Free Trials and Tire Kickers – Marco.org: “But PC-class pricing would fundamentally change iOS buying habits, and we may not like the results. Browsing the App Store and getting new apps, often spending a few bucks along the way, is a form of casual entertainment for a lot of people. This role used to be filled by movies and music. Today, it’s filled by browsing the internet and playing with mobile apps. Usually, they’re games, but not always — modern mainstream culture, especially younger people, seem to be more…

I surprised myself last week by working up yet another new version of x2y. I thought it would be a few months before I had a chance to finish up the optimizations and polishing I wanted to do for 1.5. But another project required me to do some research into animation in UIKit, and thus I couldn’t resist bringing some of that fun into x2y as well. A short while ago, Foster from Mysterious Trousers wrote a nice piece about the “visceral” elements of some apps. The little…

While following the conversation about Status Board yesterday, I saw a tweet that made my jaw drop. @viticci It just doesn’t seem right morally, even if they say it’s built for “professionals”. — Jack Amick (@jackamick) April 10, 2013 I don’t mean to single this guy out, or anything. But do I really need to explain why this is downright ludicrous? There is only one circumstance under which a price can be “immoral.” That is if the good being sold is both 1) Absolutely necessary for survival and…

My first corporate gig was doctoring PowerPoint slides for Investor Relations executives. They’d send me their .ppt files full of bolded, underlined, and horrifically colored monstrosities, and it was my job to turn it all into something presentable. The first part of that process involved stripping out all the terrible formatting they couldn’t resist putting in[1]. I understood their desire to play around with the controls, but the bottom line was that they were making both of our jobs harder. They were spending hours playing with font…

I know the trend lately is to suggest that Apple is not moving fast enough. That it should be releasing brand-new groundbreaking products every year or two. That iOS needs a complete design overhaul so it won’t be so “boring.” Where’s the Apple TV? Where’s the iWatch? And so on. Down with Skeuomorphism! Flat Design FTW! Forget all that. What Apple really needs to do is slow the hell down. The Mac was released in 1984. The iPod in 2001. The iPhone in 2007. The iPad in…