Apple « Thomas Maier – web & communication designer

Archived: Apple

iPhone 4 unboxing ceremony (a little late, I know) – Plus: Further thoughts on usage

July 11th, 2010 in Apple, Me, Product design, iPhone |

The package is very tiny. It has nearly the height and width of the phone.

Another view:

The body is very stable and feels very nice.

The iPhone as two protection foils on it to protect the glass on its back and front.

Unpacked, the metal border appears. It looks very elegant and noble.

On the bottom you can see the microphone one the left and the speaker on the right (look exactly the same).

The iPhone is thin as hell. It’s heavy but very small and fits perfectly in a pocket.

Ringtone switch and volume buttons. Also engineering in perfection.

The front is just stunning. The phone is a little higher but has way less width. And the display is directly behind the glass, so the finger nearly touches the pixels.

Further thoughts:

I didn’t experience only one of all the reported issues: No screen yellowing, no antenna problems (although I’m left-handed) and no scratches after nearly 4 weeks of usage. And I think many of the new iPhone 4 users have the same experience
I didn’t buy a bumper, but some say it looks good (white bumper on black phone), feels better in the hand and protects from antenna problems
I don’t like Multi-Tasking this much. It’s nice, but if you want to quit an application and not just close it, you have to make three actions. Hopefully Apple improves that by software update.
The phone is incredibly fast. Like not-a-sec-fast.
My favorite: The display is pure awesomeness! The retina display is the most beautiful display I have ever seen. Far far best display on the planet. Everything, type, photos, …, looks like printed. This is amazing. Small downside: Many apps – above all older apps – haven’t updated for the higher resolution, yet, and probably will never do. It depends on the app, because default GUI gets updated automatically.
Folders are nice, but I use Spotlight very often (which is way faster and has “top hits” since iOS 4)
I made home screen and lock screen wallpapers
Four beautiful game apps I play and which are “iPhone 4 ready”: FlightControl, Warships, Carcasonne, GodFinger
One thing bugs me in the AppStore: There is no indicator if the app you want is available in full iPhone 4 resolution
Anybody wants to buy a fully functioning iPod touch, 1. generation, for testing (developer)? If so, please contact me.

CSS for iPhone 4 (Retina display)

June 23rd, 2010 in Apple, Web design, iPhone |

This is how you target the iPhone 4 with specific CSS:

<link rel="stylesheet" media="only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2)" type="text/css" href="../iphone4.css" />

The reason is, that because every pixel is half the visual size, you may have to double the values of many CSS properties. For example text-shadow: 0 1px 0 #fff; which is like a half visual pixel on the iPhone 4. So to make a one-pixel line (better: looks like a one-pixel line) you have to write 2px. This preserves the visual size and adds a very smooth appearance – like we expect it from a Retina display. It also makes huge improvements for layouts on the iPhone 4 possible.

How target the iPad? Read heeere.

The visual appearance of Digital Post

April 2nd, 2010 in Apple, Application, Graphic design, Interface design, Reviews, iPad |

Digital Post is a beautiful newspaper application for Apple iPad. Some news feeds are even pre installed.

Digital Post takes the newspaper metaphor and brings it over into the digital world. Designer is the well-known Mike Rundle (Twitter).

View app in iTunes.

Review

Beginning at the top, the application introduces the user with a beautiful old-style typography title on a couple of nicely designed sheets of paper stressing the newspaper metaphor. Looks beautiful and haptic.

Underneath you can find the navigation bar where you can switch between various topics: Politics, Business, Technology, Sports and many more. You can easily flick through all topics. 200 articles are loaded instantly so you nearly never have to wait for loading. You can read within the app whether you hold it in portrait or in landscape mode.

Focus on the Reload button:

I love the design of the app. An incredible attention to detailed graphics as well as a simple and fast user interface. Whether you tap the reload button, scroll an article with your fingers or switch through topics. Text is big, sharp and good to read without distracting the eyes.

This is how a single post looks like:

Result

Definitely one of the first apps you have to have on your iPad home screen. It’s a gorgeous eye-candy app and a wonderful and easy browsing and reading experience.

9.5/10