http://darrenbeckett.com/ something i was thinking about. http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20120330_Switching_to_Windows_Day_5 http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20120330_Switching_to_Windows_Day_5 Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:32:00 -0800

The Highs

If I had to point to one specific thing I like on Windows Phone, I would point to the email. The handling of email is so superior to anything else available, it makes the iPhone feel really dated. I hope Apple is taking notes.

I love having my contacts complete text/email/phone history available to me at all times.

The Lumia 800 is an impressive piece of hardware. I immediately fell in love with it when I took it out of the package.


The Lows

The camera was a complete disappointment on the Lumia 800. I felt like I was using my old Motorola Razr. Converesely, pictures I’ve taken with my iPhone look great even blown up on my 55“ HD TV.

I absolutely abhor the back button that is part of Windows Phone. And there is no update in the future that would solve the problem.

The inability to take a screenshot is ridiculous.

Getting help with a Windows Phone is quite a bit more difficult than an iPhone. Who can I go to when there’s an issue like sending MMS? With the iPhone, I know I can see an Apple Genius to get answers to any issue I might have. I can’t call Nokia or Microsoft and get that kind of help, and AT&T isn’t going to help me solve a problem with a phone they don’t even carry.

Apple’s ecosystem just crushes the competition. There’s no accessories for the Windows Phone, no cases, no gadgets, no integrated radio control cars and helicopters. The Windows Phone is essentially an island unto itself, while the iPhone has hundreds of accessories – from the absurd to the essential.

The battery life isn’t quite as good as the iPhone. This is a concern for me when I travel in particular.


The Conclusion

So the answer to the big question is... No.

That wasn’t an easy question to answer though. I really enjoy using the Windows Phone, but in the end, I prefer the Apple ecosystem. I like how my iPhone syncs with other devices better, I think the hardware edges out the available hardware for Windows Phone, and the annoying quirks don’t fully outweigh the better features. But to Microsoft’s credit, it’s not easy to put this phone away... certainly not as easy as it was to give up an Android device.

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20120329_Switching_to_Windows_Day_4 http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20120329_Switching_to_Windows_Day_4 Thu, 29 Mar 2012 08:03:00 -0800 asked the question, “What phone would you rather carry? An iPhone 4S modified to run Android or Windows Phone 7? Or a top-of-the-line HTC, Samsung, or Nokia handset running iOS 5?” His point was that the thing that makes an iPhone so special is the software. But he did later point out that the hardware is definitely important. There’s a reason for the shape, size, button placement, and even the materials used on every iPhone made. This becomes obvious when you think of running iOS on one of the crap Samsung phones being offered with Android.

So, even though what I really want to experience was the Windows Phone OS, at some point you must look at the hardware too. The best OS is nothing if the hardware can’t stand on its own.


This discussion becomes problematic of course, because we’re back to the same situation when trying to compare Windows and Macs. Apple controls the hardware, Microsoft does not. You can’t criticize the operating system when a Dell laptop is not as refined as a Mac. With that in mind, I am holding in my hands the best piece of hardware you can buy for the Windows Phone OS.


Where Nokia Went Right

Nokia did an amazing job with the Lumia 800. The shape of the device is absolutely perfect. Unlike every other non-iPhone I’ve ever held, this was the first phone I didn’t immediately put down in disgust. The materials feel and look just right. The symmetrical placement of the camera and LED flash is nice, and the shiny metal piece that holds the camera makes the phone look expensive.

The screen is absolutely beautiful. I’ve never seen a screen that I enjoy looking at and touching as much as the iPhone 4. It’s close to the resolution of the iPhone retina display, making text appear super crisp and easy to read. The colors and lightness makes the screen feel less like an LED screen and more like a bright piece of paper. Everyone I’ve showed the phone to commented on how nice the screen looks.

The glass front is so smooth, and almost soft feeling, that you want to keep sliding your fingers on it even after you’re done with the current task. The capacitive touch works quite well. I rarely have a “I didn’t mean to do that” moment.

Spec-wise I’m not sure where the Lumia compares with the iPhone’s processor and memory. To me, the numbers don’t matter... the experience matters. And whatever hardware they threw into this phone was the right hardware. Apps open plenty fast, menus are super responsive, scrolling seems fluid, and animations never stutter. One thing I noticed when testing the Music app, was the speed in which a song starts after selecting it. I never noticed a delay on the iPhone before, but there apparently is something slight... because the music comes on startlingly fast on the Windows Phone.

The speaker at the bottom of the phone is well placed and sounds clear and loud. The way it’s molded into the bottom of the casing makes it almost invisible.


Where Nokia Went Wrong

I don’t know a whole lot about cameras. I use my iPhone as a quick point-and-shoot, and that’s about it. But there is clearly something better about the iPhone camera system vs. the Lumia 800’s camera. I took the following two photos at the same time using the phones’ default settings. The iPhone picture (bottom) is clear and bright. The Lumia 800 picture (top) is not even usable. Both phones tout an 8 megapixel camera.


The Lumia 800 will not shoot full 1080p video, and does not offer video stabilization that’s available on the iPhone 4S.

I think the single biggest complaint I have about the phone would be the placement of the hardware buttons. On the right side are the volume up and down buttons, the lock button, and the camera button. The volume and camera buttons rarely get bumped, but the placement of the lock button couldn’t have been in a worse spot. When I hold the phone in my left hand, my middle finger rests exactly in the same place as that button, causing me to lock the phone up in the middle of typing on many occasions. When the phone is in my right hand, the button is right in the same spot as where the phone meets up with the palm of my hand. I really wish they had placed the lock button on the top.


The Rest

Windows Phones do not offer the same style mute switch that is on the iPhone. This may be one of the best design features (hardware-wise) Apple included on the iPhone. Windows Phone does fairly well at implementing a suitable alternative. When you tap the volume buttons, you are offered an icon on screen to mute the volume immediately. For my usage this works perfectly well, but it’s obviously not as graceful as the toggle switch on the iPhone.

The battery life seems to do okay, but not quite as good as the iPhone does. Since it’s a new phone my usage is higher than usual, but even on high usage days I never charge my iPhone mid-day. The Lumia seems to throw the low battery warning at me around 9:00 every night. I’m only using 3G (4G is not available in my area), so I can’t really comment on what 4G would do to the battery. (Although I think I know!)

If you enjoy unboxing Apple products, you won’t be disappointed with the Lumia 800. The box consists of a hard “sleeve” that contains another open-top box with trays for each of the contents. Included in the box was the phone, a rubber case, a manual, USB cord, wall plug, and headphones. I think Nokia clearly copied was inspired by Apple when packaging this phone.


Coming Up

My final wrap-up tomorrow.

