iPhone App Store: Free/Buy/Install

The Free/Buy/Install toggle button drives me crazy sometimes. I've noticed that if you click Free (or Buy if it costs anything) and it turns into Install, clicking anywhere outside of the button will return it to Free. The problem is that the button is either too small or the target is off because I'll toggle between the two states in half my attempts, and I've got sticks for fingers. :(

Trying to decide on lunch. Really want Pho, but don't wanna smell like Pho. Mmmm.

Rediscovering Photoshop

With the opportunity to work with a new version of Photoshop, I'm slowly learning what all the new features are. Some are CS4 specific, others are from previous versions that I never owned.

- When windows are tiled, you can move the canvas or zoom all images at the same time by pressing down shift
- Selecting the hand tool and then pressing h will allow you to zoom out to bird's eye view
- Hold shift and then the keyboard shortcut to cycle through tools
- Selecting the zoom tool and then holding down the mouse button will automatically zoom in until you let go
- Content aware scaling will transform the image without distorting the main subject (I redid my shortcut to command-shift-t)

BTW, all the versions of Photoshop I've worked with: 3, 5, 7, CS, CS4.

Links to some sites explaining the features:
- http://www.chrisorwig.com/cs4/
- http://www.photoshopuser.com/cs4/sk_features.html

The evidence.

I like Asian gummy candies but it makes me feel guilty that they're all individually wrapped. All those wrappers...

Purchased the "black air jacket set" by Power Support for my iPhone. Very thin and sleek but doesn't cover the front edges. Hmm.

iPhone Earbuds Are Anti-Collared Shirt

I hate the position of the mic on the earbuds that come with the iPhone. Maybe it's just me but it keeps get caught on the collar of my button-up shirts. Grr.

Some Mac Annoyances

A running list of things I don't like about the Mac:

- When you click on a menu item that expands to display more items, it'll either close the entire menu or close the expanded menu, depending on the application.
- Even though the Character Palette sits on top of applications, keyboard shortcuts actually control the app underneath it. For example, if I'm finished using the Character Palette and click ⌘-w or ⌘-q it'll close the app underneath, not the Character Palette.
- I'm not able to simply copy and paste from the Character Palette. I need to have a text field available and active, and then I need to double-click the character (glyph) I want.
- Resizing the Character Palette doesn't actually show me more characters, it just makes them bigger. Doh.
- When ⌘-tabbing between application, many times my mouse cursor is right in the middle of the screen. If I move it slightly, the cursor selects another application and when I let go of the keyboard shortcut it brings up that application.
- Why doesn't Firefox for Mac access dropdown and checkbox form fields when tabbing through them? 'Tarded.
- Taking a screenshot... I love the option to be able to select a certain area via ⌘-shift-4 or the whole screen via ⌘-shift-3, but I'd rather it didn't save it automatically to a file on the Desktop. Number 1 is that I have to then go find and open the file and then copy-and-paste it into the document I'm working with. Number 2 is that it produces clutter and I have to remember to delete it. Is there an option to just save to the clipboard? Edit: Yes! But it's a pretty convoluted key combination: ⌘-shift-control-3 or -4.
- Only being able to resize windows via the right-bottom corner is pretty limiting.

Curse you yogurt, you've spit up on me 3 days in a row when I peel off your tin cover.

I'm a bowling fool! Four 200+ games in one night!

Favorite iPhone Apps

Here's a running list of my favorite (i.e. useful) iPhone apps:

- YouTube
- Flixster
- Pingle
- BofA

Linky linky... http://ping.fm/nUVCw

Jakob Nielsen just posted a new article on mobile web usage... He does a great job of stating the obvious.

My first $1.99 spent in the iPhone app store goes to... Pingle!

The bread on my sandwich was so hard it carved a good sized hole in my gums. Ouch.

Relearning the Mac

Hello again, Mac.

After spending the last 7 years on a PC, I'm having to reorient myself in becoming productive on a Mac again, specifically a MacBook Pro. I'm not a total newb to Apple's products--my very first computer was an Apple IIe and I worked with a G3 for a couple years while at EarthLink--but things have changed quite a bit since then. Here's a simple running list of things I'm discovering:

- option-click to bring up contextual menu (but connecting a 2-button mouse automatically triggers this; pressing the trackpad with two fingers also works)
- use two fingers to scroll via mousepad (check out trackpad prefs for more options)
- replace command (⌘) with ctrl (e.g. ⌘-v to paste)
- access applications via Finder > Go > Applications (is there a shortcut?)
- closing an application window does not close out the application
- ⌘-w to close window, ⌘-q to close application
- alt-tab is ⌘-tab to switch between apps
- ⌘-tabbing back to an app does not return a minimized window--grr (UPDATE: ⌘-h will hide an app completely instead of leaving the menu bar and will also reappear when you ⌘-tab back to it)
- option-clicking the green + button maximizes a window
- control-tab to switch forward through tabs in Firefox (add shift to go backwards)
- when switching between applications, email messages in their own window don't show up as an option; instead, you can only switch to the entire application (UPDATE: ⌘-tilde (~) switches windows within an app)
- is there anything like Window's character map app? (UPDATE: System Preferences > International > Input Menu and then select both "Character Palette" and "Show input menu in menu bar" at the bottom of the dialog window; a language flag appears on the menu bar and you can click it to access the character palette)
- to take a screenshot of the entire viewable desktop, click ⌘-shift-3; to select a certain area, click ⌘-shift-4 and then select area (screenshots are saved to desktop)
- to delete a file, select it and then click ⌘-delete to move it to the trash (for those on extended keyboards, this will not work with the delete⌦ key)
- Apple Grab (http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/02/28/screenshot.html) is a screenshot utility that allows you to include the cursor in the screenshot, amongst other things. Go to Applications > Utilities > Grab, then in the file menu go to Grab > Preferences... and select the mouse pointer you'd like to capture. Go to Capture > Timed Screen and when the screen appears click on Start Timer. It'll take a screenshot after 10 seconds.
- Paparazzi! is a screenshot app that will capture a webpage's multiple screens and put them into one file.
- Application Frame in CS4: This feature places a cover over the desktop when working with files in Photoshop (a la Photoshop in Windows). Very nice to "quiet" all the background noise when working with graphics.

Links to articles which cover this same topic:
- Some General Tips for Switch to Mac From Windows
- Apple's Switch 101

UX Deliverables

Just a quick note about a recent post by Peter Morville on the IXDA disscussion list...

Article on UX Deliverables

A nice list of UX deliverables and links to references.

From Web to Mobile

In a week or so I'll be off to my next gig... AT&T Interactive! I'm excited to be joining them because of the opportunity to work on mobile products, specifically apps for iPhone and G1. Plus, they seem like a good bunch of folks. :)

So in light of this, I started some research on iPhone design and came across these nifty design patterns that seem pretty useful to me:

- PSD of iPhone GUI
- Custom Axure iPhone widgets (and other useful looking widgets)\
- Yahoo's design stencil which include the iPhone