Author Archives for Joseph

The Coolest Way to Learn Dull Keyboard Shortcuts

Did I get your attention with that title? Just wondering.

A smart way to learn keyboard shortcuts

The CheatSheet app icon

CheatSheet app for Mac

One of my pet peeves is the scope of keyboard shortcuts. They are awesome if I learn them, but before I do, they just taunt me; ever wondering which ones would be helpful, and which I don’t need to concern myself with.

Safari, Mail, and Finder are three apps I’ve learned to focus on for my shortcut study. These apps I use all the time. There’s no need to use a mouse for, say, creating a new tab, archiving finished e-mail, or creating a new folder. These are super easy and fast once you learn the right keyboard shortcuts.

If you are new to learning shortcuts, start with examples like those. You don’t want to bog yourself down in other less-frequented commands like closing all windows in Safari (which there is a keyboard shortcut for). You want to take the steps to reinforce very useful commands that matter to you the most often.

Here’s how to cheat learning shortcuts

I love utilities as simple and smart as CheatSheet. The app serves one purpose: to help you learn the commands of any app in the most user-friendly imaginable way.

The app is free. Download it right now, and add it to your login items. My thanks are in order to Stefan Fürst for this remarkable, simple app. And more thanks to MacStories for sharing the joyous news that this utility exists.

And here is a helpful reference for the keyboard symbols:

Mac keyboard shortcut symbols

These symbols are on most Mac keyboards. Use the image guide above as a reference for the symbols you see in manuals and how-to guides that you easily forget.

The Difference Between U.X. and U.I. in a Bowl of Cereal

This is a bowl of cereal demonstrating the product

Click a cheerio for the full visual guide by Ed Lea

I’m as guilty as the next user, consumer, and novice to the world of programming. Without someone to tell us what is what, we easily get user experience and user interface confused.

Thanks, Ed Lea, for clearing things up for me with the UI/UX of a bowl of cereal. Thanks to Design.org for sharing.

The Cost and Construction of Apple Products

This is what the Apple iPhone charger looks like with the iPhone 4SPeople get it in their heads that one way or another Apple is really out to over-price their products and rob people blind. No one stops to consider a world with cheap Apple products, like we saw throughout the 1990s till Steve returned to Apple.

One Apple tech geek chose to find out what was on the inside of Apple’s seemingly over-priced iPhone charger.

Shirriff found that there’s a reason for at least part of the premium price tag, and that’s the use of quality components. To quote Shirriff’s conclusions,

Apple’s power adapter is clearly a high-quality power supply designed to produce carefully filtered power. Apple has obviously gone to extra effort to reduce EMI interference, probably to keep the charger from interfering with the touchscreen. When I opened the charger up, I expected to find a standard design, but I’ve compared the charger to the Samsung charger and several other high-quality industry designs, and Apple goes beyond these designs in several ways… TUAW »

The truth is Apple aims to put this sort of high-quality manufactering ahead of making expendable and low-priced gadgets in all that they produce. Apple is about only the best they can afford to make available in their gadgets in mass quantities at this time—unlike many tech companies that are out to sell at bottom-dollar prices cheap and and poorly-engineered products.

As Jony Ive puts it:

“We’re keenly aware that when we develop and make something and bring it to market that it really does speak to a set of values. And what preoccupies us is that sense of care, and what our products will not speak to is a schedule, what our products will not speak to is trying to respond to some corporate or competitive agenda. We’re very genuinely designing the best products that we can for people.” Read more »

If Jony Ive said it, I believe it. There’s something so sincere about the man that what he said must be true. No kidding. The man is so real… I guess I believe in the quality of Apple’s products without seeing their metal and plastic guts ripped out.

Not to mention that in my nineteen years of experience using Apple products they have only been good to me (when they weren’t stolen). 

iLive Magazine gets Real Creative Showing the Little People Building Our iMacs

I bet you couldn’t have guessed this. Mathieu Schatzler on the Behance network shared with the world how iMacs are really put together.

The iLife crew assembles an iMac, or are those 5 mice at work?

Choose any of these thumbnails to see the details better:

I just knew there was something magical to them after all. This is proof, guys. Thanks, Mathieu, for going to all the trouble to show the world what’s really behind the scenes at Foxconn.

Building Apps for Too Wide a User Demographic

CinePro's app icon on the iTunes App StoreThe app developers at Mind Diaper (that’s not a joke) have released a nifty little video camera app for the iPhone 4S technology.

Besides the ability to record, there are customizable film rates, “lens” filters (sorta like Instagram’s) aspect ratio controls, and more to make CinePro new and different from other iOS camera apps.

But the apps marketing is flaud. CinePro is pitched as follows:

“The best camera in the world is the one you have with you”

…I’m with their selling points so far.

