easy to find. Also to get to the notification center you need to make a two finger swipe from right to left, but start outside of the trackpad. That’s the only way it’ll work. Took me a while to get to that too.

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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Thoughts on the new iPad

Posted on March 23, 2012 by IdeaMonster

I got myself the new iPad in London two days after it launched and have been using it for a couple of days now. Not going to jump into praise of the display, because it has been done before countless times. Blah blah blah retina display blah blah. I didn’t get the LTE version because a) it doesn’t work in europe and b) I need the iPad for beta testing my iOS game rather than any travel-computing.

What I noticed that even after an hour of Infinity Blade II, the device is still cooler than a macbook running a flash animation. It doesn’t bother me at all and I was in fact expecting some heat anyway. It’s an electronic device, come on!

The all-night charging schedules are somewhat true, but I can get by with an hour of charging on occasions too, so it’s not that big of deal. The funny thing is that I recently bought some elements for my own solar charging rig and the battery I bought has the same capacity as the new iPad’s battery. The difference is that it’s as large as a Mac Mini and weights at about 5 kilograms. Putting that same capacity into a rather flat and light device is the thing that impressed me the most. All in all it’s a big change from the previous iPad’s and still the leading tablet brand.

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/

iPads are becoming more and more useful for the creatives

Posted on January 24, 2012 by IdeaMonster

iPad has transformed from a tool to consume content to something that can be more useful for content creation

Sure, it did start as a content consuming device initially, with all the “sit in your comfy chair, watch a movie, read a book, post to facebook you’re sitting in your comfy chair” babble. But with releasing a much powerful iPad2, and an upcoming retina display iPad3, more and more companies are making add-ons and apps that can actually do a lot for the creatives. Sure we don’t have photoshop yet, but there are plenty of CSS/HTML editors with FTP support and preview, there are tools for sketching layouts, for UX designers, VJ’s, DJ’s and regular musicians.

More and more DAW apps are appearing in the app store, a trend started with FruityLoops, expanded by GarageBand. These are for now simplified, but more and more things are bound to appear. Remember this – 4 to 5 years ago computers most people used for recording their albums were about the power of the iPad. And if the iPad3 will be significantly faster it’ll encourage bigger DAW’s to come to the platform as well. Ableton Live for iOS anyone?

NAMM this year was actually dominated by iOS – we’ve seen external sound cards (some quite robust), guitar and drum effects, and even an akai dedicated MPC interface (the MPC FLY). This all proves that it CAN be used to create things, and maybe that change is needed to switch from the old ways of thinking and jump into the new. New possibilities await us right ?

Physynth – amazing user interface design

Posted on December 19, 2011 by IdeaMonster

Every now and then in a sea of copycats we see something truly new and unique that catches our attention

Physynth stands out not only for it’s musical capabilities, but most notably for great and innovative design. It uses the iPad’s accelerometer to simulate light and shadows on it’s surface. That means if you turn your device to the left, the shadows of the knobs and dials will go to the right and so forth. It all looks so “real” and “artificial” at the same time, that it really catches attention.

The app is just 1$ and it’s available at:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/physynth/id469924626?mt=8

The Verge sums up iOS UI updates!

Posted on December 14, 2011 by IdeaMonster

The Verge has posted a very detailed view on how the iOS UI has changed and improved (along with the list of added features) over the years.

It’s an impressive post, full of images, and it makes you think about revised UI in your own projects too. The image on the left shows how little really changed in fundamental elements, and yet how fine it still works today, with more modern features on top of those designs. Do you think that changing the design completely every few years is THAT important? Because the original iPod design came from the 60’s and didn’t change much after that. Some good designs are here to stay. The only thing dreadful on the image on the left is that terrible “Music” logo on the icon. Why is it dark? Why doesn’t it match the phone icon, the voice recorder icon or the SMS icon? OR for that matter the previous iPod icon. A white icon on an orange background would look MUCH MUCH better.

You can read the full Verge post here