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RSS: What Not Dying Looks Like

From The Old Reader blog:

However, just because a technology is widely available does not guarantee success. What makes RSS truly powerful is that users still have the control. The beauty of the system is it that no one can force you to be tracked and no one can force you to watch ads. There are no security issues I am aware of and no one ever has to know what feeds you subscribe to. This may be the last area of the Internet that you can still say things like this.

Every few months, the topic of RSS being about to “die” pops up somewhere on the Internet and some publications run with it. While I don’t think that RSS as a consumer product will ever catch on at a large scale, I’m glad that the technology is still around and powering several of my favorite services and apps. And even if it doesn’t attract millions of customers, I think that the healthy ecosystem the demise of Google Reader created shows that there’s a niche willing to pay for RSS-based products.

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The Skip

Skipping has become an important part of how we listen to music. It is no surprise then, that ‘unlimited skipping’ is a feature used to entice people to upgrade to a premium paid account. And it may be one of the reasons why people would switch from a service that doesn’t offer unlimited skips even on their premium service to one that does.

Fascinating analysis of Spotify data by Paul Lamere. I would have expected the difference between mobile and desktop to be higher, especially because smartphones and tablets have playback controls available in the Lock screen.

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Owning Music vs. Acquiring Music

Brad Hill, writing at RAIN News about the shift from owning music to acquiring it through Internet streaming services and the importance of “music ID” apps:

One growing catalyst of this trend is the music-identification app, a category dominated by Shazam and SoundHound. These apps, which identify music wherever in the world it is heard, bring the “celestial jukebox” down to earth where it is even more vast and connected to the user.

Increasingly, these apps function as pivot points between what you hear and how you acquire. They enable purchasing an identified song in iTunes, for those who still favor outright ownership. But more ominously for music-download merchants, Shazam and SoundHound can fling your song discoveries into some of the most popular on-demand services.

Years after the launch of Shazam and SoundHound, it still feels incredible to me that you can hold your phone up to a speaker to recognize any song in seconds. Apple has reportedly recognized the value of music ID software, and they may be planning to integrate Shazam into Siri for iOS 8.

I hope that, if true, this integration won’t be exclusive to Siri’s voice activation system, because one of the best things about Shazam is that you only need to tap the app icon to start listening. A voice-only command would ruin Shazam’s immediacy (not to mention that Siri would have issues understanding your voice command if loud music is playing). Ideally, it’d be great to simply activate Siri with a tap & hold of the Home button anywhere on iOS and let it listen to whatever’s playing with no voice input required.

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Soundflake Review: A Music Player for SoundCloud

While my daily music listening needs are mostly fulfilled by Spotify1 and my personal library in iTunes Match2, I do follow a couple of artists on SoundCloud and I enjoy using the service to play a variety of mashups and records from independent creators that I can’t find anywhere else. I’m not a huge SoundCloud user, but I’ve always had an affinity for the website’s interface and the company’s focus.

Created by Stefan Kofler and Patrick Schneider, Soundflake is a new SoundCloud client for iPhone that wants to provide a better experience than the official app through a modern design, advanced features, and gesture controls that make managing playback and sharing a faster and more intuitive affair. After trying Soundflake for about a month, I don’t see why – as an occasional SoundCloud music listener – I would go back to using SoundCloud’s app for iPhone.

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Much Ado About The iPad

Riccardo Mori, in an excellent collection of thoughts about the iPad’s cyclical demise:

Also, it would be interesting to further investigate where those ‘unrealistic expectations’ come from. I’m aware it’s not a huge statistical sample, but considering the people I know, online and offline, who own an iPad, and considering the people I’ve helped with their iPad, virtually none of them has manifested dissatisfaction with the device in an ‘unmet expectations’ kind of way. Everyone I know seems to have been aware of the scope of the device when they purchased it. They knew or understood what they could and what they could not do with it. There has been the occasional nuisance, but nothing that can be considered a ‘deal breaker.’

It’s important to keep in mind that, despite all the things iOS could do better, we shouldn’t confuse the average iPad customer with tech bloggers trying to use WordPress on an iPad.

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Motion UI Design Principles

Great collection of motion patterns in iPhone user interfaces by Grant Liddall (via iOS Dev Weekly and collected from Capptivate):

Steer clear of distracting or even confusing the user with too much animation, Subtlety is key. It should be used to maintain or help focus. Not take it away. Also don’t over elaborate aspects such as screen transitions. This becomes increasingly frustrating to the user over time. Or if they are simply left waiting for what seems like “forever”.

Since iOS 7 came out, I’ve seen developers who failed to acknowledge the new OS’ reliance on context through motion and, on the other end of the spectrum, those who implemented too many heavy-handed transitions and animations that always become gaudy and detrimental to the user experience after a few days. Even Apple is guilty of this with some of the animations throughout the OS.

As usual, it’s hard to balance the abundance of available tools with good design, but the best iOS 7 apps are the ones that meaningfully rely on motion when necessary, not just because it looks good or new.

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The Prompt: Is It Okay To Be Nervous?

This week, with Myke at the Úll Conference, the Southern one and the Italian one discuss WebObjects, the recent MacBook Air update and OS X’s possible impending redesign before talking about what may be ailing the iPad as a product.

Our pre-WWDC discussion starts with concerns about a possible redesign of OS X, rumored to be on track for a June announcement.

Get the episode here.

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