Let’s not talk about Mr. Westerwave. Let’s not talk about any other ministers, like, well, you know who. Everyone talks about them. But I’m up to something else.
Some time ago I read on Adam Jackson’s Website that he had ten Twitter-accounts. Now in a world where most people say “Wtf is that, anyway? I don’t need no f***ing Twitter-account,” I said to myself, “what the heck could one need ten of them for?”
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Newly advertised through Tweetie, TouchPad by edovia seems like a nice approach to create an actually useful App to remote control your Mac over Wi-Fi. But how is it different from any other Remote App?
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iPhone app development has been fascinating me for a few weeks now, although I’m not close to being able to write one myself. What I find most impressive about iPhone apps in general is not their advertised features, but how the developers decided to transform their thoughts into an actual visible feature.
This includes, for example, the transition from one screen to another, as well as finding and designing an icon that simply suits your application’s functionality. Or, more abstractly, an icon that suits the app’s name and integrates well with the iPhone GUI.
So here are the iPhone App icons which are, in my opinion, the most beautiful and integrative ones (I have all of them on my first home screen):
Tweetie 2
This is the best example for a well-designed icon. It has the characteristic Twitter speech bubble that looks like it’s been welded out of a metal sheet and is not overloaded with text, colors or multiple objects. Just a speech bubble and a metal-like, concave surface. Simply great.
Byline
The Byline icon integrates with the iPhone UI very well and shows on the front what you’ll get inside: A newspaper-mount that holds a newspaper. The title consists of the text “RSS” and the RSS icon while the dark background has a metal-like frame. Really beautiful!
Things
The main advantage of this icon is that it not only fits beautifully into the iPhone UI, but it’s a perfect companion to the icon of the matching Mac application. It shows a stylized 2D-Version of the blue 3D inbox from Things for Mac with a check in it. The only difference is the view from above, while the Mac-App’s icon is shown in front view.
Zoom Lens
Some developers of camera apps tell you that their app is what the integrated camera app should be. Although Zoom Lens can’t keep this promise, I think its icon is what the iPhone camera app’s icon should be. The lens is slightly bigger and bears beautiful reflections in multiple colors. It just looks more like a real Camera Lens.
Birdfeed
Given the name of this beautiful Twitter app, this icon is truly ingenious. It looks like a wooden box to keep your birdfeed in, with a Twitter speech bubble-shaped hole on the front. It thus not only matches the app’s name but also the connection to ornithological terminology that is characteristic of most Twitter-Tools.
Birdhouse
What to say about this one? Like with Birdfeed, the icon of Birdhouse is a perfectly designed match to the app’s name (where you keep your birds and Tweets) as well as its purpose and app genre. I’m in your Birdhouse composing your Tweets!
Everyone’s talking about how great the new version of the popular Twitter-Client Tweetie is. And I agree with John Gruber when he says “the bar has been raised“. But there are obviously some major shortcomings in Tweetie 2 and I don’t understand why they weren’t straightened out.
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Do I get it right? VMWare is charging users – even those who are forced to use Windows at work – 80$ (40$ for existing users) for full Snow Leopard and 64bit-support? Honestly, I don’t get that.
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