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One button is better than two.

Here and then I meet people who don’t understand Apple choice to have single mouse button by default and a phone and tablet with a single physical Home button.

Apple is most misunderstood and under valued tech company, to understand it you need to know its history. We can’t just compare our own vision with Apple vision without considering what Apple went through over many years.

Apple made graphical interface and mouse wildly popular. To make it happen they had to focus on people who never tried to use computer before. I’m sure they tried different mouses and they stopped with one button mouse. When user never tried mouse before, learning single button mouse is much simpler and faster than learning how to use 2 or even 3 buttons. I had problems using computer when I was a kid, many times I accidentally clicked on a wrong button. My mom uses Mac for years and she never had a need to use secondary mouse. One button is a perfect interface. It symbolise primary action. Mouse and pointer becomes extension of user hand. Moving hand makes pointer move without any delay. Did you ever had a moment when using Windows and pointer stopped moving? This breaks the illusion and it is very annoying. In this case pointer has to animate to indicate that’s computer is busy. To make this illusion work it has to be simple.

Because my Mom uses PC mouse (my bad) sometimes she accidentally clicks on a wrong button and she always confused with result she gets. She past this so if you look how she holds a mouse you notice that she’s afraid to trigger secondary click and always holds her hand up on the right side, this is very uncomfortable.

Yes using 2 button mouse for experienced users is more comfortable and fast, that’s why Apple added secondary click later but only after everyone was on board with graphical UI and mouse. However single button interface guidelines is not lost. For those people who still more comfortable with one button, and this is default option, Apple made sure macOS can be fully operational with a single button. Everything you can do with 2 buttons you can do with 1. Thanks to the menu on top. This is true even today.

Apple had similar goal to make smartphone with multi touch interface accessible for people who never used smartphone or computer before. That’s why iPhone has only one button. It has single primary purpose. It’s not Android like touch button - it is button with physical feedback - familiar interface for every human. Because this is just a single button you can’t confuse it with others. For most users, like my mom for example, primary one click function is all she needs. My mom almost never uses multitasking, Reachability, Accessibility or Siri, for her and many other beginners single button is very simple, no need to memorise a lot.

Pro users can argue that multiple buttons is better. I don’t think it is faster, just a matter of taste. I think a lot of people even professionals can appreciate minimalistic look. Pro feature are still there but they are not exposed for everyone.

How to prepare your Mac for the newest OS X update

I was reading through first El Captain reviews from the Mac App Store. There’s many one star reviews with people who lost some or all of their data, having performance issues and lags after upgrade. I upgraded three Macs and I don’t have any issues with. Here’s how to take care of your Mac before the upgrade and in general. Next 3 steps, except the last one, is not required for those lucky people who use iOS exclusively.

Use Disk Utility.

Because current Mac file system is outdated it doesn’t have any data integrity validation, it always corrupt itself over time. First time I did Disk Utility trick, I even acquired lost disk space.

I learned this from John Siracusa.

I am trying to use Disk Utility every month to repair my disk. The best way to do it is too boot from external disk. I have USB stick with OS X for this purpose. Use Terminal command createinstallmedia to make your own bootable flash stick.

Do two backups.

Don’t just use Time Machine. Use Time Machine and some other backup solution. I use Backblaze. Backblaze is not ideal, it is not expensive, the app is native and good but restoring process is cumbersome. Remember, that you can use Time Machine with multiple drives.

Don’t forget regularly test your backups and run Disk Utility to check your external hard drives as well.

Don’t use crappy software.

Use good software from trusted companies. Don’t use free poor quality alternatives. Check developers website on the latest OS X compatibility. If app is not ready on day one of the release, this is a warning sign, consider to use alternative software. Update all your software before the upgrade to have the best experience. Also, install all Apple updates before upgrading OS X. Delete apps that you don’t use. I also recommend to delete Adobe Flash.

Don’t upgrade on day one.

Newest OS will always have major issues with a first release. Be patient and wait for .1 release. This applies to iOS too.

