After revealing the iPhone X to the world on September 12th, Apple updated its Human Interface Guidelines and introduced a series of developer videos to address, among other topics, designing iOS apps with the iPhone X’s notch in mind. Designer Max Rudberg provides a comprehensive overview of Apple’s treatment of the notch. As Rudberg explains:
Apple is choosing to highlight the fact that the screen reaches the top left and right corner of the device. So the recommendation is clear. As a good platform citizen, one should follow their lead. By doing so, you likely have better chances to be highlighted by Apple in the App Store, or even win an Apple Design Award.
Eventually, they will get rid of the notch. It could be 2, 5, or even 10 years, but it’s a stop gap, not a permanent design solution. In the meantime, treat it like the elephant in the room. We all know it’s there, but for the most part, you should design as if it’s not.
Rudberg illustrates his article with screenshots of each point he covers and the dimensions of each screen elements adjacent to the notch. It’s not a substitute for reading the Human Interface Guidelines and watching Apple’s videos, but Rudberg’s article is a great place for developers to start when considering how to design for the iPhone X.
Sometimes the best distraction from a frantic and chaotic day is an even more frantic and chaotic game. Fowlst, which developer CatCup Games, describes as ‘an action game about an owl that is trapped in Hell for some reason’ is perfect for just such an occasion.
Fowlst is an arcade-style action, dodging game. You play as the owl, pursued by demons that shoot lasers at you while you try to avoid buzzsaws, fire, and other obstacles. The game gets crazy fast.
The mechanics remind me of Don’t Grind, one of my favorite arcade-style games released last year. You control your owl by tapping on the left and right-hand sides of the screen, which makes your owl fly in a bouncy kind of way in the direction of your taps. The controls purposefully require a careful coordination of left and right taps to navigate your owl. Power-ups are activated by swiping up on the screen. It’s a simple control scheme that makes Fowlst easy to pick up and start playing, but difficult to master.
Demons are defeated by colliding with them before you run out of hearts from being hit by lasers or other obstacles. Unlike Don’t Grind, you don’t have to keep your owl aloft constantly. You can rest on the bottom of any stage or a perch, but constantly moving helps make it harder for the demons to get you. There are also periodic bosses theoughout the game to mix up the pace of the action.
When you defeat a demon, it’s replaced with a floating sack of money and occasionally a heart or power-up that disappears after a few seconds. To collect items, you need to steer your owl into them while simultaneously dealing with other demons and obstacles. The cash you collect can be spent to upgrade your owl with health and weapons.
The game ends when you run out of hearts. Fowlst then tallies the money you collected, the number of levels cleared and shows how you did compared to your high score, which has the effect of making the game wonderfully-compulsive to play. Fowlst keeps things interesting by randomizing the levels you are presented each time you play through. It’s a carefully struck balance that keeps the gameplay familiar enough to avoid frustration but also avoids becoming monotonous.
Fowlst combines its arcade action with pixelated art, a complementary chiptune soundtrack, and lots of ‘pew-pew’ laser sound effects. The result is an addictive arcade game that has almost no learning curve and is easy to pick up and play for short periods of time but is difficult to master and hard to put down. It’s a perfect combination for a mobile game, making Fowlst a title I’m going to be returning to often.
Apple Music has released a bot on Facebook Messenger, joining over 200,000 other active bots. According to Facebook’s announcement:
The Apple Music experience on Messenger is unique in that it allows Apple Music subscribers on iOS to play complete songs, right in the app. Of course it will enable listening and sharing of 30-second sound bites cross-platform (Android and iOS) to non-subscribers. You can even send an emoji to the bot and it will suggest a playlist – try sending ? or even ✨❓? to see what Apple Music bot suggests – and know what’s playing live on Beats 1 and see which shows are coming up next. And if you’re interested in becoming an Apple Music subscriber, you can also easily start your 3 month free trial via a native, seamless flow.
With a potential audience of over 1.3 billion people and competitors like Spotify on Facebook Messenger with a bot of its own, it makes a lot of strategic sense for Apple to be involved too. Signing up for a free trial is only a couple taps away in the bot interface, which I imagine should help Apple Music grow its subscriber base too.
