One of the things I always admired about Steve Jobs was his willingness to call out things that just plain sucked. And so here I am, saying that syncing content with iTunes just plain sucks. Today’s example: There’s a good review of the Jony Ive biography over on Asymco. Since I tend to think Horace is a smart guy, I figured his recommendation was reason enough to go get this book for myself. So I followed his link, on my Mac, to the iBookstore. But just before clicking…

We all know that old expression: “A Picture is worth a thousand words.” Well, that’s an average, I think. While submitting my 1.2 version of Fin last week, I made a last-minute decision to make a major change to my screenshot strategy. For those who may not know, Apple allows up to five screenshots for each app on the App Store. Officially, these are supposed to be actual screenshots from the app. Just pictures of what is on the screen itself. No extra text, no pictures of the…

When I wrote my ten-part series on making your own app marketing videos, one of the first things I recommended was avoiding live footage. Take shots from the iOS Simulator, place them on top of still frames of iPhones and iPads, and animate them in Final Cut. Super easy to get professional looking results. Live footage is very difficult to get right on a budget. Without professional lighting rigs and a good bit of expertise about how to shoot properly, the results could be devastatingly amateurish. But there are some…

Apple takes the lofty route for iPad « Observatory: “But — while this spot can be seen as uplifting and inspirational, it can also be seen as incredibly pretentious. One must admit, it’s a bit of intellectual overkill for those who just want to do their email, surf and shop — which probably covers most of the tablet-buying public.” (Via Ken Segall.) That, in a nutshell, is exactly Apple’s problem with the iPad. People think it’s an email, surf, and shop machine. If it continues to be just that, the…

One thing that has bugged me since I got my first 4-inch iPhone is the “thumb gymnastics” involved whenever I need to reach a control that’s near the top of the screen. You know what I mean. Holding the phone one-handed, touching controls with my thumb, I can reach the top left and right corners of the screen for those navigation bar controls, but it’s not exactly comfortable. I can’t fix this issue for every app on my phone of course, but for my own apps at…