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20120328_Switching_to_Windows_Day_3 http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20120328_Switching_to_Windows_Day_3 Wed, 28 Mar 2012 09:17:00 -0800
But honestly, the reason I can do so many of the things I need to do with only my iPhone has a lot more to do with the apps I’ve downloaded than the phone itself. So can I get these same – or comparable – apps on my Windows Phone? And will they perform as well as what I’m used to?


PlainText

I’m not a huge fan of the built-in notes app on the iPhone and iPad. What I wanted to be able to do is create a text file on either my Mac, iPad, or iPhone and then be able to access that file on any of those devices. I found the syncing options with the built-in notes app was less than stellar, and I couldn’t access those notes from my Mac. PlainText did exactly what I was looking for. A simple plain text editor that saves all the files to Dropbox, allowing those notes to be accessible from any device (even a device that’s not mine).

PlainText is not available on the App Marketplace... but DropNotes is! In terms of functionality, there is very little difference between the apps. One annoyance is the app requires you to hit the save icon in order to sync your changes. PlainText is automatic, simply edit and quit. The only other notable difference was how DropNotes won’t display anything unless you have a data connection. PlainText caches your notes so you can view them even if you have no connectivity.


Flashlight

Is it sad that my second most used app on my iPhone is a flashlight app?! I use this all the time! Not surprising, there are a number of flashlight apps available for Windows Phone, and much like the iPhone options, 90% of them suck! I chose one called Sunlight, which does the one simple task I need... turn on the LED light. There were a few that accomplished the same task, but I chose Sunlight because the app icon matches the Windows Phone theme better than the rest.


Bible

I primarily use the YouVersion Bible app on my iPad, not the iPhone, for obvious reasons. But sometimes it’s nice to have it available on my phone as well. They make a version of the app for Windows Phone as well and I didn’t see any noticeable differences.


iHeartRadio

Not surprising that this app is available as a Windows Phone app, and it’s pretty much identical.


SoundHound

This is one of those apps I don’t use everyday, but it is an app I’m not sure how I ever lived without. If nothing else, it settles arguments with the poker buddies over song details! There is a Windows Phone version with all the same functionalities as the iPhone version. The one small difference I found is that the iPhone version can actually display the lyrics of the selected song, exactly at the point where you are in the song. The Windows Phone version only displays the full lyric sheet.


RedLaser

Is it wrong that when I’m shopping at Target, I use RedLaser to see if the WalMart across the street has the exact same item for cheaper? During the Christmas shopping season, I am convinced I saved hundreds of dollars using RedLaser. The app is also handy for price checks when the in-store price scanners aren’t working.

I don’t see any real differences between the Windows Phone version and the iPhone app. Scanning a barcode was very fast. I found many times the app scanned the item before the barcode was even in focus.


DirecTV

This app is great for when you’re out and about, and suddenly remember you wanted to record some show on the History channel. The iPad app is downright amazing, but the iPhone app works great for basic search and record options. I wasn’t surprised to see it’s also available for Windows Phone.

I did run into trouble with the app letting me browse by time. I was able to search and record a show, but I get errors every time I try to browse.


eBay

As Weird Al once said, you never know when you suddenly need an Alf alarm clock. I love having the eBay mobile app for the random times I need to snipe someone on a hard to find item (like maybe a Nokia Lumia 800). The Windows Phone app works pretty much the same as the iPhone app, but I think the iPhone app is better looking. The Windows Phone version feels a bit rushed, and doesn’t allow you to list an item using the mobile app.


Apple Remote

This is a tough one for me. With “Apple” included right in the name, I assumed this one would be a problem. The Apple Remote app allows me to control my iTunes library on the iMac and laptop I use, and of course the AppleTV. While I can use my iPad in its place, I will really miss having the remote app on my phone.


Syncopy

I originally used PasteBot, but recently switched to Syncopy for my clipboard syncing app. If you don’t know what this is, basically when I copy something on my Mac, it is automatically synced to Syncopy. Then I have immediate access to that information on my iPhone. I searched the Marketplace and even did some Google searches, and was unable to find a Windows Phone app that matches the functionality of PasteBot or Syncopy.


US Bank

I do all my banking with US Bank, and they recently launched a mobile app. I don’t ever use the mobile app for checking my accounts or anything (you can do all of these with their mobile web site), but they do offer one really slick feature that I can only do with the mobile app: taking a photo of a check and make the deposit remotely. Unfortunately, US Bank doesn’t make an app for Windows Phone... so for now I have to use my iPad for making deposits. I’ll consider this as justification my the iPad (yay better camera)!


1Password

After years of fighting him on it, my friend, Liam, finally persuaded me to start using 1Password. When you have to keep track of a ton of passwords, and you need those passwords when you’re on the go, there’s nothing like 1Password. Fortunately, they made a Windows Phone app, so I can still keep my phone passwords synced with my Mac and iPad.


Level

When Apple first announced apps for the iPhone, the first app I bought was Level. My friends all mocked me, but I thought it was cool. Sure, you can argue that I turned a $500 phone into a 50-cent tool, but I have used that Level app for every wall hanging I’ve done for the past five years. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. You more than likely forgot to grab your level when you grabbed the hammer and nails, but your phone is always in your pocket. Fortunately Microsoft agrees, because they made the same basic app... and best of all, it’s free!


Games

Everyone has their favorite games they like to play. Personally I don’t play very many games on my iPhone, so instead of reviewing any specific games, I wanted to mention that the App Marketplace offers a lot of the typical games that you can find for the iPhone. Angry Birds, anyone?


Coming Up:

Tomorrow I’ll go over the hardware.

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20120327_Switching_to_Windows_Day_2 http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20120327_Switching_to_Windows_Day_2 Tue, 27 Mar 2012 07:43:00 -0800 no apps! But the iPhone comes with a lot of the tools I use every day. Can Windows Phone compete with these apps?


Notifications

Windows Phone does not offer a notifications pane like what you’ll find on the iPhone and Android. On the lock screen, you are offered small icons at the bottom with a number next to each one. The phone will notify you of missed calls, new email, and new messages (texts). A preview of new texts will appear unobtrusively at the top of the screen for a few seconds, and a quick tap takes you to the message. Mail does not offer a similar preview. You only get notified of new mail, and you have to open your mail app to see who the email is from.

When a new email arrives, the email app icon has a number next to the envelope icon. If you open the email app, but don’t actually read any of the messages, the icon on the home screen no longer shows the number of unread messages you have. I found this behavior to be unexpected.


Phone

This may seem surprising – and possibly a bit odd – but I really don’t use my iPhone as a phone very often! (Perhaps that’s why I’ve been able to stick with AT&T for so long.) Having said that, there are a couple of things that I really like about the iPhone when it comes to the actual phone operation. Perhaps number one on that list is the “favorites” screen. If I am going to make a call, it’s pretty likely it is one of seven people that I have on my favorites list. When I open the phone app, I get a list of those seven people, then I can tap on the contacts icon for anyone else I may need to call. Windows Phone only provides your most recent calls, and all contacts. And, as I mentioned yesterday, there’s no easy way to jump to a specific place in the contacts list, so scrolling down to John Doe isn’t very fast.

