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Posts tagged with "design"

The Sound of Apple→

I thoroughly enjoyed this two-part series on the Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast about sound design at Apple and the care that goes into crafting sound effects and alerts that complement the user experience (speaking of the parts of Apple I still love).

I’ll be honest: like many other people these days, I don’t often hear sound effects at all since my iPhone is constantly silenced because I don’t want to bother people around me. However, sound plays an essential role for accessibility reasons and is an entire dimension of software design that is not treated like an afterthought at Apple. I especially appreciated how both episodes went into explaining how particular sounds like Tapbacks, Apple Pay confirmation messages, and alarms were created thanks to members of Apple’s Design team, who participated in both episodes and shared lots of behind-the-scenes details.

I hope we get a third episode about sound design in visionOS eventually. (I listened to both episodes using Castro, which I’m using as my main podcast client again because its queue system is unrivaled.)

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Interview: Game Developer Zach Gage on Pile-up Poker and Resisting Dark Patterns→

Jason Snell has an excellent interview on Six Colors with Zach Gage one of the creators of Puzzmo and a ton of other games we’ve covered on MacStories over the years. Federico and I interviewed Zach ages ago on AppStories, and more recently at WWDC, and the only thing I like more than hearing him talk about game design and theory is playing his games.

As I read the interview, I was struck by the thoughtfulness with which Zach’s games are made, including this tidbit about Pile-Up Poker, the most recent addition to Puzzmo:

We have a lot of games on the website right now that are very cerebral and based on you and trying hard and being at your peak. And for me, thinking about how we balance a portfolio of games, I really wanted to have something in there that would be a lot more random every day and would still fit the guidelines that we have for Puzzmo. The game should be healthy. It should be a thing where you are creative and clever and improve your strategy. It should be something that anybody at any skill level can play and win, but people who are really highly skilled can play at a super high level and really compete.

Poker is one of my favorite games ever. I think it’s a magical game. For me, the biggest trick of poker is that you can play poker with your friends for 20 years and then someone can show up and have never played poker before and win. And that is something that doesn’t exist with, I don’t think, any other game. So it felt like the right kind of game to bring to Puzzmo to find something that fits that space. It would be super approachable, but also there’s a depth.

If you haven’t tried Puzzmo yet, I highly recommend it.

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Shareshot 1.0: Pixel Perfect Screenshots, Beautifully Presented

I’ve used Federico’s Apple Frames shortcut to add device frames to screenshots for years. It’s a great way to quickly process multiple screenshots and upload them to the MacStories CDN with minimal effort. But as great as Shortcuts is for simplifying this sort of task, there are advantages to using a native app instead.

Editing screenshots on the iPad.

Editing screenshots on the iPad.

Shareshot is an app for iPhone, iPad, and Vision Pro that occupies a lot of the same feature space as Apple Frames, using Apple hardware to frame screenshots. However, the app simultaneously does more and a little less than Federico’s shortcut. That one missing feature means that I won’t be abandoning Apple Frames, but because of the things the app can do that Apple Frames can’t, Shareshot will be joining the shortcut as a utility I expect to use a lot.

Let’s dig into what makes Shareshot shine.

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Designing for Today’s App Interactions→

Yesterday, Vidit Bhargava, the developer of LookUp, Word of the Day, and other apps, published an excellent story on Pixel Posts about designing for today’s app interactions. Vidit makes the excellent point that the way we use apps is changing. They’re no longer iPhone-only islands that are siloed off from other apps and devices. As Vidit explains:

Not only is the iPhone app not the center of a user’s interaction on the phone. It’s increasingly becoming one of the many parts of an ecosystem where apps are expected to scale both in terms of interface and functionality starting from something as small as an Apple Watch and going all the way up to an unbounded experience like Vision Pro.

Not only do apps exist in the larger ecosystem of products, they are constantly interacting and communicating between them.

I couldn’t agree more. Today, I expect apps to be available on every device I use and to let me move my data between apps.

Vidit also explores the practical effect of the evolution of apps, arguing that it no longer makes sense to start by designing for the iPhone. Instead, Vidit suggests that we:

…think of “apps” as clusters of actions that help us reach or present information, and carry out processes (i.e. other actions).

The post is full of practical examples that are worth browsing through and an exploration of how to effectively design for actions. Vidit’s apps are among the best-designed apps I use, so I consider this post is a must-read for developers, designers, and anyone who is interested in where app design is heading.

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Designing Dark Mode App Icons→

Apple’s announcement of “dark mode” icons has me thinking about how I would approach adapting “light mode” icons for dark mode. I grabbed 12 icons we made at Parakeet for our clients to illustrate some ways of going about it.

Before that though, let’s take some inventory. Of the 28 icons in Apple’s preview image of this feature, only nine have white backgrounds in light mode. However, all icons in dark mode have black backgrounds.

