What really resonated with me:
- apps don’t talk to each other
- social media doesn’t launch apps
- the UI is different for every app so you need to work out how each works
- yah, multitasking… no multiple tabs!
- web content is still free

Really makes me wonder about the volume of trade in the ipad app store. The crucial differences between iphone apps and ipad apps are the display size of the device, the cost of apps, subscription (you keep paying) and the fact that it doesn’t really matter if media companies have worked out how to automatically redirect urls to an optimised experience… as it was in the old days with the iphone… if it is a half decent site to start with that is!

Now, I know there are plenty of places and people and purposes for this. But my post is speaking generally. After all the business model should be about attracting as many consumers as possible. So how many is possible?

I wonder if users are going to be paying more for premium products will it equal less variety per user? How thin will that dollar need to be spread out across the media landscape? Will people really be loyal to more than one paper and a few magazines? And that’s just the slither of the market who are interested in the short to medium term.

At least this whole consumer fanaticism going on in the net world might distract the attentions of developers getting that one URL thing sorted and keep the iphone app industries pockets licked.

Even so, there are free news apps on this device to compete with already. And in many cases they got to market first. Just like the real web. (real, ha!) So does it all come back to brands backed by plesant experiences? (note brands first and loyalty second… UX as insurance?)

I guess what I’m really saying is that we should also be focused on making sure our current web properties perform well on these new devices as well as hopping on the app train. Just like you would support and test for any browser. Users already have two communications bills on the whole. One for our internet and the other for our phone.

Sure, the app store is an amazing business model and a cash cow if you get it right, but is it as neccessary for users with a larger screen for sites with good web infrastructure? In a competitive market it is likely that someone else will get this right if you don’t.

Here are some useful examples:

20 Fantastic Resources For User Experience Know How:
http://www.inspiredm.com/2009/05/15/ux-madness-20-fantastic-resources-for-user-experience-know-how/

50 iPhone Apps for Web Designers and Developers
http://mac.appstorm.net/roundups/iphone-roundups/50-iphone-apps-for-web-designers-developers/

20 Tools to Make the life of a Web Developer Easier
http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/web-roundups/20-tools-to-make-the-life-of-a-web-developer-easier/

25 Most Useful Blogs for web design and development
http://www.webappers.com/2009/04/06/25-most-useful-blogs-for-web-design-development/

50 Great Examples of Data Visualizations
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/06/50-great-examples-of-data-visualization/

5 impressive Mashups of Twitter and Flickr
http://mashable.com/2009/05/11/twitter-flickr-mashups/

30 days to become a freelancer
http://www.skelliewag.org/30-days-to-become-a-freelancer-961.htm

Trend spotting a fashion that is beginning to get irritating.

Scott Berkum, who I saw speak at the Web Directions South conference in Sept 07 asks what people would be interested in for the 17th chapter of his book Art of Project Management

Here is my answer:

I’ll have to put my vote in for “Learning from projects after they ship (or your iteration ends)”.

I’m really big on reflecting, learning and getting better at what we do as individuals and teams and am currently lobbying for this where I work. The drive for rapid development in large to small businesses within the interactive industry is leaving this valuable step short. (or for dead)

Where I work we make the time for individual reviews against our job descriptions and KPIs but somehow move on to new projects regularly without looking at what could work better, how we could improve our processes or skills and importantly whether users or stakeholders liked the output. Is the product being used/ meeting performance targets? Is it a good user experience?

Often a project is compromised along the way in some aspect. Sometimes this is ok and perhaps even leads to the “mother of all invention” but other times the root of the compromise is retained by the lack of review. Neglecting this step leaves many of the tough issues unexamined or glossed over, conveniently left behind until another occasion for the compromise resurfaces. Likewise – it would be great to look at what worked well so that we can try and replicate that.

Often I think some of this neglect is human nature. As much as I love a good problem, I love to see the back of a problem that got in the way of outcomes.

In my mind it is important to look at how a product/project is received, how it has performed, what the feedback is, how the process could be improved, what skills and training would be useful for the team, what people have found that they are really interested in that they hadn’t thought of before… just for starters! I think many people don’t know where to start with this sort of assessment – especially in teams, so that the useful stuff can come out and work its way into constructive implementations to the way we work.

A chapter and exercises that extract and separate subjective outcomes and hard evidence (such as metrics) would be really useful.

So! I eventually found this fantastic link – which enabled me to apply a bug fix step by step to existing code rather than starting from scratch as with the other fixes I found.

Highly Recommended: Suckerfish Dropdowns, Selects, and Internet Explorer