One thing that Windows Phone does out of the box, is to allow you to “pin” a contact to your home page. That would allow me to place all my favorites on the home screen... but I found you can quickly clutter up the home screen with all of your favorite apps, favorite people, favorite weather... etc.

Receiving a call is slightly annoying because you have to swipe up, and then select whether you want to answer or decline the call. I’m not a big fan of the two step process, but I suppose it’s designed to prevent accidents.

Unfortunately I was not able to compare the visual voicemail, because it currently isn’t working on the Windows Phone. After some research, it would appear that this is an issue with AT&T, and a fix is coming “someday”. I’m disappointed because it was one of my favorite features on the original iPhone, but I don’t blame Microsoft. I will blame Windows for getting notifications of missed calls but never a mention of new voicemail.


Mail

I mentioned this briefly yesterday, but I really think Windows Phone handles email accounts much better than the iPhone. What’s interesting about how Windows handles this differently from the iPhone, is that you can create a unified inbox for some mail accounts, while leaving another mail account separate. For example, I merged my two business accounts and left my personal Gmail account as a standalone. You can even name the unified inbox whatever you want, and when you get new mail each unified inbox gets its own icon on the lock screen. Very nice. This single feature on Windows Phone is far superior to any other mobile mail app I’ve ever used.

As I mentioned earlier, one downside to the mail notifications is that you get an icon and a number of new messages. There is no option for a preview of the email, which I really miss.

The basic functionality of the mail app is pretty good. I would say it’s a tie with the built-in iPhone Mail app (which actually is not much of a compliment). I found it difficult to select multiple messages, and there is no “swipe to delete” on Windows Phone so deleting several messages takes longer.

Images within the email are not loaded automatically. Each time you open the email, you have to tell the app to download the images. Occasionally, when I would force the download, the image wouldn’t show inline either. I found this to be extremely frustrating. I would like to be able to tell my mail app to either trust the sender or automatically download the images all the time. But there is no setting for either, and some quick research seems to indicate Microsoft has no plans to change this.

Consistent with other apps on Windows Phone, mail allows you to swipe left or right to change the data being displayed. When you open mail, you see the inbox. If you swipe to the right, you can show only unread mail. Keep swiping and you see flagged messages, and another swipe shows urgent messages. (I still haven’t received an urgent message, so I’m not sure how that works!)

Mail allows you to group messages by thread. Tapping on a thread expands the title and displays all the individual messages. When viewing a message, there are arrow buttons at the bottom that allows you to view other messages in the thread.

Push email seems to work great on the Windows Phone. The only push email I’ve ever gotten to work on the iPhone was the DotMac MobileMe iCloud mail, while all my other email accounts only update every fifteen minutes. The drawback to this is that I find my email notification is constantly going off now... I may have to switch it back to the “every fifteen minutes” option!

For some reason when I get an email and read it on the Windows Phone, my other devices (iPad and laptop) still show the message as unread for a really long time. Even a manual refresh on the other device doesn’t change the status of the email. My assumption is that Windows Phone doesn’t send email status back to the server as fast as it receives it.


Safari

As you might expect, Windows Phone comes with Internet Explorer. With my background, I have been trained to flinch at the site of that horrible “e” logo. I really didn’t want to even open the browser on the phone! But really, IE on the phone isn’t much different from Mobile Safari as first glance. Obviously I didn’t preform any speed tests or benchmarks. I’m just testing it for usability.

Mobile IE allows you to specify if you prefer to get mobile or desktop versions of the websites you visit. I really like this option, since a number of sites do not respect the choice I make on their site. I’ve been stuck on mobile sites even on the iPad before.

I don’t like the way IE handles tabs. In Mobile Safari there’s a button that shows the number of open tabs. That button is visible at all times. Conversely, IE has a hidden menu for tabs, so it takes two taps to get to the tabs and you don’t ever know how many tabs are open. Since IE will only let you open six tabs, so this would be good information to know before you open a link in a new tab. Also, the browser does not seem to respect link targets, so if a link is supposed to open in a new window, it doesn’t!

Windows Phone does not run Flash, which is a plus in my opinion. However, for some reason I’ve noticed a number of sites that normally switch to HTML5 video don’t work correctly on the Windows Phone.


Maps

The built-in maps app seems to be on par with the Google Maps that is included on the iPhone. I feel that the visuals on the Google Maps are better than what you’ll find on the Windows Phone, particularly the location flags, but the functionality is similar.


Messages

Apple recently introduced iMessage, which allows you to text your fellow Apple friends without having to use your phone’s texting plan. It also allows you to get all of your texts on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Windows Phone does not offer anything similar to iMessage, which is fine for me because I don’t use iMessage.

Windows Phone’s standard texting app is pretty much identical to texting on the iPhone. I’ve had issues getting picture messages to work, which is thanks to AT&T, not Windows. (After changing settings and putting them back to normal, MMS seems to have magically fixed itself.)

My single biggest complaint with texting on the Windows Phone is the send button. At the bottom of the app are four icons: send, attach, speak, and switch. I constantly reach to the right side of the row of icons for sending a text, not the left. It seems completely out of place.

The switch icon is interesting, by the way. This allows you to have a conversation with a person, and then switch which method of contact you’re using to communicate. For instance, you could switch from a text to an instant message protocol, mid-conversation.


Calendar

I don’t put a ton of events in my calendar, so it’s not uncommon for a single day to have no scheduled events. As a result, I first thought the date box on the Windows Phone was too large. Instead of a square, the calendar shows up on the home page as a rectangle (two square widths). But now that I’ve added some dummy events, it makes more sense. On the iPhone the calendar app only shows today’s date, but Windows Phone shows you the next event for today. It’s really nice to know what is coming up without having to actually open the calendar app. Unfortunately it only shows one upcoming event, no matter how many you have on the calendar. I would like to see more, and there’s plenty of space to show two, if not three, upcoming events.

You can only set one reminder per event. I typically set two reminders for every event I create, so this was a bit of a disappointment. You can add a snooze to the reminder though, so I’m working with this limitation.

Interestingly enough, there is a setting to display to-dos on your calendar, but I haven’t found a way to create a to-do. I also can’t find a way to add a calendar aside from your email accounts (i.e., CalDAV), so I haven’t found a way to sync my iCloud calendar with my Windows Phone. The phone works perfectly with Windows Live calendars and Google calendars though, so for best results I need to move all of my events into my Google calendar.


Camera/Photos

I am not a photographer, and I only use my camera for point-and-shoot purposes. I will not be reviewing the detailed specs of the Windows Phone vs. an iPhone 4S (today). After all, this is supposed to be a software review, not hardware!