Caffeine++ evolution

Caffeine++ is my latest app for caffeine tracking. I shipped version 1.1 with new design. Look how much better new UI is. I decided to use just one unit system dependign on user’s region. I also grouped elemetns that's relate to each other into table view so you can read the app left to right insted of top to bottom. The size picker is now hidden by default. Bonus, San Francisco font looks gorgeous.

Download Caffeine++.

My new app: Caffeine++

iOS 8 introduced new stock app named Health. Many users still don't understand its full potential. They angry when running out of storage and blaming Apple on including all this apps they don't need.

I think Apple made a right choice by including Health. Many people would never have a chance to realise what their iPhone can do with health data. Setting up Medical ID, for example, with user's blood type and other data can save lives. After Medical ID configured, it displayed under owner's contact and it's accessible from lock screen.

Almost year came after iOS 8 release and developers started to use it. One of the new app categories emerged: caffeine tracking apps. I drink coffee every day and I am very interested in collecting personal data over the long periods of time. I am already tracking my sleep with Pillow app, which works with Health app too.

I started to use the only one and first app integrated with Health - Buzz. After using it for a week I realised that I could do much better job.

Originally I wanted to named it "Cups" but this name was already taken, so I took inspiration from David Smith's Pedometer++. and named my app Caffeine++.

My goal was to be consistent with Apple design guidelines so I took green color from Apple Health app and designed my icon to look good next to Health icon. Caffeine++ is the only caffeine tracker which not only write data into Health, but also reads data from Health app and displays how much caffeine you consumed during the day. Even if you added it from other sources. I take science seriously so I provided caffeine dosage reference for each drink bundled with Caffeine++. Caffeine++ also has set of default icons, so your drinks is more recognisable. There's also Apple Watch app which I prefer to use daily.

Caffeine++ is the only free caffeine tracker on the App Store. Using it without IAP allows adding only 1 drink per 20 hours. Download it from the App Store.

#ios8 #iosapps #ios #developer

Cave Story: Welcome to the Past

I almost finished Cave Story on my 3DS. I always try to finish every game I started but I made exception for this one.

Cave Story is a very good game. I enjoyed playing it. 3D was interesting but towards the end I disabled it because I felt it’s easier to play without it, game is not created with 3D in mind and it looks like two flat layers — background and front. You can walk only on front layer. Because of this you can get flat building on the back and roof for some reason pumping forward.

I felt like I needed to finish this game because very good ratings on Metacritic. Cave Story is the second best game for 3DS, first is Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D which I finished. I can see why the rating is so good. Created by single indy developer, good music (was annoying only in the Labyrinth). I also didn’t played any classic side scrollers like Mario, Metroid or Castelvania. I played Mario but only for short periods of time because I didn’t have console or Mac / PC. Cave Story was an opportunity for me, a modern classic with interesting not linear level design, perfect weapons, RPG elements, deep story and unique world. I felt mostly satisfied playing it.

My first problems is difficulty levels. I couldn’t decide which one to choose. Tried easy then felt guilty and switched to medium. I would peak easy now but I couldn’t change it during the game.

Another problem, the game doesn’t have auto-save which is fine but when you get into save room you can’t pick a slot for the save, you can have only one slot and you will override your previous saves every time. This made experiencing alternative ending impossible for me, I had to start from the beginning to make another decision in the end of the game. I decided to watch “let’s play” video on YouTube instead.

Sometimes I felt that game built to annoy me. When you die in a boss fight you can’t just start over, you start over from the save spot and you have to make your way to the boss room again. This means repeating same series of actions again and again. Because of medium difficulty level I died around 40 times before I could defeat Monster X and I also had to use the cure pill which is the only one chance to restore your health during the game. Deleting final boss without this cure is almost impossible.

