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iPad Application Design » Matt Legend Gemmell

iPad Application Design » Matt Legend Gemmell
I held a 6-hour workshop at NSConference in both the UK and USA recently, focusing on software design and user experience. Predictably, an extremely popular topic was the iPad, and how to approach the design of iPad applications. I gave a 90-minute presentation on the subject to start each workshop, and I want to share some of my observations here. Please note: this is about the user interface conventions and considerations which apply to creating software for the iPad platform (and touch-screen tablet devices in general). It is not a technical discussion of iPad-related APIs (which remain under NDA at time of writing in early March 2010). As I watched the iPad introduction keynote, there was one thing above all which struck me: That’s iWork (Keynote, Pages and Numbers) for iPad. It’s not just a big iPhone The iPad may be a larger version of the iPhone in terms of the hardware and operating system, but treating it as the same device would be foolish. The Missing Link Master-Detail Two Hands

Deploying iPhone Apps to Real Devices In our previous article on getting started with iPhone development, you learnt how to use the iPhone SDK provided by Apple to develop your first iPhone application. For testing purposes, you used the iPhone Simulator, provided as part of the iPhone SDK. While the iPhone Simulator is a very handy tool that allows you to test your iPhone applications without needing a real device, nothing beats testing on a real device. This is especially true when you are ready to roll out your applications to the world - you must ensure that it works correctly on real devices. In addition, if your application requires accesses to hardware features on an iPhone/iPod Touch, such as the accelerometer and GPS, you need to test it on a real device - the iPhone Simulator is simply not adequate. A repeated criticism from iPhone app developers comes from the difficulty they find in deploying their application to a real iPhone or iPod Touch. Sign up for the iPhone Developer Program Start your Xcode Summary

Introduction to iPhone Design This post is the first in a 10-part iPhone Design series featured on Mobiletuts+. Every week, we will dive into a variety of aspects of how to design beautiful and usable mobile interfaces for iOS. To get a reminder each time a new post arrives in this series, be sure to subscribe via email or our RSS feed! Series Overview Are you a web designer, excited by the idea of designing iPhone apps, but unsure of how to get started? The topics you can look forward to in this series include both hands-on techniques and examples as well as mobile related design theory. Designing for the iPhone Audience and the App StoreHow to Use iPhone and iPad Design TemplatesDesigning Apps that Use All Available iPhone FunctionalityHow to Design for the Different Types of iPhone Apps The Mobile Design ProcessThe Pros and Cons of Using Apple Default vs. Designing for Mobile vs. the Web Can't I just start designing apps? Not really. Designing for the Web Mouse clicksKeystrokesMicrophone inputSpeaker audio output

iOS Debugging Magic Technical Note TN2239 iOS contains a number of 'secret' debugging facilities, including environment variables, preferences, routines callable from GDB, and so on. This technote describes these facilities. Introduction All Apple systems include debugging facilities added by Apple engineering teams to help develop and debug specific subsystems. Many of the details covered in this technote vary from platform to platform and release to release. This technote was written with reference to iOS 4.1. In addition to this technical issue of binary compatibility, keep in mind that iOS applications must comply with various legal agreements and the App Store Review Guidelines. This technote covers advanced debugging techniques. GDB is the system's primary debugging tool. This technote does not cover performance debugging. Basics The later sections of this technote describe the debugging facilities in detail. Enabling Debugging Facilities Some debugging facilities are enabled by default. Preferences Notes:

iPhone and iPad Design Templates and How to Use Them There is a lot of “process” that goes into designing for mobile devices, but sometimes you just wanna jump in and get your hands dirty! This post is designed to give you the tools you’ll need and the basic design and technical requirements to get you up and running quickly. Standard Screen Sizes and Icon Sizes If you haven’t read the Apple Interface Guidelines for iPhone and iPad yet, you should. What’s the Resolution of the New Retina Display? The iPhone retina screen is a spectacular thing to see. You can see in comparing the two devices that the screen dimensions for iPhone 4 are unchanged from the previous model. When reading about screen resolution it’s easy to quickly become confused. Photoshop Setup Specs: Graphics for the iTunes Store Icon: 512 x 512 px (.tif, .jpg or .png, 72dpi, RGB) iPhone Screenshots: 320 x 480 px or 640 x 860 px (.tif, .jpg or .png, 72dpi, RGB) iPad Screenshots: 1024 x 768 px (.tif, .jpg or .png, 72dpi, RGB) The Future of Screen Sizes Testing Your Design

iPad GUI PSD Design Template Now that Apple has officially released the iPad we want to start designing for it. While Apple’s interface builder is great, it doesn’t really allow us to create custom UI elements on the fly. We decided to take a page from our iPhone GUI PSD and create one for the iPad. The PSD was constructed using vectors, so it’s fully editable and scalable. It’s 1.0 so I’m sure we’ll notice missing elements as we begin to use it. If you like it or use it, help us out by retweeting it.

Designing Apps That Use All Available iPhone Fuctionality In the previous article in this series, we introduced some basic iOS design specifications and templates. Now it’s time to explore what makes designing for touch screens and mobile devices so special! Unlike design for desktop websites and/or applications, the variety of ways you can interact with and get feedback from a mobile devices radically differs from its desktop counterpart. Think about all the things a mobile touch screen device can react to: touch, shaking, tilting, vibrating, audio input and feedback, geolocation, and time tracking. It is Easy to be Average Average applications take average advantage of the iPhone’s capabilities. Gestures To perform actions on a touchscreen device, users use their fingers to swipe, drag, pinch, tap and flick on-screen elements. Planning for and integrating these gestures into your design provide a rich user experience that takes advantage of the unique attributes of touchscreen devices. photo courtesy of Kyle Buza Tap Tap + Hold Double Tap Pinch

What are those little Xcode tips & tricks you wish you knew about 2 years ago How to Design for the Different Types of iPhone Apps Welcome to the fourth installment in our series on iPhone Design 101! If you’re new to this series, be sure to check out parts 1 - 3: Introduction to iPhone Design, iPhone/iPad Design Templates, and iPhone Design Features. These articles will get you up to speed on what we’ve already covered and give you a taste for the juicy bits that are to come in this awesome series! As a designer and/or developer you may be wondering “who cares about the ‘types’ of apps available, isn’t each app different? The App Store has 20 standard “categories” of apps (everything from games to social networking) and periodically breaks out specialty groups like “games for kids” or “holiday cooking” apps. Serious ToolsFun ToolsFun GamesSerious Entertainment Understanding the “type” of app you’re designing will give you a snapshot of both your audience and appropriate design boundaries. Serious Tools Serious tools are highly task-oriented apps that are made for taking care of business. Fun Tools Fun Games Conclusion

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