The camera in the Windows Phone seems perfectly usable. The phone has a dedicated camera button, which you can click – even when the phone is locked – to snap off a few photos. This button can also be used as the camera trigger, or you can tap anywhere on the screen (there is no dedicated on-screen trigger button).

I found that you have to push the hardware trigger fairly hard to make it snap the photo, which causes me to move enough that the photos become blurry. Because of that, I prefer the on-screen tap. But when you tap a specific place in the viewfinder, the camera focuses on that spot and then snaps the photo. Sometimes I like to tap various places to adjust the focus, and then snap the picture once I’m satisfied. That’s not an option on the Windows Phone. The time from screen tap to finished photo is rather long, so taking photos of a moving subject is near impossible.

The built-in camera app offers a lot of adjustments you won’t find on the iPhone though, including white balance, exposure value, ISO, metering mode, effects, and more. I don’t even know how half of those things work, but if you do, they’re probably nice to have.

The Photos app icon is a constantly changing slideshow of photos in your camera roll. I like it, it makes the home screen look more alive. The photos app offers the same basic functionality of the photos app on the iPhone.


Music/Videos

The built-in music player works great. I was actually surprised by how fast a song plays when you selected it. Until using the Windows Phone, I never noticed a split second delay from tapping a song title to the music starting. The Windows phone felt more instanter!

Music plays in the background, and the player controls automatically appear on the lock screen. When you’re in another app, you can quickly bring up the player controls by tapping one of the hardware volume buttons.

Microsoft doesn’t offer anything like Apple’s iTunes Match service (in fact, no one does). This is a great feature that I will miss from the iPhone, since my library contains a lot more music than my 16GB Lumia can hold.


Calculator

The calculator is a basic calculator. Not much to say about it. It does the same things as the iPhone calculator, but doesn’t have the skeuomorphic buttons. You can interpret that how you’d like.


Clock

Apple’s clock app is far superior to the Windows Phone. The only included clock app on the Windows Phone is an app called “Alarms”. There is no stopwatch nor world clock, neither of which I ever use. But there’s also no built-in timer, which I use a LOT on my iPhone. Fortunately, much like the iTunes App Store, Window’s App Marketplace is not lacking in third party apps to make up for any built-in app shortcomings. I was able to download a free app for each of the features I miss from the iPhone clock app.


Notes

I no longer use the built-in notes app on my iPhone. (I prefer a third-party app called PlainText for the iPhone, so I’ll be comparing that with apps I found for the Windows Phone tomorrow.) The only built-in notes app is actually part of the Mobile Office app. It was ridiculously cumbersome to jot down a quick note. So, while I’m no fan of the built-in notes app on the iPhone, it is easy to use, and the default note taking option for Window Phone is not.


App Store

I would say the App Marketplace is on par with the built-in iTunes App Store... that is to say, if you know what you are looking for, great! But they both suck for searching for apps. I always find apps I’m looking for via Google, not as much in the actual app store. Obviously the sheer number of apps available on the App Marketplace is a lot smaller than the iTunes App store, but there is an impressive number of options available for anything you might need. I’ll compare some of those options tomorrow when I review some commonly used third-party apps.

One interesting difference in Microsoft’s store, is that it offers music and apps in the same place (so more like the desktop iTunes app), rather than having a separate app for each. I do prefer the unified app.

Marketplace apps also offer a “try it” option for paid apps. iPhone app developers have worked around this by offering free versions of their apps in some cases, but Microsoft’s solution is much more elegant.


Weather

Windows Phone does not have a built-in weather app, but there is a free app, by Microsoft, that you can download. I’ll be comparing it to the built-in iPhone weather app.

I rarely use the built-in weather app on the iPhone. Occasionally I open it up and check the hourly forecast if I plan to ride my bike somewhere and want to make sure it won’t be raining or windy on the way back. What I do use a lot is the local weather in the notification pane. The closest you can come to this on the Windows Phone would be to “pin” the current weather to your home page. But there are two drawbacks to this. First, you can’t pin the local weather (based on your current GPS coordinates). You can only pin a specific location you chose. Second, when you tap on the pinned weather square you are taken to the detailed weather for that location. There is no way to then jump to the main weather app which has your other saved locations listed. (This is a problem with the dedicated back button I mentioned yesterday.)

I would argue Windows Phone weather is different from the iPhone, but not necessarily worse.


Contacts

As I mentioned yesterday, Windows Phone doesn’t handle long lists of items as gracefully as the iPhone. As a result, I think the contact list on Windows Phone is somewhat annoying. An interesting feature that Windows Phone does offer though, is that you can hide a contact... making that person not appear in the list, but you can still get to them via a search. This is clever, though it does not seem like the kind of feature that would work well for a non-techy user.

One thing that Windows Phone does well is that their contacts app is more than just an alphabetical list of your contacts. For each contact, you have all of their information, just like you would on the iPhone. But there’s also a history pane for each person, which shows you all of the recent email, texts, and calls you’ve received from that person. I think this might be the single best innovation in Windows Phone.

The People app icon is a collage of profile pictures from your contact list. It’s not particularly useful, but it’s “cute”.


Game Center

Microsoft uses Xbox Live in place of Apple’s Game Center. The functionality here seems to be very much the same. One interesting difference is that downloaded games all get grouped in the “Games” app. I really like the way Windows Phone handles this because the app menu doesn’t get so cluttered.


Built-in, Useless Apps

There are six other built-in apps on the iPhone that I never use: Reminders, iTunes, YouTube, Stocks, Compass, Voice Memos. None of these included on the Windows Phone, but each of these have a corresponding Windows Phone app that you could download from the App Marketplace. I just don’t have enough experience with these on the iPhone to write a good comparison.


Coming Up:

Tomorrow, I’ll be doing a comparison of purchased apps that I am used to using.

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20120327_Switching_to_Windows_Day_2b http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20120327_Switching_to_Windows_Day_2b Tue, 27 Mar 2012 16:21:00 -0800
Above each section, Windows Phone has a colored square with the corresponding letter for that section. Let’s say you’re currently at Muse in the artist list of the Music app, there will be an “M” floating at the top. If you tap that letter, you are presented with a list of all the letters of the alphabet which you can tap on to jump to that section.

This is a really slick way to handle long lists. But for sake of comparison, it’s two taps vs. Apple’s one. And it certainly was not obvious. There is no clue provided that tapping on the big letter will do anything. I just happened to tap it by accident.

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20120326_Switching_to_Windows_Day_1 http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20120326_Switching_to_Windows_Day_1 Mon, 26 Mar 2012 10:13:26 -0800 demo on my iPhone, I knew I had to try a Windows Phone for every day use. (Smart move there, Microsoft.) The interactive walkthrough showed me enough unique features that are in the Windows Phone to make want for more. The real question was whether the nitty gritty details are as cool as the main features you get to try out in the demo. So I spent a few weeks trolling eBay and Amazon in search of a decently priced, used, or open box, Windows Phone.