Final boss is not just a boss, it is multiple amount of bosses one after another without ability to save the game. You have to defeat them at one streak. Bosses tend to transform during the fight and becoming more aggressive as they loose health. I had go to the YouTube to figure out how to defeat Monster X and I did it for another bosses too, including the final battle. People in YouTube were using very advance weapons, I didn’t have it and I couldn’t go back and get it. Without cure and without advance weapons my chances for finishing the game is almost impossible and this is game developer fault.

I can understand desire to preserve old graphics and sound effects but why we have to bring technical limitations with it — inability to change difficulty, inability to have multiple save files — this ruined the game for me.

#gaming #3DS

GTA Chinatown Wars review.

Although I completed this wonderful game on my New Nintendo 3DS, this article can be interested for iOS users as well. There’s iPad / iPhone version with better graphics, but I don’t recommend playing it without a controller.

I am big GTA fan with big open world, missions and interesting story. I completed Liberty City, Vice City, San Andreas, Vice City Stories, GTA IV. I like all of them, my only problem is sexism issues. I am not satisfied with women characters and you can’t play as a women. I am shocked that there’s 3 main characters in GTA V and all of them are men. Other games from Rockstars — Bully (one of my favourites) and Red Dead Redemption have the same problem. Spoiler: there’s one woman in Chinatown Wars, main hero immediately ask her for a date and she dies quickly in the beginning. There’s also another side mission which finishes with a death of another lady. This is unacceptable.

I remember playing Chinatown Wars on my iPhone, I bought it, started playing and never finished. I think the game is loosing its charm without dedicated hardware controls. Yes you can use it but it’s not as fun and a little bit stressful to drive around Liberty City without physical controls.

The second game I bough for my new 3DS is Chinatown Wars, this time I decided to finish it. With 3DS I managed longer gaming sessions, there was nothing to distract me from gaming, no messages, no urge to check Twitter. But more importantly — it had hardware controls, I started to play it with a stick and than switched to the D-pad, the game is meant to be played on D-pad because Nintendo DS doesn’t have analog stick control. Thanks to Nintendo backward compatibility I could enjoy the game on the latest hardware, however, Wi-Fi din’t worked because it din’t like my Airport Extreme security settings. It looked like Nintendo fully emulates DS system, even Wi-Fi configuration panel. Anyway, I wasn’t interested in online mode.

The story is good with very specific humour. Every mission is unique and extremely fun. Usually I am trying to act as a good person in games and real world but with Chinatown Wars I gave up, it felt good to be bad. Same feeling I had only when I played Dungeon Keeper. I think all other GTA character are at least trying to find an exit from all violence, while Huang cares only about himself. There’s “trip skip” feature which allows you to skip the trip when you trying same mission third time in a row.

I think there’s one thing which makes Chinatown Wars better than all others — game economy. Playing Chinatown Wars you will never have enough money. This challenge brings new layer to the game: weapons are expensive, often you don’t have enough for your next save house. Remember other GTA games? Every following mission will give you more and more money, quickly you will have big number which you can’t even spend. In Chinatown missions pay very little and often nothing at all, moreover, sometimes you need to invest before you even can start a mission. This is not coincidence, I believe this changes were introduced because game expect you to make money with a drug trading. New economy system raises experience to a new quality level, suddenly, money start to make sense, becoming additional motivation / reward mechanism.

When playing GTA I think about it as ecosystem, as a virtual reality. What if every character in a game, even random people on the street would have their own little lives? Unfortunately this illusion brakes every time you see same car reappearing on the same spot, if you drive a truck, suddenly, the road is filled with identical models. Finally, when something unusual happens — one car tries to go faster than others or there’s rushing ambulance, poor implemented AI drives like crazy and hits everything and everyone on its way. You can spot it even on final titles when AI can’t even follow specific simple trajectory. Alan would be disappointed.

One interesting feature of the game — you can whistle into mic to get a cab. It never worked for me when I wanted and it was continuously triggered while I was in public transport. I also had go to settings and switched off auto weapon switch. You have to turn it off if you want to use a sword or chainsaw — main character Huang will switch to pistol constantly after he killing lots of people with melee weapon. I also had troubles reading silent dialogs, the font looked terrible and very pixelated, especially after using iOS.