Actually, it’s worth noting that five “light mode” icons have black backgrounds, which Apple slightly adjusted to have a consistent subtle black gradient found on all of their new dark mode icons. Four of these—Stocks, Wallet, TV, and Watch—all seem to be the same in both modes. However, no other (visible) icons are.

Fantastic showcase by Louie Mantia of how designers should approach the creation of dark mode Home Screen icons in iOS 18. In all the examples, I prefer Mantia’s take to the standard black background version.

See also: Gavin Nelson’s suggestion, Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines on dark mode icons, and the updated Apple Design Resources for iOS 18.

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Lickability on the Design of Apple’s Sports App→

A few weeks ago on AppStories, Federico and I surveyed recent Apple system app updates to get a sense of where the design of iOS is heading. Part of the inspiration for that episode was a thread that Lickability posted on Mastodon, breaking down Apple’s recently-released Sports app.

Yesterday, Lickability’s Sam Gold expanded on that thread with a post on the company’s blog that’s a must-read for anyone interested in iOS design trends because, as Sam says:

We once heard someone say, “design your app for the current iOS version + 1.” So with that lens, we’ve been looking at what the design of Apple Sports can tell us about iOS 18.

That’s good advice, and there’s a lot to learn from Sports, such as how it continues a recent trend of using gradients in the nav bar:

Gradients are used a LOT in this app. This nav bar gradient effect is becoming pretty common throughout first-party apps as well — first with the iOS 17 Health app, then Journal, and now Sports. watchOS 10 is also full of gradients.

There are many other things going on in Sports besides gradients, including Metal shaders applied to textures and interesting uses of animation and typography.

I fully expect that when I sit down to watch the announcements at WWDC, much of what Lickability has highlighted in Sports will be apparent across many more of Apple’s apps.

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AppStories, Episode 374 – Examining Apple App and OS Design Trends→

This week on AppStories, we examine Apple’s Sports and Journal apps and visionOS for clues to what their designs may mean for the next major revisions of Apple’s OSes.

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On AppStories+, I tackle whether Federico needs an Apple Studio Display and offer a more portable solution.

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Wallpaper Interviews Apple’s Alan Dye and Richard Howarth→

Today, Wallpaper published an interview with Alan Dye, Apple’s Vice President of Human Interface Design, and Richard Howarth, Vice President of Industrial Design. It’s a fantastic read with some great images, including an exploded view of the Vision Pro’s components.

Something I noticed as soon as I unboxed the Apple Vision Pro was how approachable it was. The setup process was easy, well-paced, and felt natural. That carries through to the hardware itself, too, which Dye explained to Wallpaper:

We wanted people around you to also feel comfortable with you wearing it, and for you to feel comfortable wearing it around other people. That’s why we spent years designing a set of very natural, comfortable gestures that you can use without waving your hands in the air. That’s also why we developed EyeSight, because we knew more than anything, if we were going to cover your eyes, that takes away much of what is possible when you connect with people. Getting that right was at the core of the concept of the product because we wanted people to retain those connections in their actual world.

My very early impression is that Apple’s design team accomplished its goal. Howarth puts a slightly different spin on the same message:

There’s a hardness and precision to the front of the product that is completely technical and feels like it’s been sent from the future, but then everything else that connects the product to you is soft and really approachable, so you feel cushioned and there’s not a barrier to putting it on or taking it off. And in fact, it should be a pleasure.’

Nobody is going to confuse the Vision Pro for something that it’s not. Still, the care that has been taken in its design goes a long way toward taking a device that is completely foreign to many people and making it one that isn’t intimidating. That’s something very uniquely Apple and why I’m optimistic about Vision Pro’s long-term prospects.

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The macOS App Icon Book: A Mini Review

Are you still basking in the glow of the Mac’s 40th anniversary and longing for a little more nostalgia? Well, I’ve got it for you with Michael Flarup’s latest book of iconography, The macOS App Icon Book. I loved Flarup’s book of iOS icons and was excited when I heard months ago that he was working on a follow-up dedicated to Mac iconography. I received my copy about a week ago, and it’s a fantastic mix of icons, history, and designer profiles.

The macOS App Icon Book includes designer profiles.

The macOS App Icon Book includes designer profiles.

Flarup wrote the forward, introduction, an essay on visual design, and a brief history of Mac app icons, which help put the beautifully reproduced icons in context. The book also features profiles of ten icon designers, including many of my favorites like Christa Mrgan, Matthew Skiles, Malin Sundberg, and Gavin Nelson. There’s also a section on icon sets, which is packed with great examples.

If you appreciate good design, I highly recommend picking up a copy of The macOS App Icon Book. I’m sure developers and designers will be inspired by the book’s contents, but it’s also perfect for app fans who are picky enough about the apps they use to be reading this post.

The macOS App Icon Book was funded with a Kickstarter campaign, but it’s now available on Michael Flarup’s online store for $77.