This is day one of my Windows conversion.


I have been an iPhone user since the day the first iPhone was released. I use only Macs for work and play, I’ve owned all three iPads and both AppleTV models, and each of my kids own an iPod Touch. Some might say I’m a “fanboi”, but honestly, I just really enjoy Apple products. A part of that enjoyment is how they all work so well together. Changing how all of my devices play with each other was one of the biggest challenges of this conversion.


Shopping for a Windows Phone

Finding a Windows Phone to replace my (beloved) iPhone 4 was difficult. If you’re interested in the iPhone operating system, then you buy an iPhone. There’s a couple of options because you can get the latest and greatest model, or last years’ model for a little less money. But there’s really only one phone option: the iPhone.

If you don’t know anything about the iPhone, it’s not too hard to get more information either. There’s a good chance that someone you know owns an iPhone, and they’re usually happy to tell you how awesome their phone is. Apple stores are plentiful, with numerous live working demo phones to touch and feel. If neither of these options work for you, pretty much every phone store – except T-Mobile – has a kiosk devoted to the iPhone.

Shopping for a Windows Phone is quite a bit different. For starters, who makes a Windows Phone? Which of those are any good? Not only did I not know, but I couldn’t find out very easily. Microsoft stores are starting to crop up, but I couldn’t find one anywhere close to me. None of the phone stores knew anything about Windows Phones, and didn’t have live demos. Even Best Buy, with its dozens of Android demos, had one single Windows Phone on display (a horrific Samsung model) which wasn’t connected to the Internet, making the demo pretty useless.

I did some searching online and found that Nokia makes an impressive phone: The Lumia 800. But again, unlike the iPhone, buying a Lumia takes a bit of work. None of the carriers offer the Lumia. You can buy an unlocked Lumia from a Microsoft Store (but not online) for a measly $899... which includes some “entertainment bundle” of junk I didn’t want. I just wanted a phone! So I was relegated to buying something from eBay or a vendor on Amazon. Both are nerve-wracking because you really don’t know the condition of the item until it arrives. But I took that chance and waited patiently for my phone to arrive in the mail.


Why the Lumia 800?

If I’m going to give up my iPhone 4, which I really like, it’s going to have to be replaced by a phone that is of equal quality, style, and beauty. The Lumia 800 is the best looking phone I have seen since I bought my first iPhone. The screen is smooth as silk, and the body of the phone is well thought out and well built. There are no visible screws or seams (except where the glass meets the body of course), and the logo count is minimal. Even the packaging of the phone was something that could have come from Cupertino.

I plan to write up a short hardware review at the end of the week, but for now I’ll just say that this hardware is completely comparable to an iPhone.

I’ve seen photos of the phone in blue, red, white, and black. I chose black. I liked the idea of a red phone, but I only saw black, blue Cyan, and pink Magenta actually for sale. I assume the red models I saw are actually the pink ones, but I’m not sure (again, there’s no store that carries these phones). In the end, I wavered on the Cyan option because it typically sold for more money than a black one. Plus I was worried it would look a little too girly once I started carrying it around! Black was just... safe.


So, Why Switch to Windows?!

Microsoft did something very unexpected with Windows Phone... they innovated. I didn’t mean that as a slam on Microsoft, but honestly, they haven’t innovated much in their history. Particularly recent history. Unlike Android, which mostly copies the iOS, Windows Phone really stands apart. Microsoft re-thought about how we interact with our phones and attempts to make that interaction better. I had to see if it was as good as the demo seems.


Setting up the Phone

Setup on the phone is pretty basic. When the phone first starts up, a wizard-style interface asks you a few questions (language, time zone, etc.) and you’re off and running. One small fault I found was that the phone didn’t offer a way to connect to Wi-Fi during the setup process. I hadn’t dropped in my SIM card yet, so I had no way to connect to the Windows Live service during setup. Apparently, this didn’t really matter.

At the completion of the setup, I was asked if I would like to import my contacts from an old phone. (It saddened me how the Lumia just referred to my iPhone as “an old phone”, but I said yes anyway.) I was instructed to enable bluetooth on my old phone and then both phones prompted me to pair. The first attempt failed with no real explanation. I was returned to the first prompt with the same instructions on pairing the phones. Not expecting much, I repeated the steps... only this time the transfer started. All of the contacts were copied from the iPhone to the Windows Phone in a matter of seconds. I was impressed, and relieved that I wouldn’t have to pull some Gmail contact sharing shenanigans in order to transfer all of my information.

You’ll notice that I didn’t include any screenshots of the setup process. I couldn’t figure out how, and later a online search revealed that there actually isn’t a way to take screenshots on Windows Phone. This is something I use frequently on the iPhone, and is the first feature that I know will be sorely missed.

The phone allows you to set a lock screen image, but the home screen background is always a solid color. You can change the theme, which adjusts the background color from light to dark and gives you the option to select one of 11 colors for your menus and app icons.


Help+How-to

One of the built-in apps was a link to a help and tutorial page. It could have been handy in finding how to take screenshots but, oddly, it requires an Internet connection. I would expect to be able to get help with my phone when I might not have any connectivity. Obviously, this is no deal breaker, but an odd quirk none-the-less.


What’s Unique

The initial screen is comprised of flat squares. A square can be an app (built-in or installed), but it can also be just about anything from inside an app that you can imagine. For example it could be an individual contact, weather for a specific location, even an item you’re bidding on in eBay! The screen will allow for two squares horizontally, and you can see four rows without scrolling. Unlike the iPhone, you only have one “home screen”, but you can scroll indefinitely as you add squares. You can arrange the squares however you’d like in the grid on the home screen, including the option to leave empty spaces. If you swipe to the right, you are given a list of every app installed on the phone in alphabetical order.

The first thing that caught my attention with the Windows Phone OS is that they really tried to think about how you use your phone, and how you can us it better. For example, every smartphone gives you an app to send texts, a different app for email, and a third app for phone calls. While you can use those same three apps in the same exact way here, Windows Phone offers a “People” app. This app shows you all of your contacts, and for each person in your contact list, you can view a history of every text, email, and phone call you’ve received from that person.

This completely changes how you communicate with people. Instead of opening the email client and searching for an email from John Doe, you go to John Doe’s profile and view a list of every email you’ve sent and received. For business users, the potential here is huge.

In my own situation, I have a client who emails me to different email addresses (and from different email addresses) on a regular basis. I never know which email account to look through when I’m trying to get a history of what they’ve sent. Now I don’t have to! Every email from this particular client appears under their contact information.

Each mail account gets its own square. Even in the alphabetical list of apps, there is no single “mail” icon. There’s a listing for each mail account you’ve added, with the same envelope icon for each. Windows Phone allows for a unified inbox like the iPhone. But where it stands apart is that you can select which email accounts you merge together. You can have one business email address that you keep separate, and merge two or more personal accounts together. This allows you setup your notifications separately as well, so your business email stands apart from your personal email. (Or perhaps your personal email becomes more important!)