#gaming

I don't watch trailers any more

I always was against watching bad movies or TV shows because I think my time should be spend carefully. I was used to following workflow before watching any new movie:

Go to IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, look into rating.

Go to the Trailers iOS app and look into couple of trailers.

Read review on Verge.

Only after this two steps I could allow myself to enjoy new movie. And at this point I would already know main plot twist, main characters and even some jokes.

Half a year ago I discovered Netflix. Following my old habit, I would carefully select my next movie. One time me and my wife decided to watch a movie spontaneously, without trailer or reading short about section. I remember my wife protesting, asking me what's movie about even going to internet and reading about it. We so used to be prepared. Watching something without knowing is terrifying, it makes any movie much more realistic and suspensive.

Only thing we knew is cover art, title and genre. That was so different and so good, we started to do it whenever possible.

That happened with movie theatre too, when we spontanisly decided to walk inside and watch whatever on the list. We chose Drop with James Gandolfini. Wonderful experience. We didn't have any exceptions.

Now it is Comic-Con time when everyone tries to gain attention by any means. Their goal is to sell as many tickets / iTunes preorders as possible. Clickbait websites like the Verge posting tons of behind the scenes footage, newest teasers. Latest Terminator trailer revealing main plot twist and director isn't happy, you can look Batman and Ghostbusters costume up close, same goes for Batmobile and Ghostbusters car. The Verge need people clicking on links and looking on ads. They all gladly sacrifice user experience to increase personal profit.

Only thing I need to know — is movie worth my attention or not. If somebody is mentioning it on Twitter I could add it to watch list. On Netflix I can look on 5 star rating, usually it is accurate enough.

I decided ignore teasers and trailers before watching movie, I will not read any media websites any more, I don't want to look on pictures with actors. I even trying not to look into genre. When we will go to the movies next time I would need to keep my eyes and ears shut.

Yesterday we tried it with one old movie. It started as military action than it changed to politics drama — completely unexpected. And then it changed again to something completely different and shocking.

I encourage you to try it too, start with some movie you never heard about before. You can always read about it after.

Why Siri on Mac is a bad idea

Microsoft recently announced that digital assistant Cortana will be added to the next Windows release. On top of the voice, you will be able to type queries into Cortana. Seams like a good idea right?

I don't think so. Microsoft doing everything they can without thinking how this will affect user experience. Adding full screen tablet application to their desktop platform is another example of this unified experience approach. Yesterday I was looking at the person who were using Windows 8 laptop, jumping between full screen Outlook and Excel. Each app took all screen and Outlook had extra large fonts and buttons. Every time Outlook appeared, splash screen with glorious animation was shown. How this can be good? I know that's it is probably possible to show two apps together, but I'm just telling how real people use it. When you open spreadsheet document and email client on Mac, they displayed in separate overlapping windows, you know you can rearrange them instantly. Both windows has the same UI paradigm, the same buttons and fonts so every app feels familiar. Switching between them with alt tab will be much faster than what I saw on Windows. Mac is created with mouse and keyboard in mind and it should stay this way.

Going back to Siri, instead of adding it to the Mac which I'm sure is not technically hard, Apple improved Spotlight and added natural search to it. Exactly what you expect from desktop platform. The experience is different on mobile devices, you often on the move and can not look on the small screen. In this case digital assistant is make sense, not on the desktop when you have much more faster access to your information. Even considering that it is possible to type queries into Cortana, why you need any assistant when you just can open new browser window or calendar or contacts and use this information. Maybe this is good marketing feature but I doubt that many people would prefer using digital assistants on Windows or Mac.

#WWDC15 design UX

OmniFocus remains one of my favorite and essential app. I like second version more than first and it keeps improving even in smallest ways.

Take a look on a simple preferences panes. Picture on left has old icons and picture on right has new icons. I am not sure I like new one, I think color is important here. Take a look at Safari preferences pane on the third picture.

