Apple iFrame

Everybody and their mother is writing about Apple's panel. I think Gruber's thoughts and his links to other places on the topic are most relevant reading.

While some others are much more populistic and techy-minded, there's one good thought intermixed in the wishful thinking – the screen resolution.

Apple already has existing and in-use own video format called iFrame, which could easily be the name of the device as well...

What's interesting about that format is how neatly it fits in the different Apple screens:
- iPhone 320x480 ("a half" of iFrame, in width), approx 3.5 inches screen, 160 dpi
- iFrame 960x540
- iMac (smaller) 1920x1080 ("twice" iFrame, both in width and height), 21.5-inch screen, 100 dpi

At 10 inch physical screen size, the "native" iFrame would calculate to approx 110 dpi screen with 960x540, which would be much more "widescreen" form than iPhone is.

With iPhone form, the numbers could end up as: 960x640, ending up as approx 115 dpi for a 10 inch screen. Which does feel sensible, unless it's not high-enough-DPI for Apple as a touchscreen.

High-DPI version would be 1920x1080, which would be approx 220dpi for a 10 inch screen. Quite likely enough for Apple, even if Nokia N900 does 265dpi (800x480 at approx 3.5inches) :)

iFrame resolution, or some multiple of that resolution seems like quite likely to end up playing a significant role, in at least one of the dimensions of the Apple panel (...or Apple tablet :).

...

Update: It's 9.7 inches,1024x768 pixels at 132 dpi. Oh well, there goes the iFrame theory out of the window...

...

Update 2: Another view on the 4:3 resolution.

Update 3: Pro 4:3 arguments: It's not super-optimized for video watching, instead it's books, web, iWork. Plus, at 9.7 inches, it's physically much more comfortable to use when the device has 4:3 dimensions (landscape and portrait).

At Barcelona - UX meets Code

Let's see what all we can accomplish here. Blogging with MaStory :)

Maemo 5 GUI Design Template (GUI PSD)

The Maemo 5 documentation now includes also the GUI Design Template, which allows one to create high-fidelity image mockups.

Currently the GUI Design template is available in Photoshop format that has a fairly comprehensive library of assets – all fully editable.

As is usual with these things, this is not something you'd use e.g. for wireframes or as a replacement for pen an paper. This is more useful for situations where pixel perfectness is needed.

Designing UI for Maemo 5 (Maemo Summit 2009)

I had a presentation in Maemo Summit 2009 about Designing UI for Maemo 5. The slides of the presentation are available in slideshare.

Abstract:
How to make the applications work together as an integrated whole?

This talk will discuss the UI Design of the Maemo 5 product as an "application portfolio". Design patterns as well as application specific designs are presented, and the reasoning for the design decisions.

Design of the pre-installed applications in the Maemo 5 product is discussed, highlighting the UI flows, common user experience solutions and power user features. Throughout the application walk-through, the structure and "look and feel" of the applications is categorized, resulting in a conceptual design tool for 3rd party application designers and developers.

N900 - Sounds fun! (updated)

So there's this nice device called N900. And a cool user interface video:


The song in that video is GRUM - Go Back (Le Castle Vania Remix), an energetic tune, freely downloadable from the net.

Lastly, here's a less than 30 second excerpt of that song, so that you could, for example, enjoy it in your cellular phone :)

Update: You can get another, more official N900 ringtone and message alert tone from links on Nokia Europe pages.