iPad By Davis: “Talk Mobile App Week begins tomorrow; join us for daily Talk Mobile hangouts!” plus 4 more

Talk Mobile App Week begins tomorrow; join us for daily Talk Mobile hangouts!
Apple's signature, its meaning, and its promise
iPad Art: Father’s Day
iOS 7 and the continuing gamification of interface
Two Great iPad Photo Apps Updated: PhotoToaster and TitleFx

Talk Mobile App Week begins tomorrow; join us for daily Talk Mobile hangouts!

Posted: 16 Jun 2013 06:01 PM PDT

Talk Mobile App Week begins tomorrow; join us for daily Talk Mobile hangouts!

The second week of Talk Mobile 2013 kicks off tomorrow, and the discussion is going to center around mobile apps. With five days of awesome content lined up and sure to be some great conversations in the comments, we really want to expand your interaction with the whole Talk Mobile crew.

Starting tomorrow after fresh Talk Mobile content goes live we're going to do something we wanted to do for the last week of Talk Mobile, but couldn't thanks to everybody traveling for the awesome Talk Mobile launch party: we'll be holding a live video hangout with a rotating cast of Talk Mobile editors, developers, designers, our special guests, and everybody else involved in making Talk Mobile happen. You can expect the hangouts to go live a little bit after we publish the Talk Mobile articles. After all, they're pretty big hunks of text and video, we want you to have some time to digest it all first!

So tune back in to your favorite Mobile Nations site(s) tomorrow for more great Talk Mobile content. It's time to get the conversation about apps started!

p.s. We want to give you (just you, because you're special) a look at the full schedule of what you can expect from Talk Mobile 2013 in the coming months. Here's how the weeks ahead look...

July 1: Mobile Social
July 15: Mobile Platforms
July 29: Mobile Security
August 12: Mobile Carriers
August 26: Mobile Life
September 9: Mobile Creativity
September 23: Mobile Cloud
October 7: Mobile You

Apple's signature, its meaning, and its promise

Posted: 16 Jun 2013 10:15 AM PDT

This was Tim Cook's WWDC, not only headlined by a risky, heavily skeuomorphic, deeply gamified iOS 7, but wrapped in messaging that elaborated on their core beliefs, and re-affirmed a promise to the people who use their products. From the opening video to the closing words, Apple repeated that message, and a few things came to mind as I watched the video and the event:

First, Apple is hitting the California angle hard. California is, of course, Apple's home state, and part of the USA. It has its own unique culture and history, as every place does, and one deeply part of Apple since its founding. Over the last year or so, Apple's faced scrutiny over everything from their business practices in China, to the growing power of their competitors in Korea, to all the money they have in other countries, and the US tax implications thereof. Putting the focus back on America in general, and on design and California in particular -- especially with a hot new Mac Pro announced as being made in America -- cleverly re-orients perception. Apple's heart wasn't left in San Francisco. It was born there.

Second, a signature implies responsibility, like signing a contract. Apple wrapped their new messaging in a promise of quality and of principle. From putting their name on their work, to "not innovating anymore... my ass!", Apple looked people in the eye -- people who might be wondering if they'd lost their drive or edge or general magic -- gave them a little wink, and then did a little strut.

It wasn't the return of Steve Jobs or Think Different. It was a more complex, more nuanced message for a more complex, more nuanced time. Time will tell how effectively it resonates internally and externally, and how well the new Mac Pro or iOS 7 really portent Apple remaining at the height of their power.

But either way they've already shown Apple remains at the height of their guts.

iPad Art: Father’s Day

Posted: 16 Jun 2013 09:14 AM PDT

As of last night I hadn't yet chosen an image or images to use for this weekend's iPad Art post. I often have some ideas on the theme for the weekly post but leave my final selection until Sunday morning. Well, this week that approach couldn't have turned out any better – because I spotted this striking image in the iPad Art Google+ community that I run.

I think it is just perfect for Father's Day – especially since these are the words that accompany the painting:

Holding your hand, I can cross river of fire…… Happy Father's Day….

This iPad painting was created by Google+ user Rohit Bhardwaj.

I hope all the dads out there are having a wonderful day.

iOS 7 is not only the most skeuomorphic and liberating version of Apple's mobile operating system to date, it's also potentially the most fun. (I say potentially because it's not finished yet, and we'll likely only know whether Apple truly achieves their vision once it launches this fall.) This idea -- the gamificaton of interface -- isn't new, of course. With iOS 7, Apple's simply, audaciously attempting to take it to the next level.

When the original iPhone launched in 2007, its blisteringly fast animations, smooth transitions, direct manipulations, and emulated behaviors such as elastic banding and inertial scrolling played a huge part in making iOS (then iPhone OS) not only immediately delightful, but persistently engaging. It's also what made it not only accessible, but enjoyable for kids and non-tech savvy people alike.