#design

From Windows PC to MacBook and iPad as a movie hobbyist.

In 2007 I switched from my bulky self assembled Windows PC to Apple laptop. Since then I've never looked back. One of my motivations was to make home / indy movies with more mobility, speed, ease of use and stability, MacBook Pro with OS X and iMovie delivered all of it. I considered myself as lucky owner, carried my computer everywhere I go, gaining more hours I could work on my art. Anytime I needed to make a video clip I did it with pleasure and speed in any place. Sitting in front of giant noisy Windows PC doing any kind of work or play felt like a thing from ancient past. MacBook Pro was my only computer despite many my friends and colleagues owning desktop and notebook at the same time. I didn’t like the idea to manage two computers, why own Windows PC Desktop and cheap notebook (I can not afford iMac and MacBook) when you can have pertfect MacBook Pro? Moreover, ‘17 LED display was ahead of any display I saw at universities, friends houses and work places, the same I can say about keyboard and trackpad was my favorite input device. Although it wasn’t that perfect, my camera was too bulky to carry it around and it doesn’t supported HD. I sold it after I noticed that iPod Touch is doing much better job in terms of video HD picture quality, battery life and mobility. Other problems I couldn’t fix that easy. I often was forgetting about my external hard drive which I was using to import videos from my camera using FireWire cable. Even though, I upgraded my RAM 2-3 times, newest versions of iMovie didn’t worked as smooth as iMovie 6. Often in summer my computer was getting too hot (and noisy) to hold it on my lap. When I wanted to share my movie with family and friends I had to come over, plug in my equipment to their TV or to show it from my laptop, I also was using YouTube which worked great with my friends, however my parents often couldn’t use Google’s video service on their own. They needed to remember a private link and continuesly asked me to send it again. I also not a fan of annoying commercials picked by a soulless robot. Now I want iPad to be my main computer. Recently I bought 13’ MacBook Pro with Retina display, the only thing I do with it is programming, I prefer my iPad Air 2 for everything else, montage included. It wasn’t instant transition. I own iPad from point when the first generation was released and only after iOS 8 release I started switching process. Using iMovie on iOS felt weird for my first 2-3 movies, more I use it, more gestures I discovered, my fingers and workflow adjusted and I discovered that’s everything is not not only different but also more intuitive and right. It felt weird only because my past expirience with hot keys and precise mouse pointer, you don’t needed this skils when working on iPad.

I am continue to shoot videos on my iPad and my wife’s iPhone 5S. When I feel like making a movie, I making it within an one hour, right on my iPad, with solid picture stabilization and slo-mo, time-lapse effects I never dreamed to have with consumer equipment. I don’t need laptop with wires, instead using AirDrop to transfer all videos from my wife’s iPhone in a matter of seconds. I don’t using any external hard drive, all my videos are stored in iCloud Photo Library. After finishing I am uploading them to shared Photo Stream so my family can watch them anywhere without distractions, they are notified right from Photos app so I don’t have to call them and tell them to watch my videos. I also using Vimeo as a backup. https://vimeo.com/borisy/videos I would like to see improvements on sharing audio tracks from apps to iMovie or Music app, third party apps already have lots of solutions, for example AudioCopy https://appsto.re/us/BOs3Q.i is one of them. With iOS 8 share extension it allows to share content between music creation apps. It would be great to create my own music for my own movies or using audio tracks with propper license AKA podsafe music without need to use laptop. Life’s much better now.

First look on iOS Outlook.

My thanks to iOS developers at Microsoft. Our university is using Google Apps, so we have Gmail, Calendar, Contacts and Drive. Outlook displays everythIng in one place. You can jump between them with a single tap from the well known tab bar at the bottom. Well made!

My favorite detail is *the blank screen after archiving an email.* I am inbox zero completionist. I was looking for this for years. Sometimes, especially, on mobile devices, you don’t have time to clean inbox, and it is important to have an ability to stop working on your email at any time, with all remaining inbox letters marked as unread and hidden.