CinePro started with the belief that everyone is a filmmaker…

Losing me now…

…Our goal was to create a tool that was powerful enough for professional filmmakers and friendly enough for anyone with a passion for capturing life’s best moments.

Our dream is to see the Cinepro community capture everything from full length features to birthday parties. CinePro »

Sorry. No-can-do, Mind Diaper. Apps are better suited for one of two users. Think of The Big Bang Theory characters; Penny and Sheldon most certainly would not want to use the same camera app. Penny would use iOS’s built-in camera, and Sheldon would be turned off by any app that attempts to make pros and consumers happy at the same time.

Pros want something powerful. Consumers want something lazy and pretty. Realistic speaking, there isn’t an in-between.

“Pro-sumer” types get tired of trying to tread the fine line very quickly. They try an app that tries to appeal to both, then when it proves there are too many compromises to make consumers happy, the “pro” in you gives up using the app. And the consumer within you gives up when the app proves to be too technical.

My recommendation would be to make two apps under the same name, of sorts. Call one CineMo and the other CinePro, or something like that. Cater to the user’s interests and goals—not to your daydreams of nerdom.

And don’t misunderstand me. The app is probably got its good features, and I intend to give it a test drive. I want a more powerful camera. But let’s be honest: everyday users want fewer features. Pros want the power tools. Not everyone is a geek that uses an iPhone to take videos and snapshots. 

U.I. Design for The Avengers

Nick Fury by his computers - visual effects magic

Click Nick Fury’s eyepatch to see the gallery for The Avengers UI designs

Stills from The Avengers showcasing some of the User Interfaces that Jayse Hansen designed for the glass screens on the Helicarier and the visuals Tony Stark had in his new and upgraded Iron Man suit. Shawn Blanc »

Thanks, Shawn, for sharing these. Fabulous job, Jayse.

Designers, don’t drool too much. It is unbecoming. 

New 007 ‘Skyfall’ Teaser Trailer is Released

The 007 trademark of James BondSee the trailer here on Apple’s website.

I was disappointed in the last Bond film. This film looks promising. I’m cautiously optimistic since Sam Mendes is directing.

Suggestion: if I was the filmmakers, I would retire Judy Dench’s character in this film. I would give her a graceful and worthy exit by choice, one that the character, M, deserves after 50 years of active service to the MI6 Secret Service.

Daniel Craig is showing his age too, but what’s to be done about that? You only live forever. 

Jony Ive Goes In-depth About Apple’s Design Philosophy

Jonathan Ive portrait in suit jacket - black & whiteAhead of receiving his knighthood from the Queen, Jony gave an interview to the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph. Jony Ive’s own words:

“We try to develop products that seem somehow inevitable. That leave you with the sense that that’s the only possible solution that makes sense.”

“I think subconsciously people are remarkably discerning. I think that they can sense care. I think it’s a wonderful view that care was important – but I think you can make a one-off and not care and you can make a million of something and care. Whether you really care or not is not driven by how many of the products you’re going to make.”

“One of the concerns was that there would somehow be, inherent with mass production and industrialisation, a godlessness and a lack of care.

“We’re keenly aware that when we develop and make something and bring it to market that it really does speak to a set of values. And what preoccupies us is that sense of care, and what our products will not speak to is a schedule, what our products will not speak to is trying to respond to some corporate or competitive agenda. We’re very genuinely designing the best products that we can for people.” GigaOM »

You can watch the clip of Ive’s knighting here »

I have a lot of respect for the man. He is one of the coolest men roaming the earth today. I am impressed with him in the Apple product videos, in keynote presentations along with Steve Jobs, and in the stories related in some of Jobs biographies. Jony is a rare breed. He is the real deal even when he’s philosophizing about abstracts of design that most ordinary tech users do not understand, but sure do appreciate.

Pixar’s New Short Film, La Luna

La Luna promotional art by Pixar

I always look forward to the Pixar short films as much as their full-length feature film releases.

“La Luna” is the timeless fable of a young boy who is coming of age in the most peculiar of circumstances. Tonight is the very first time his Papa and Grandpa are taking him to work. In an old wooden boat they row out to sea, and with no land in sight, they stop and wait. A big surprise awaits the little boy as he discovers his family’s most unusual line of work. Should he follow the example of his Papa, or his Grandpa? Will he be able to find his own way in the midst of their conflicting opinions and timeworn traditions? Pixar »

It would seem based on Pixar’s description of La Luna that the story’s message echoes similar values presented in Brave. I don’t expect anything ‘epic’ out of their short films; rather, they are an antidote to overside films. It’s great to watch what they can do in a creative story in so little time on screen.

We can expect to see La Luna for the first time in theaters along with showings of Brave.