Here’s an application for your jailbroken iPhone that replaces the very attractive and functional with an out of place Metro UI home screen from Windows Phone 7. If you don’t appreciate your iPhone, like putting ugly themes on iOS or just really want to be a Windows Phone 7 user; then this is the app for you.

It’s pretty cool that this developer has managed to build a pretty solid clone of Metro UI but it’s even more upsetting that everyone on the internet thinks this looks good.

But, the biggest insult? Giving Safari the icon from some god awful hack job internet browser.

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There are some rare gems in the Application Interfaces section on deviantART. This is one of them, it’s a mockup of a iOS lockscreen with some inspiration from WP7. Ignore the fact it looks a bit like WP7 but look at the general idea of a simplified calendar and a simplified messaging area; it’s something I’ve been wanting on my iPhone for years.

It doesn’t try to be too fancy, too informative or too clunky; all it does is bring a clean snapshot into your day. Something Microsoft strived to deliver for years with the Today screen on Windows Mobile.

I don’t really understand why some companies or designers feel the need to use popular and well designed applications as basically carbon copy reference designs when building their applications or user interfaces. Take this interface for MeeGo tablets, doesn’t the music application look vaguely familiar?

This seems to be happening more and more often, even the Samsung Galaxy Tab had a keyboard and browser reminiscent of the iPad. The whole point of design is to make something new and unique that sounds out from the crowd.

Would’t the world be a dull place if we all did what Apple thought was best for design?




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The XOOM really feels like it is for Android geeks or people who want a hybrid tablet-PC. It doesn’t feel or seem to be a tablet aimed at people who don’t care about dual core CPUs, RAM specifications or some advanced operating system and just want a tablet to runs apps and browses the internet. I think the Motorola’s website for the XOOM especially speaks to some sort of sci-fi nerd fantasy.

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Everyone wants to be like Apple.

Actually, the unveiling video is probably the best part of this weird scripted fake mess.

This seems to be a constant question or speculation about the next version of the iPad, will it have USB? My feeling is that iPad will never add a USB port to their post-PC device, the iPad, and it all comes down to the fact that USB use amongst users is just too hard.

Go to any electronics store near your house and you’ll see shelves of random unknown brand TV tuners that retail for some cheap price of $40 and come in some cheap packaging. Plug it in and you’ll find the dodgy drivers only allow it to work on a Windows PC (possibly only a 32bit copy).

That’s really confusing and odd for most users. If I can plug it in to my USB port and it fits, why won’t it work. It’s The USB right? That’s the problem with USB, this powerful and extensible connectivity format has no guarantees on OS or computer support.

With Apple building this post-PC device the plan is to rid users of the relics which came with computers; filesystems, Windows update, setup installers, RAM upgrades and USB. Removing the relic USB means Apple can say to users, whatever you plug into this thing just works. There’s no need to look at the system requirements, if the package says Made for iPad buy it and it will work as soon as you plug it in. USB itself has no promises, it’s just a plug. The iPhone/iPad connector has promises, it was built for the iOS family.


Update: Someone very rightly pointed out that the “dongle” or Camera Connection Kit has a USB port. If you look at the description, Apple states it is used for plugging in camera USB cables. While we all know the iPad actually can support keyboards or USB sound devices (like the iMic), Apple wants to ensure people think it’s a camera connection kit and not a USB connection kit.

Perth (my home town) has just received it’s first news app for the state developed by The Sunday Times (which is owned by News Ltd. -the Australian arm of News Corporation) to enable West Australians to access news on their iPads as they would normally with a traditional newspaper.

Sadly, it’s just the same old from newspaper publishers trying to carbon copy their traditional print media behaviour in digital app form and it’s noticeable right from the beginning. Starting up the app you’re stuck at the spinning wheel loading screen for a good 2 – 3 minutes. Why? Because the Perthnow app operates in edition format; one at 7am and one at 7pm. This is amazingly bizarre to me that an internet connected and basically always on device is treated to news delivered in the same way a paper boy would deliver the news the front lawn years ago. Who would of thought something as volatile and ever changing as the news has to be delivered in a edition form over the internet to a tablet?

You begin browsing around the application and discover something even more annoying that the ever patient wait for the download to finish; pre load advertisements. I am hoping that these pre load advertisements will disappear when the free trial expires but regardless I’m worried that this old school style of delivering content is just going to ruin the idea of great content (Flipboard, Zite, Our choice) for consumers who bought the iPad as the next generation content consumption device.

Everything about this app feels less like the iPad is always connected and instead feels more like the device waits for the paperboy to deliver it’s latest round of news. Every time you relaunch the app from the background it prompts if you want to replace your content and download the latest batch of news. Sorry? Are we in some sort of data shortage on my 16GB iPad or are you so modelled on your outdated brother that you need to delete any old news because the stack of newspapers is out?


As you browse more it just gets worse and worse, as you swipe back and forth between articles these will invoke the pre load advertisements ruining the flow of the iOS swiped based gestures and your ability to quickly glance at the content and move on to the next page.
Each article just feels like a newspaper article because there is no effort to make the related images interactive or at least alive on the iPad, even in the Confidential section there was 2×3 grid of photos that you couldn’t touch to zoom in. It all just feels like a PDF surrounded by a menu system and god awful advertisement “engine”.

I’d rather see newspaper team up with the people at Flipboard to get their content syndicated through their section catalogue. It just makes sense, Flipboard is a company built to design content to fit the tablet and mobile experience and newspapers are companies built to create content for the consumers; they are not designers and they clearly don’t use an iPad or any tablet on a regular occasion.

Just like most newspapers didn’t get blogs, I don’t think many newspaper houses get iPads. And they shouldn’t, it’s not their job to so why not offload their content to the marketplace of Zite or Flipboard?

Baidu (the Chinese based web company) has shown off its demo video which details its mobile OS based on Android. It has no originality whatsoever, it's borrowing UI elements from Apple and Google.

Is it so hard in China to find creative agencies or local designers that companies (Meizu, Baidu) are forced to take individual bits from iOS and Android to create this Frankenstein OS?
I am honestly curious as to the state of product and user interface in design in China. China's rich history shows us how creative they are in their inventions and ancient art but when it comes to today's modern technology it feels like China is just playing catchup. They are capable of producing the behind the scenes hardware that powers these beautiful operating systems but can't invent their own ideas for what a phone should look and feel like?

Check out the video at YouTube

If you're going to copy the iOS Messaging app, at least change the colour

An obvious clone of the Google mobile web app

Apple isn't the only one to implement the great UITableView

Always been a big fan of the UISegmentControl