In addition to bug fixes, Pixelmator 3.7 supports importing HEIF image files. Pixelmator can be opened directly from Apple Photos now too. The feature, which was added to Apple Photos as part of High Sierra, allows users to choose an image in Apple Photos, but edit it in Pixelmator. All edits made in Pixelmator will be saved back to the original file in Apple Photos. Pixelmator posted a video that explains how the feature works:
Federico has (mostly) completed Breath of the Wild, and Shahid gives a personal history of the SNES.
On this week’s Remaster, Shahid and I also talk about the SNES mini and why the original console was a big deal for the industry when it came out. You can listen here.
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Hundreds of new emoji, including more emotive smiley faces, gender-neutral characters, clothing options, food types, animals, mythical creatures and more, are coming to iPhone and iPad with iOS 11.1.
The first chance to try the new emoji will come in the second beta of iOS 11.1, which BuzzFeed News reports will be released on Monday, October 9th.
Tim Nahumck has outlined his vision for a new and improved Reminders app, inspired by the iOS 11 design language and existing concepts found in apps like Files. I’ve long hoped for a full Reminders revamp to make the app look and feel more modern, and Nahumck has some good ideas for what Apple could do. The words that resonated most with me, however, are where Nahumck explains why Apple should do this:
I think a lot of people’s lives can be improved by task management. For years, I’ve tried to get family and friends to see the benefits; sometimes they do, most times they don’t. But that doesn’t stop me from trying.
What I have often found is that the idea of downloading a separate app bothers people. Sure, they’ll have a few dozen free apps – camera and photo editing apps, several social media apps, a bunch of couponing apps – but heaven forbid they get a paid productivity app involved in the mix. The mental friction of having a separate app to manage their lives can be difficult to get over. This is usually the point where I suggest simply using Reminders: it’s basic enough to get the job done, it’s a part of the OS, and they don’t have to pay to try it out. But the app isn’t where it needs to be.
These words highlight the inspiration that I believe Apple should take in approaching a full Reminders rebuild. I know tons of people whose lives would be improved by a bit of task management help; the number of people in this category among all iOS users has to be enormous. As such there’s great potential for a new Reminders – rethought from the ground up – to add true benefit to the lives of millions of users. Like Nahumck’s concept shows, I think this could be done in a way that still offers significant utility to power users, while keeping it simple for those who want it so.
For the last several years I’ve had a refreshed Reminders on my WWDC wish list, only to be disappointed. Maybe with the important groundwork of drag and drop and the new iOS design language now taken care of, 2018 will be the year my wish comes true.
Protanopia is a reimagination of what a comic book can be on an iOS device. The short comic is a stand-alone Universal app, that tells the story of soldiers landing on the beaches of Normandy during World War II.
Created as an experiment into the possibilities of digital comics. Using elements from 3D and 2D animation in a realtime game engine, it creates an unique visual style, whilst still having a familiar feeling.
As the landing craft bobs on the waves, the soldiers inside it move too. By layering the 2D art and animating each layer independently, a 3D effect is created. By itself, it’s a cool effect that brings the comic to life, but there’s more to it than that. The comic also responds to tilting your iOS device. You can tilt your iPhone or iPad to get a different perspective on the scene and peek at details that can’t be viewed from certain angles.
Protanopia is unlike any other comic I’ve read. While tilt control may not suit the storyline of every comic, it adds a dynamism to this story that makes it come alive in a way that static art doesn’t. It’s fascinating to see game engine technology deployed in a different medium and something with which I’d love to see more artist experiment.
In line with Microsoft’s post-Windows Phone mobile strategy, the company announced today that its Windows 10 browser, Microsoft Edge, would be coming soon to iOS and Android smartphones. The focus of the mobile browser, at least at first, doesn’t appear to be offering any revolutionary features, but instead providing a more seamless web experience to Windows users on their phones. From Microsoft’s announcement post:
Microsoft Edge for iOS and Android brings familiar features like your Favorites, Reading List, New Tab Page and Reading View across your PC and phone, so, no matter the device, your browsing goes with you. But what makes Microsoft Edge really stand out is the ability to continue on your PC, which enables you to immediately open the page you’re looking at right on your PC—or save it to work on later.
A release date for the app is unknown, but users can gain early access to a preview build starting today. The one major caveat is that in order to gain access to the preview version, you have to visit this page from a PC running the latest preview build of Windows 10. Also of note: this initial release is limited to phones only, so iPad users will have to wait until Edge makes its way to tablet platforms.