Apple gamified their operating system in the best sense of the word.

To accomplish the high frame-rate, smooth scrolling, and other elements, Apple implemented technologies that are key to gaming, like OpenGL (and implemented them so well that a year later developers basically got a lot of what they needed to launch the first set of games on the iPhone "for free".) Apple gamified their operating system in the best sense of the word, and everyone from Apple to the first wave of App Store developers, to us, all benefited.

While 6 years is a long time, many of us can probably still remember back to our first days, weeks, and months using the original iPhone. Pinching and zooming through photos and maps and watching details leap out or fall back. Spinning dials, sometimes intentionally too fast, to set numbers for timers. Flicking through lists and watching them accelerate and decelerate, and pulling down well past its limits just to watch it bounce back. (Loren Brichter did the latter so much he ended up creating pull-to-refresh.) And the list goes on.

Apple and other companies had used some of these animations and interactions before, of course, but the sheer quality of the iPhone's interface combined with the intimacy of capacitive touch made the entire experience something more viceral.

Over time Apple added other touches, like page turning in iBooks, sliding -- and in some cases bouncing -- panels in Notification Center and the Lock screen, and more. Again, nothing completely new, but a lot that felt novel when it came to the overall experience.

And now iOS 7.

I misclassified iOS 7 at the beginning of this article. It's less another level and more a sequel to the original (and comes with all the dangers inherent to making a sequel). It takes many of the same interactive elements, blows them out, and makes them the central mechanic for the entire operating system. There's a real (if not real-world) physics engine here, and particle effects, and far more that's been disclosed to developers in the non-public sessions at WWDC 2013. And instead of aping game mechanics for the iOS 7 interface, Apple hired real, renowned game developers to create it.

With iOS 7, screens aren't bouncing because they're keyframe-animated to do so. They're bouncing because the virtual world they exist in has sent them ricochetting off another object. They're not sliding because an image is being moved from one coordinate to another, but because they're rotating around the surface of cylinders. Interface hasn't just gone from traditional animation to 3D, or from element to object, it's been dropped into a full-blown virtual world.

Some of the gamification Apple's doing was shown off in the WWDC 2013 keynote, including the layers that move and shift as the device moves and shifts -- of the interface objectified, of interaction brought to life. Some hasn't been yet, and some is likely still very much a work in progress. (Spoiler: Any screen or app not shown off on Apple's iOS 7 feature pages probably isn't done yet.)

I'd like to see even more of it. I'd like to see a more playful way to unlock iOS, like Apple uses for their retail devices, or Google uses for Android. I'd like to see a Stock icon that changes color from red to black to reflect the state of the market. I'd like to tilt to scroll the multitasking cards. I'd like to flick away spam in Mail and pinch in and out of the Calendar. I'd like Reminders to be sortable and stackable. And I'd like all of it, every gesture-based direct manipulation, to be consistent across iOS so I never have to so much as think about what I'm doing. I just have to do it.

Apple might get to some of this, if not far better, sooner or later, but more importantly they've given developers the tools they need to experiment with all sorts of ideas right now.

Interface gamified leads to play which leads to discovery which leads to yet more play.

Interface gamified leads to play which leads to discovery which leads to yet more play. It's a hugely virtuous cycle. That's how iPhone OS began, and that's how iOS is beginning again. The implications are more than a little exciting, and the ramifications are something we won't even start seeing until the fall.

Apple framed iOS 7 as the most important release since the original iPhone OS, and that's absolutely true. Just like iPhone OS 1 set the stage for the first 6 years of the platform, including the amazing apps that came with iPhone OS 2 and the App Store, iOS 7 sets the now much more physical stage for what will certainly be years ahead, and the next generation of apps that feel like living objects in unreal space.

That work and delight like games.

Two Great iPad Photo Apps Updated: PhotoToaster and TitleFx

Posted: 16 Jun 2013 08:44 AM PDT

Two of my favorite Photos apps for the iPad were updated this week – TitleFx and PhotoToaster, both by East Coast Pixels.

TitleFx helps to make a statement with your photos by adding text and some great text effects. I did a review of TitleFx last December and I was already a big fan. Of course I used it to add text to the images in this post. It was updated to Version 2.0 this week. Here are the notable changes in this update:

We've added a transparency control, which is great for creating creative text layouts but also for watermarking.
There's a crop editor, so you can crop square for Instagram or just crop to improve a photo.
You can save your own default starting state, which is perfect for water marking or saving a preferred layout.
We added a second set of 24 new fonts and some new FX.
There have also been a bunch of performance improvements and a...

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