THOUHGTS

Defaults & Dead Apps

I love high quality software.

…like, really love it. Probably more than most people.

I check the iOS App Store updates multiple times a day to see if someone wrote interesting release notes. I follow a Mastodon hashtag for #TestFlight so that I can see if people are working on something interesting. I’ve been closely following companies like Panic and the Iconfactory since the mid/late 90s. I’ve also scoured Mastodon’s @indieapps.space instance to find new software. I daydream about paying for Flighty even though I’m not currently flying enough to justify it, just because it’s good software. I’ve given talks internationally at conferences (I’m stretching it — once in Canada) about how we need more culture in our software.

And when bloggers started listing their “Default Apps” for various categories, I read over 350 of them. So I want to list mine, but I also found in reading through them all, the interesting stuff is on the fringes of the main categories, so I want to focus on that, too.

I also want to mention how much it leaves a hole in my heart when good software dies. I still feel frustrated every time I use email (RIP Sparrow and Mailbox) and use banking apps (RIP Simple Bank) — both killed off through acquisitions. When platforms get weird and kill off 3rd-party apps, I care enough that I leave the platforms (RIP Apollo, Twitteriffic/Tweetbot). It pains me that I feel unsatisfied when I use the Wikipedia iOS app and know that there used to be a better 3rd-Party app (RIP V for Wiki, though I’m working on something that scratches my itch in this space). All of this makes me really worried about Arc and their VC path.

Writing this is part of my grieving process over those “Dead Apps”, but I’m also wanting to hear what holes you have. Does anyone grieve over losing good software?

NOTES

Apple Notes

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It’s gotten very good! I’m sure that there are features that note-fiends will say are missing, but it hits every note I need.

NOTES

Apple Notes

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Apple Notes

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It’s gotten very good! I’m sure that there are features that note-fiends will say are missing, but it hits every note I need.

NOTES

Apple Notes

􀋃􀋃􀋃􀋃􀋂

It’s gotten very good! I’m sure that there are features that note-fiends will say are missing, but it hits every note I need.

NOTES

Apple Notes

􀋃􀋃􀋃􀋃􀋂

It’s gotten very good! I’m sure that there are features that note-fiends will say are missing, but it hits every note I need.

NOTES

Apple Notes

􀋃􀋃􀋃􀋃􀋂

It’s gotten very good! I’m sure that there are features that note-fiends will say are missing, but it hits every note I need.

Design

Dustin Curtis — Dear American Airlines

Interesting:

1. Designer dreams up a redesign of American Airlines’ website and chastises the company (particularly their design department)
2. An employee from the AA design group writes back to say, “You’re right.”
3. AA fires said employee for breaking their NDA.

Lots to take away from this. For me, most of all is that I’ve been in this employee’s shoes and this story reaffirms that I will make sure to never be wearing shoes like his in a company like that again. It sounds clear that AA is a seriously messed up company, and, as folks have said, the original critique is a little naive of the situation: A little screenshot does not a website make.

Design

Scott Stevenson on Measuring the Design Process

The best thing to come out of web-design icon Doug Bowman’s resignation from Google is this well thought out article by Scott Stevenson. Doug on his departure:

Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that.

This particular point set off Mr. Stevenson to put into words concepts that I’ve always been aware of, but have always struggled to articulate as well as he did in his post:

The most contentious point between software engineering culture and visual design culture is the question of whether important things can be always seen in absolutes. The engineering approach values measurable, reproducible results which can be represented in a graph or a checklist. Unit tests and benchmarks illustrate progress. […] Visual design is often the polar opposite of engineering: trading hard edges for subjective decisions based on gut feelings and personal experiences. It’s messy, unpredictable, and notoriously hard to measure. The apparently erratic behavior of artists drives engineers bananas. Their decisions seem arbitrary and risk everything with no guaranteed benefit.

Through out my career, I’ve regularly been in similar environments; and one of my biggest problems has been figuring out how to hurdle that divide. I feel that part of my role is as a visual taste maker. You might test to find the most crowd pleasing shade of blue at the first pass, but I might come up with a blue that might not be your instant choice, yet will grow on you when taken in holistically. Like Henry Ford said, “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse.” There is a point with visual design where logic starts to breakdown in ways that only experience can answer.