At the bottom of almost every app is a “tray” that holds two to four icons, not unlike the app options you’ll see on many iPhone apps. The tray only shows the small, round icon. However, if you tap the space next to the icon, the tray slides up and displays the name underneath each icon. I actually think this is a clever way to provide the hint for the time you’re not sure what icons do what. Some might argue that a text button just makes more sense but visually, I prefer the icons.

One interesting addition to the tray, is in some cases (depending on the app) there will be a menu that appears as well. Typically, this is where the app settings will be. I don’t fully understand Microsoft’s decision with this. It’s as if the developer is saying, “Here are the menu items we didn’t want you to know about!” This is particular annoying when the app offers two icons, then one hidden menu. Why not just offer three icons?

Another nitpick I have about the icons is that in a lot of instances there’s a checkmark for “save” or “done” and an X for “cancel”. However, an equal number of apps use a floppy disk icon as the representation for save. Inconsistency aside, a floppy icon?! It’s been almost two years since the official death of the floppy disk!


What’s the Same

Windows Phone feels very similar to the iPhone. Many of the basics – such as cut and paste, double space for a period, and caps lock – work so similar to the iPhone, there really isn’t much of a learning curve. Instead of a tactile home button, the phone offers three touch buttons: back, home, and search. Having a dedicated back button was a horrible decision (more on that later), and not having a physical home button you can feel without looking is awkward.

The scrolling and swiping is very, very close to how responsive the iPhone is. On the iPhone, I accidentally tap a menu item when trying to scroll maybe 1% of the time. On the Windows Phone, it’s probably 2%. On Android, I found it to be much more like 15-20%. The bounce at the end of a scroll is different from the iPhone, but it’s comfortable. The tap animations are all very smooth, though some are a little over the top. For example, when you open the mail app, a number of things seem to rotate into view. It’s not uncomfortable or unnerving, but if you’re a minimalist you may prefer something more subtle.

Typing is very similar to the iPhone as well. At first I felt like the keys on the keyboard were spaced differently. But when I compared the Windows Phone side by side with an iPhone, I realized that issue is actually that the app icons still exist under the spacebar. This pushes the keyboard up so your thumbs have to be in a different position than when holding the iPhone. Also, having icons and soft keys under the keyboard (in this case, four app icons and three system icons) really makes you feel uncomfortable while typing. You have to consciously work to not to hit one of the other buttons. The secondary keyboard (i.e., the special characters) is laid out a bit differently than the iPhone, which causes me to slow down anytime I need that second set of buttons.


The Dreaded Back Button

Much like Android, Windows Phone uses the dedicated back button. It’s a button, like the home button, that is always present at the bottom of the phone. It seems like a good idea on paper, but it doesn’t work well in the real world. Here’s a comparison...

On the iPhone, the app is required to build in any back button functionality. So let’s say you’re reading a text, when you tap the app’s back button at the top of the screen, you are returned to your list of texts (the inbox). No matter how you got to that text, the back button works the same.

On Windows Phone, the back button returns you to the previous screen you were on. So let’s say you open the messages app, click on a conversation with someone, then click back... you go back to the inbox. This is completely logical. However, if you got to the text via a notification, the back button now returns you to the home screen, not the inbox! Essentially, it’s up to you to remember where the back button will take you, mostly leaving you to guess what’s going to happen. That is a horrible feeling for the user.

I also noticed that the back button caused confusion to almost everyone I showed my new phone. I kind of felt embarrassed, which is not the way you want to feel when showing off an expensive device.


Other Minor Annoyances

On iOS, when you have a long list of items (e.g., a list of songs), on the right side near the scroll bar is a list of letters you can tap to quickly jump from the A’s to the M’s. This functionality is missing from Windows Phone. Scrolling a lengthy list of apps, contacts, songs, whatever, can get very tedious very quickly.

Also, as I mentioned before, Windows Phone doesn’t offer screenshot capabilities. When I was searching for this online, I read a lot of comments from users like, “Who cares? It’s like copy and paste, I never use it anyway.” Well, I do... a lot! This is a relatively simple function to add in, and I’m rather surprised and disappointed that Microsoft hasn’t added it to the OS.


Coming Up:

Tomorrow, I’ll be doing a comparison of the built-in apps.

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20111027_ShareTool_2 http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20111027_ShareTool_2 Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:42:00 -0800
I do all of my work from home, which is great of course... I see my kids more than most working dads, plus the commute is great! But one issue I’ve run into is that my kids hog all of the bandwidth when I’m working. Last week, when my new office was completed, I decided to rectify the situation and get a dedicated Internet line just for work. So the kids’ iMac runs off the Verizon DSL line, while my laptop and iDevices all connect to the new high-speed line from Wisprenn.

Everything has been great since I made this switch except for one small thing: I can’t access other machines on my network like I used to. I can’t share iTunes libraries, or remote into the iMac to help my four year old when he gets stuck on something.

Enter ShareTool 2.


When I started noticing the split network idea was going south, I called up my buddy, Justin, for tech support. After a couple of hours discussing convoluted network and VPN options – and realizing I’d have to do some new network runs to make all of that work – I decided I don’t need remote access, shared iTunes libraries, shared folders, and remote printing all that bad.

Then I ran across ShareTool 2 from Yazsoft. The concept is really simple... almost too simple. Apparently Yazsoft doesn’t subscribe to the “if it’s too good to be true” philosophy. Simply run ShareTool on the any of the machines you want to connect and you’re done!

I made a few tweaks to fit my needs, but the defaults are all pretty universal. ShareTool can startup when you log in to your Mac and connect to any, or all, of the other shared machines automatically. If you prefer, you can also enable ShareTool to start as a “background daemon” (which is tech-speak for allowing the app to run even when you’re not logged in). Very handy.

ShareTool 2 is cheap too. A two seat license (the minimum you’ll need) is only $25, and each additional machine costs only $10. Yazsoft is also giving away a free license to Attachments Menu and Unblunder when you purchase ShareTool... so it’s an amazing deal.

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20101017_Inline_Confirmation http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20101017_Inline_Confirmation Sun, 17 Oct 2010 21:40:00 -0800 Pixel Ark, and our first product, ChurchBulletin, started beta testing on October 1.

I’ll probably detail some more of the product here, but my favorite piece of the entire project (which consumed virtually every waking hour in September) is probably the inline archive/delete confirmation.




This is a much cleaner confirmation dialog than the standard javascript alert box. Having the final delete button be offset from the initial click prevents accidental deletion from double-clicking.

Positioning the confirmation box in such a way that the popup fits perfectly between the arrow and the selection count took a little work, but really pulled it all together.

