I’ve been working extremely hard on the newest release of the schiphol.app. The newest release features some great changes to the way you can search for flights, refresh flight details and sorting functionality.
The biggest improvement in this release is the ability to search for flights based on their location.
Some screenshots for all you app lovers:
Check out this article about the update on iPhoneclub.nl: http://www.iphoneclub.nl/75501/schiphol-voor-iphone-krijgt-update-met-betere-zoekfunctie/
Last night Edward Poot sent me an email, in which he told me that Schiphol.app was rated best travel app by the Dutch issue of the iCreate Magazine.
A summery from the iCreate review:
Waren alle iPhone-apps maar zoals de nieuwe app van Schiphol: het programma blinkt uit in gebruiksgemak, eenvoud, duidelijkheid en heeft een bijzonder aantrekkelijke presentatie. Het programma is echt een uitkomst voor mensen die vaak via Schiphol vliegen.
Schiphol.app outran the competition with a great 5 star review, beating even Trein.app made by Dennis Stevense. Even though I’m very proud of the app, I must say that Dennis did a greater job at creating a superb iPhone app than I did.
Thank you very much iCreate Magazine, I might even consider buying your latest issue :)
Our latest release is called Schiphol.
Schiphol let’s you track your flight to and from Schiphol airport, Holland’s no.1 airport.
imanapp co-developed Schiphol with Evolutionhost B.V.
What other people have to say:
(Dutch) http://www.iphoneclub.nl/61694/schiphol-iphone-applicatie-vertrek-en-aankomsttijden-onder-handbereik/
(Dutch) http://iphonewereld.nl/nieuws/2010/02/evolutionhost_b.v._lanceert_applicatie_schiphol
Top ranking:
No. 1 overall - Holland
No. 1 travel - Holland
iTunes link: http://itunes.apple.com/nl/app/schiphol/id356081977?mt=8
Wikipedia tells me that:
“The average length of an adult male hand is 189 mm, while the average length of an adult female hand is 172 mm.”
As your users will be using your application with their hands, its important to keep in mind the size of the hand they will be using. There is clearly a difference between the right and left hand and even more clear is the size difference between male and female hands. Doing some research into the age and gender of your users can make an application’ flow increase.
Avarage hand length for males and females. [1]
Below is my analysis of how Apple kept hand size in mind while determining where to place certain elements of the settings.app
Please note that I used my own hand in the analysis, as my left hand is 18.5cm long.
I’m sure that a lot of iPhone developers out there are making loads of screenshots of apps. It would either be for interface reference, previewing the app to people over the internet or any other use of app screenshots. All those nice screenshots would then be synced via iTunes onto your mac (or pc) and provide you with awesome clutter.
Actually making screenshots is not the only thing I do, sometimes my iPhone just freezes at the lockscreen only to return to normal after making a screenshot of the lockscreen. If I could simply select all “lockscreen screenshots” and press cmd-backspace, voila! Clutter be gone.
But how would one identify lockscreen screenshots I hear you say? Besides looking at the screenshot there aren’t many options. I suggest the following.
If iPhone screenshots would include Exif data of the app they were taken on, it would make finding specific screenshots a lot easier.
Current Exif data in an iPhone screenshot and a photo.
I am aware of the fact that PNG images do not have support for Exif, so by supporting this feature it would have to result in screenshots having the JPG file format.
So now what?
Maybe someone in the jailbreak community is able to build this feature as I do not see Apple implementing this in normal version of the iPhone OS.
iJust wanted to express myAnnoyance with this post. iDecided against a 10 page long explanation in the hope youMight actually read it.
iHope youGet the point..
Thanks
Being the analytical and critical person that I am, I can’t help spotting inconstancies in certain app interfaces. I consider consistency one of the most important elements of simple and powerful interfaces and a certain company shares that opinion.
That’s why Apple released the Human Interface Guidelines for designing apps and releasing them in the appstore. The HIG feature aspects of designing interfaces for iPhone apps, you might have never thought of. But more importantly it contains almost every rule Apple made during the design of the standard native apps.
As a hardcore iPhone user, I have jailbroken my iPhone so I can use it for certain things Apple has forbidden. Releasing apps on cydia means that the developer is not limited to Apples public apis, and can do whatever the hell he wants.
But added value does come at a price. A loss of user experience that is.
A lot of the developers that release apps on cydia are actually programmers that have no experience in designing an interface. And it shows.
Take PdaNet for example. A great app, that does exactly what its supposed to do. But can it do any better, I reckon it can.
Let’s have a look at the PdaNet interface. There are already a few things that have caught my eye. The ? icon in the down left corner and the Settings button in the down right corner. The buttons do exactly what you’d expect them to do.
The ? icon links to a website which features information about PdaNet and the Settings button goes to the, well, settings view.
Great huh? Well, yeah but not really.
What if the developers of PdaNet would’ve looked a bit better at other, maybe apple designed, iPhone apps. The ? icon would actually be an i icon and the Settings button would be a Bar Button Item, probably in the top left corner on an UINavigation Bar.
The PdaNet interface would then look a bit like this;
Already looks a lot better doesn’t it? The app suddenly makes a lot more sense, even though it did the same thing in the original. Minimal changes make a lot of difference, especially if those changes make sure that the user can expect the expected.
Consistency in button or label placement is not the only thing that bothers me, there are more examples.
iBluetooth, you may call it an app from heaven. Having the ability to share files over blue tooth suddenly feels like something really special. But that’s not the only “special” thing about this app. It is the first app I came across that has a quit button. Yes, a button that does exactly the same thing as the home button.
So let’s say you just shared some holiday pictures with your friend and wanted to go back to springboard. You’d just press this very nice red button in the top left corner and there you have it! Springboard.
That actually sounds like something useful. But there are different scenarios I can think of. Let’s say you’re uploading this 100mb video you just made with Cycorder to your computer, but wonder what that awful looking button does. You decide to press it, boom! The app quits and heads back to Springboard. Darn..
Even though that button added value to the user experience, you could now quit the app without pressing an actual button, it was not consistent with the HIG.
So there you have it, two examples of inconsistency in iPhone interface design. I’m pretty sure there are way more bad apps out there, but I just want this to be a message to all indie iPhone programmers out there.
Please note that I only changed some consistency errors and not completly revamped the PdaNet interface. There are way more things wrong with this interface, but this article is only about consistency in iPhone app interfaces.