iTunes 10 - September 1, 2010

Amidst a whole slew of new Apple news comes one that I find particularly interesting - iTunes 10... specifically, the redesign of the app's menu bar. For years, Apple has had a 'mini' view for iTunes, meant to occupy as little screen real estate as possible but still give you access to all your most commonly used iTunes controls. This view has always had vertically-stacked window management buttons (the green, yellow and red lights at the top left of {nearly} every Mac OS X application) since it was designed to take up as little screen space as possible.

With iTunes 10, Apple has used this navigation design for the standard orientation (picture to come). Knowing that Apple does everything for a reason, I asked myself: Why.

Looking at the rest of today's keynote, the answer is astoundingly simple. Apple is moving full steam ahead toward touch interfaces... interfaces, specifically, that drop the window paradigm in favor of popovers, alert views and split views. With the slight redesign, they are taking small steps to ensure users won't miss their windows - starting from window management. And let's face it, who uses those buttons in iTunes anyway (where the green resizing button works like no other application in the books and the red close button doesn't even quit the app).

I'm not saying this is the demise of traditional, window-based computer. Far from it, in fact. I am just simply pointing out that, if iTunes is any indication, Apple is ready to help its users transition to a less window-centric UI.

I Don't Like it

Good thing, like most iTunes UI changes, it's reversible. Open Terminal and type:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -1

This turns off the "full window" preference in iTunes, reverting the menu bar back to normal! To switch it back on, flip the -1 to a 0 in the code.

On iPad ... - January 28, 2010

First and foremost, I still have the utmost intention of starting a blog for myself... one of these days ...

Anyhoo - I just thought I'd chime in, like the rest of the web, on iPad. I side with the this-is-a-game-changer crowd - that the tablet is not just a giant iPhone. Sure, it runs the iPhone OS, and has the same limitations as the iPhone OS - single-app at a time, potentially awkward text input, etc - but Apple obviously knows that and has taken great effort to show consumers, developers and naysayers that iPad apps (iPapps? ... oh brother) can be at least equally as productive as their desktop equivalents. Every app's UI was rewritten specifically to take advantage of iPad - the best examples of which are the iWork apps, Calendar and iPod. The iPhone OS is just that - the operating system - and I think people are associating the limitations of a mobile device - 320x480 screen 3.5" screen, slow processor, small amounts of RAM - with the entire OS, which is not necessarily valid.

As an iPhone (OS) developer, I obviously don't see the iPad as having quite the same size user base (read: monetary potential) as the iPhone/iPod touch, even in a few years. The App Store has already dictacted and nearly set in stone the standard price range for apps: $2.99 or less for a decent app, $9.99 or less for a decent game, and pretty much anything above that is off limits. I'm pretty sure we'll see the same price structure for iPad apps - even though they can (potentially) be much more 'real' and productive than their iPhone counterparts, due in part to the much larger scren real estate. Apps on iPad don't have to be restricted to the same UI guidelines that work best on iPhone screens. Instead, they can become digital representations of reality - look at the calendar, contacts and iBooks apps - they all do a wonderful job of cueing the user into what the application is about by giving them a visual context that they're used to with their desk calendars, contact books and hardcover novels.

Now, as a web designer, I am also extremely excited about the potential of this device. There have already been some pretty cool tools to emulate the iPhone OS in Javascript/CSS/HTML5, and I can only imagine what people will be able to do with a 1024x768 resolution. Webapps designed for standard web browsers will take very little tweaking to run perfectly on iPad - and assuming we have the same functionality as on an iPhone to save to home screen, we will see a whole new breed of web apps specifically for iPad. Not as many as there are for iPhone, but maybe that's not a bad thing - Apple's promise of 'the full web' on iPhone has been a valid one, but in an effort to ameliorate performance on the tiny device, many websites have chosen to write custom pages specifically for mobile browsers, thereby eliminating the original intention of the device. By dissolving that need with iPad, I think Apple truly has made it the best way to browse the web - even without Flash and other 3rd party support. But I'll get to that later...

End of the Year Site Updates - December 29, 2009

I've updated the site to reflect some of my recent web work,including a new blog and a project done for the NYC Big Appscompetition.

Look out for a new site at www.coreybutler.netcoming early next year, focusing (more) strongly on my web design and photography, based on the WordPress platform.

Random Thought of The Day - September 24, 2009

Sometimes, I'm a little too heavy on the Fill Light in PS Camera Raw. Just thought I'd share that.

Indelible - September 22, 2009

While I have been making significant headway on my Europe pictures, I have been stuck in a creative rut as far as a cool way to display them all in one place. A few ideas popped around my head, and today they finally all came together. It will be a Flash AS3 based site centering around Google Maps API (with 3D map and everything).

But what to call it? And better yet, what will it look like?

... indelible

Seriously, Work at Flickr!? - September 19, 2009

I check flickr, the photo sharing site and social network, on the order of 10^2 times a day. No joke. A link to the home page sits in my bookmarks bar, and I instintually click it every time I open a new web browser. One nice little feature about their home page, apart from showing you your most recent uploads, activity on said photos/videos, and recent uploads from friends and the rest of the flickr community, it has a nice little sidebar to show you what's new on the flickr blog. For a few hours yesterday, there was a very interesting post.

Apparently, flickr is hiring for a few different positions, most of which are what you'd expect from a social network - database and other backend engineers. But they're also hiring a front-end engineer / web designer to do their bidding for them.

Flickr gods, if you're reading this, I am your man. You could head over to the profile page to see my credentials, or just email me straight away.

Snow Leopard Observations

So, I've been reading some of the blogs about Snow Leopard and some of the unannounced features. Some cool ones I read about were:

The contextual menu item "Burn to Disc" that allows you to burn any file or folder to a disc directly in the Finder without making a burn folder
Exposé and the Dock work awesome together. Quick Look in Expose is amazing, and minimizing windows into their respective App icons gets rid of an enormous amount of window clutter. I used to close the main windows in Mail and iTunes, while leaving the applications running, but I find myself now minimizing these windows so I can quickly access them from my Exposé. Tight.

I've got a few observations of my own that I haven't really seen anywhere else:

The startup chime now actually respects your volume settings, like it used to with PowerPC macs. Haven't tried it with headphones in, but I have to assume that it will respect that now as well. I will no longer be annoyed by a loud startup chime in a quiet room when my Mac is muted. Hooray.
Animations remain smooth. Minimizes are buttery. Finally. This is on an early 2008 MBP.

EUROPE BLOG! - August 16, 2009

Tomorrow I embark on the most epic walk of all time - to Europe. Well, I'm not walking, but that's an all-encompassing term, I'm pretty sure. Anyway, I've set up a WordPress blog here to share my adventure with everyone (or no one, it doesn't really matter, I learned the hard way that I need to have duplicates and triplicates of everything in order for it all to be safe). Stop by once in a while - I will be uploading photos from my iPhone as I go.
Also, look for a new site next month, utilizing the geolocation data from the iPhone photos and mashing that all up with my DSLR photos, a little Flash, and a sprinkle of Papervision 3D.

www.AprilYocum.com - August 13, 2009

I just completed a new website for a Prudential Carolinas Real Estate Agent, April Yocum. Visit my web design page to learn more about this customized WordPress blog!

2:22 EST

Today, I began a new collaborative photography project. The idea behind it is to have people from different areas of the world documenting what is happening near them at the exact same time.

Sohail was the originator of this idea, and it seems like Stesha and Jill will be getting in on the beginnings of it as well.