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20100513_Naturally_Fresh http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20100513_Naturally_Fresh Thu, 13 May 2010 13:20:00 -0800 This app was a project for a great dressing, sauce, and dip company out of Georgia, Naturally Fresh. The free app has a recipe finder – highlighting all the things you can do with their products besides just put it on salads – which allows you to browse all of the recipes, or search by the type of meal you need to prepare. The app also shows off all of their different dressings, as well as offers a store locator.

This was my favorite screen to work on... the product fridge.

The free app launched today, and is available on the iTunes App Store.

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20100208_WhatKey_Launches http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20100208_WhatKey_Launches Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:54:00 -0800 WhatKey. Internally, we’ve been calling it CapSee’s Brother because it uses the same bezel notification that CapSee uses, but for a different purpose. WhatKey is designed to help you know what key Apple is telling you to hit with its keyboard shortcuts.




I use Macs exclusively, and I still do not know which key to hit when an app says to hit the ⌥ key. We created WhatKey to help with this. Simply hold down one of the modifiers keys for a couple of seconds (control, option, command) and a bezel will display showing you which symbol matches that key.

WhatKey runs in the background and only appears when you hold a key for a while, so it’s not intrusive or annoying.

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20100204_Apple_Portables http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20100204_Apple_Portables Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:32:00 -0800

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20100201_Jot_Icon http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20100201_Jot_Icon Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:34:00 -0800 Jot. We had the product about 90% complete and still had no name or icon when I woke up at 3 am with an idea for both. I’ve shared a couple final icon designs here before, but this time I thought I’d share the design process a bit more.


When I had my early morning epiphany, I thought about my old typewriter which sits on the shelf in the hallway outside my bedroom (similar to the photo here). I thought to myself, this is perfect... we’ll use the look of the old typewriter and the name, “Jot”. I’ll have a sheet of paper come out of the typewriter with the word “Jot” typed on it. I wanted to design it right then, but I wasn’t sure Craig would go for my idea, so instead I lost a few hours sleep.

As soon as Craig woke up and approved the idea, I sketched it on a sheet of paper. Funny side note, my scanner was acting up so I had to use my digital camera to take a photo of the sketch instead!



From there I started making the pieces of the icon as shapes. These are the numerous shapes and layers on top of the sketch.



One thing that was difficult for me on this design, is that I am an exact pixel kind of guy. Typically I setup 1,000 grids. The grids line up to the rulers, and everything line up to the grids. On this particular piece, I decided to try to build it without any grids at all. It was a fun challenge to change my usual habits.

After the shapes were put into place, I had to make each piece look real. I can’t explain exactly how I did that, but here’s the finished product.

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20100129_Does_the_iPad_Cost_Too_Much http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20100129_Does_the_iPad_Cost_Too_Much Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:00:00 -0800

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20100124_Mystery_Icon http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20100124_Mystery_Icon Sun, 24 Jan 2010 17:29:00 -0800 Craig and I are working on a follow-up utility to the successful CapSee app we made last week. We’re calling this one WhatKey. I can’t tell you what this one is going to do, but I wanted to show you the icon I came up with.

And yes... this one is actually a real utility. Not like our INSANELY popular CHOCKSEE utility (62,738 and counting).

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20100123_Does_Jesus_CHOCKLOCK http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20100123_Does_Jesus_CHOCKLOCK Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:53:00 -0800 Me: Did you see the latest tweet about CapSee? It’s not in English... looks Chinese or Japanese.

Farley: MOTHER OF MERCY I DON’T SPEAK JAPANESE!

Me: I used Google to translate. It says, “This is good, Jesus!”

Craig: Maybe Jesus will tweet how much he likes it too.

Me: I wonder if Jesus bumps his caps lock key.

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20100121_CapSee_is_7th http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20100121_CapSee_is_7th Thu, 21 Jan 2010 09:59:00 -0800 CapSee, has become the 7th most popular Apple download!


We’ve managed to displace some pretty big names in the Mac software community like Cyberduck, Stuffit, and Bento. And we’ve also topped a little known app called Google Earth. The six apps above us might be tough to nudge though. Still above us is Flip4Mac, Microsoft Messenger, Firefox, iWork, Quicktime, and iTunes.

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20100114_CapSee http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20100114_CapSee Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:01:00 -0800



Introducing CapSee... the latest (free) Mac OS app from Threemagination! Simply download, copy to your applications folder, and run. CapSee will run in the background and whenever you hit the caps lock key, you will see a bezel (like the image above).

Seems like every time I work on a new project with Craig, I get to do something I’ve never done before. This time was no different. In this case, I had to create the screen bezel images, the little icon you see in the upper menu, as well as the application icon. But this time around I had to make a DMG image (which is like a virtual disk), and so I had to create the layout you see once you open the virtual disk, seen here:

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20091223_Here_I_Am http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20091223_Here_I_Am Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:54:00 -0800 Here I Am this week.


Craig and I actually released two versions of the app. The first, Here I Am - SMS/Email, gets your location via the iPhone’s GPS and sends a text or email of your location to whomever you designate in the settings. This solved the issue Craig was having with his wife.

But as I was doing the initial testing of the app, I was standing in line for Space Mountain at Disneyland, and I wanted to be able to brag about this to a couple of my friends who really like the ride. I fired off a text to Craig and suggested we do a second version of Here I Am, and so Here I Am - Twitter was born. This version also gets your location via the phone’s GPS, but instead tweets your current location – a satellite image of your location – to your twitter feed! Great for bragging about being on the ski hill instead of stuck at work!

Both apps are on sale right now for only a buck each in the iTunes app store.

When I was doing the design for the app, I thought it would be cool to have a map overlay, and I decided to use some place real... an actual location somewhere in the world, as opposed to just making up streets and roads. Apple uses their headquarters for the map icon on the iPhone, but the area for Threemagination’s headquarters looks pretty boring. I moved on to trying important places in my life, like birth place... where I live, etc. But all of those places were boring to look at too! So instead I went for a location that just looked neat.

The Contest

Yesterday, Craig and I were discussing the location I chose... a location he still hasn’t found. I said, “It would be fun to see how many people could figure out were in the world this map is.” Craig seems to think if you let anyone and everyone try, you’d get someone to figure it out in under 10 minutes. So we decided to have a contest... and a little side bet between us.

On the Threemagination web site, you can try to guess where in the world this map is. All the details and rules are there. If you are the first to get it right, you get a $50 iTunes gift card. Even if you’re not first, you could win one of five $10 iTunes gift cards.

If someone gets it before the 10 minute mark, I have to buy Craig lunch. So I’m hoping no one is that clever!

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20091211_Benefits_of_a_Featured_App http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20091211_Benefits_of_a_Featured_App Fri, 11 Dec 2009 09:45:00 -0800 mentioned the process Craig and I went through when Numbrix (iTunes Link) became a featured iPhone app. Today I wanted to discuss the benefits of being featured and being listed in the “New and Noteworthy” section on the iTunes app store.