If you’ll try to archive an email message in any other client, you’ll immediately get next message. It’s exhausting, stressful rarely ending process. In Outlook, opening next message is your conscious decision. You are doing this when you have enough time and resources.

#ios8 #deisign #productivity #microsoft

Small detail in new iTunes 12 player. You can't seek through song on the Radio (even though it is cached). Interface reflects this with different seek markers.

#yosemite #osx #apple #ui #design

Yosemite icons are not flat.

#icons #design #osx #yosemite

Penultimate 6 Update.

Penultimate iPad app is updated. Some users are in rage and writing a lot of one star reviews. Those reviews are not valid representation of what most people think. Users which are OK or even happy with changes do not have a reason to write a review because they are already satisfied.

Old design looks "classy" with brown notebooks, physical pages, point of beginning and point of end without any kind of ability to separate different notes in one notebook. While using Penultimate 5 I thought this kind of UI is appropriate. Until I saw new design which respects and embraces iOS 7 paradigm. Starting from icon, all chrome are gone embracing the content.

I'm using iPad Air so I can survive without zoom mode and new full screen look makes it more possible. People with iPad mini will miss cool auto scroll function, which I hope will be added in the future. One thing which confused me is titles, but there is a switch in app's settings.

Small amount of people are in rage, but this changes are better for most users. We need to think in a new digital way with infinity scrolling and go away from old cumbersome paper-like style UI.

iPad Air 2 vs mini 2 anti-reflective coating test.

Here is two iPads with maximum brightness near the window at bright morning. ![Air on the right and mini on the left. Mini has problems with reflecting blinds](https://31.media.tumblr.com/5bc6b73689d2bcb120f600b3aa80aa2f/tumblr_inline_ne1x2jexM11rm93kn.jpg) ![Air on the right and mini on the left. Mini has problems with reflecting blinds](https://31.media.tumblr.com/f7beba0ec65d47d00adbfd85989597da/tumblr_inline_ne1x2yKfWf1rm93kn.jpg) We can see that reflections problem is not solved yet but Air 2 looks better.

Improving App Icon.

It is clear that after iOS 7 icons design style has changed to become more abstract and simple. Despite some minority who don't appreciate fresh changes, it is obvious that new look has several strong reasons for its superiority.

Firstly, new icons are more recognisible, especially, in smallest size and even more with Apple Watch. I wrote about it here: My take on new iOS 7 design. Dont judge it before you'll try it.

Secondly, it is obvious that photorealistic rich elements are no longer essential for producing perfect iOS icon. This means indie developers no longer absolutely have to hire designers. Creating icon is a crucial process and should be taken seriously. App icon will affect sales. People make a decision based on an icon.

Altershot Example.

Here is my personal experience will be shared. All opinions and tastes are of my own and may be freely argued by reader.

My first mistake was to start creating a final version. I should do more sketeching and thinking. It costed me a lot of time redoing all over again.

Reiterating is an essential part of the process, however it is much more easier to work with draft than with finished version. Try to create rough sketch. When you'll feel ready, attach it to your app and try to look on device. Compare it to other apps. Is it stands out? Does it demonstrate app purpose? Is it looks native? What can be improved? Then sketch again and again. I tried to show off my work to other people and this is not helped me but still worh to try.

I'm using Pixelmator for about a year. I can't stand Adobe products because they are not native enough, slow on updates, ugly, hard to use and have too many features. Price is a point too. So after you spend some quality time drawing, create clean vector based version of your icon. For altershot I picked 1024 canvas resolution but it is better to work on 1024 * 4 = 4096 in case Apple will raise the bar at some point in the future.

I like following rules and not being a jerk with my design. Google, I'm talking to you. Look at Chrome and Safari icons:

At the end, download iOS 7 grid and align your icon vector objects properly. Do not forget to save original multi layer vector based file in case you will need to change something. Do not rasterize your graphic elements in the original file.

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