Tag ‘design’

How to build your own iPad in real-size for prototyping.

Mauro Dalu

Magical, revolutionary, and very difficult to get how great it is without having it in your hands. That’s what Steve Jobs said, right?… And how does he expect his fellow developers to create apps for this before the iPad comes to market if he doesn’t spare units to developers?

AppleInsider reports only a very few selected companies got the iPad, and they had to agree to keep the Apple tabled hidden in a room without windows (no kidding!) and never show it to their grandma.

All others, like us, are just left out of the game, and people around the globe are inventing apps for a device they never saw. Well that’s what I’m doing now at least. So just how big is this iPad thing?

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iPad & iPhone GUI User Interface Elements for Photoshop Prototyping

Mauro Dalu

ipad-gui-prototyping-in-photoshopWe discussed in the past what are the best tools out there to create mock-ups for an iPhone application storyboard — a document that describes the app flow and the desired user interaction that will get you much closer to prototyping.

A few days since the iPad has been shown in public for the first time and the iPhone SDK with the iPad simulator has been released, the first Photoshop (PSD) library of GUI (User Interface) elements has surfaced on the web…

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Toneaphone iPhone ringtones App highlights: 3D interface, Core Data, Server Component

Mauro Dalu

toneaphone-ringtones-iphone-app-blogToneaphone is one of the greatest and most unique mobile media companies you’ll find out there. They are the first company in the App Store to compose original songs as ringtones, feature corresponding Album Artwork, and have created a vast collection of over 100 original ringtones to choose from, of all genres.

The iPhone native app Surgeworks designed and developed had about 200 downloads in the first week, and was positively received by bloggers and reviewers on YouTube. It also got about a dozen five star reviews on the App Store and got ranked 30th in Italy for the Entertainment category in the same time frame.

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iPhone Icons, How to Preview the Glossy Effect.

Mauro Dalu

iPhone-Icon-Preview-in-Home-ScreenWe’ve already discussed a long time ago how to remove the glossy effect from iPhone icons. But what if you just want to look at how different icons will look with the glossy effect on the iPhone, while avoiding to recompile the app for every icon draft you made?

Here is the solution: apply a mask to the icon file in Photoshop (or any other graphic design app).

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iPhone Puzzle Game Design Concept, the process

iPhone Interface Design, iPhone Game Design

Creating the user interface for iPhone Apps is a great challenge where we have to break some paradigms and keep some things in mind such as the fact that we have a really limited space to work on, the application has to be as much obvious and easy to be understood by users as we are able to do it. Also, the visual is such an important part, since we have thousands of Apps being sold on iTunes Store every day and grab the customers attention is not an easy task at all.

This time we have a new challenge and everyone at Surgeworks is really excited working on this project, which is called MATHO. It is an iPhone game.

Steve Chase, owner of Education 4 Free, came to us with his MATHO iPhone puzzle game for a re-design and OpenGL ES optimization. The game is pretty cool and has a great potential, I must confess I spent some hours of my day playing the game instead start working on the iPhone game re-design, sorry Boss.

Since I started working to Surgeworks, almost one year now, I had the opportunity to work on tons of iPhone Apps and it is becoming an addiction to me. Well, at least it is a nerd addiction, I just have to find out if it is healthy or not.

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How to build an iPhone User Interface prototype that follows Apple Guidelines

Mauro Dalu

What are the best tools to create mock-ups of an iPhone app application storyboard, which describes the app flow and the desired user interaction?

We often recommend and assist our customers to build “wireframes” of an App idea that describes all the screens and the expected user interaction, together with the main features of the project. Creating wireframes for such a storyboard of the iPhone Native App views and screens is also a great way to brainstorm and verify the application flow.

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