As you might expect, you get a significant jump in your sales from being featured. The day the game was featured, it started selling 10 times the volume it was selling prior to the placement. And while – as expected – those numbers didn’t hold once the featured placement was over, the numbers never dropped back to “pre-feature” levels.

Aside from additional sales – which was great, of course – being an iTunes featured app certainly has particular bragging rights associated with it. Being able to tell people that your app was one of the few that got that spot is actually pretty important. As Jeffrey Zeldman recently wrote regarding self-promotion, being able to tout your product obtained this unique position is worthy of being mentioned. You shouldn’t be ashamed to brag about it!

But from a pure sales standpoint, oddly enough, the featured banner is not the best position to be in the iTunes app store. At the time your banner would be one of three banners across the top of the app store. Now there are three that slide down, but the issue is the same. The banners switch, so occasionally your graphic isn’t showing at all. In the iPhone app store, there are only two banners showing, so your banner may never appear.

What Craig and I found was the “New and Noteworthy” section was much more valuable in terms of exposure and sales. Being listed here lasted the entire month of July, as opposed to only the single week. Additionally, our icon showed up in the “New and Noteworthy” section all of the time, unlike the on and off of the banner rotation I mentioned above. The icon showed up all of the time in the iPhone app store as well. As a result, we realized up to 30 times our normal sales volume during these weeks... three times what we got during the week of the featured placement!

We had a couple other fun mentions from Apple as well, and we didn’t expect some of the benefits we gained from these. For example, we were listed under “Staff Favourites” in the UK and Australia. (I thought maybe it would be in Canada too, since they use the extra “U” in words too... but not so much.) This introduced us to a large population of customers that we would not have otherwise reached, since Numbrix primarily only appears in US publications. Now we just have to figure out how to spend these British Pounds!

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20091210_Becoming_a_Featured_App http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20091210_Becoming_a_Featured_App Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:57:00 -0800 Numbrix (iTunes Link) for the iPhone, which is a game owned by Parade magazine. Getting a chance to work with Parade has been an amazing experience. Making that experience even more mind-blowing, the app got featured placement on iTunes app store. For an iPhone geek like me, it was definitely one of the highlights of my year! Since I haven’t seen people discuss it, I thought I would share how exactly becoming a featured app goes down.


In mid to late May we get an email from a gentleman at Apple, whom we will leave unnamed for this discussion. I can tell you this much, his email address was simply his first name at apple.com... and it was not Steve. Anyway, he tells us we “might” get featured, so we need to get some graphics put together... just in case.

This was rather tough. First off, we had to create a banner graphic knowing that we might not even get the placement. Second, we got the email at 4:52pm on a Tuesday, and needed to have the graphics back to him by the close of business that Friday! Third, Apple has pretty specific requirements on what these graphics had to be.

You have to provide Apple with two or three separate images.

The first is the title treatment/logo for the application. It has to be a vector graphic, or a minimum of 600x600 transparent PSD. It needs to be simple and easy to read if scaled down to a small size.

The second is the background. This can be a background image, a texture, a color, or a gradient, and it should correspond to the application or compliment the title treatment. This may include elements of the application, but should not include screenshots. It had to be a 900x530 layered PSD.

The third image is optional, which could be the company logo. They simply requested a high-res image with alpha channel.

Finally, Apple points out that they want the ability to place the title on the background “where it would best fit for the particular piece or web page being designed.” So you have to make your design in such a way that your title treatment can move around in any way that Apple sees fit once you pass along the various files to them.

I dropped everything I was working on to get something created. Keep in mind, I have to get this over to Parade for their approval before getting it back to our new friend at Apple! I manage to barely meet the Friday deadline... and then we wait. We are told that he’s going to suggest our app for the featured placement in their monthly meeting. At this point, I think there were about 50,000 apps in the store that we are competing with for the coveted space. We were told we might not hear anything back, we’ll just have to keep watching the store to see if it goes up. We did know that it wasn’t suppose to be for the month of June, so to keep an eye out the first Sunday in July when they do their next change.

The first week of July rolled around, and we checked the featured apps. Numbrix was not there. We were very disappointed. But then we looked down an inch and there’s this space called, “New and Noteworthy”, and smack dab in the middle of that section is the Numbrix icon. Craig and I figured this wasn’t a bad consolation prize!



Tomorrow, I will cover the benefits of this placement versus the featured placement.

But after the emotional roller-coaster ride, becoming comfortable with our “noteworthy” status, and a couple of weeks, we actually got featured placement!



The app has been reviewed in MacWorld, a magazine I’ve been reading since I was a kid. It’s been featured in iTunes, as well as receiving several other choice mentions from Apple. With those personal accomplishments, aside from getting to drive a firetruck, I can’t think of any other boy-like fantasies I need to fulfill to make my life complete!

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20090521_Twist_It http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20090521_Twist_It Thu, 21 May 2009 08:36:00 -0800 Twist It is a gimmicky app for the iPhone. The point of the app is to pretend your phone is the grip of your bike and Twist It to hear your bike rev up. Again, the app developer needed an icon that visually explains what this app does.

I created the generic grip in Photoshop horizontally level. I created a flat layer, adding monochromatic noise, and used the warp tool to “wrap” the layer around the grip for a more realistic feel.


The twisted arrow was broken down into two groups of layers. The front group was made using three shapes, plus one layer for the effects. The back of the arrow is a single layer, with a mask to hide the parts I don’t need.

Once the grip looked right, I created a copy of all of the layers and flattened it. Then I used the distort option to get the perfect angle.

The actual graphic that was submitted to Apple did not have the rounded corners or the glare that you see here. The app developer submitted it without the effects and let the App Store add in the effects after the fact.

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20090413_Ideas http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20090413_Ideas Mon, 13 Apr 2009 09:57:00 -0800 We launched our latest free project today. It’s a simple little web app that Craig and I made to help us keep track of project ideas. Since the concept worked so well for us, we decided to make it available for everyone.

It’s pretty simple. For each app idea you have, simply enter five things: name, description, price, dev time, and type (iPhone or web app). Then drag them around on screen in the order you think they should be done. That’s it! It also has some nice features like collaboration and notifications.

More information and a fully working demo are available here.

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20090216_zCalc http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20090216_zCalc Mon, 16 Feb 2009 09:27:00 -0800 The primary use of zCalc is to determine how much material one needs given the dimensions of an area. The developer asked if I could make a suitable icon. I felt the icon should incorporate a tape measure and, logically, a calculator.

I grabbed my tape measure out of the garage and sketched several angle shots. None of the initial concepts gave the user any indication of what the app did, and the more detailed ideas were too difficult to see when sized down to standard icon size.


Finally, after staring at my tape measure – and a checkerboard Photoshop canvas – for way too long, it hit me. The side profile is already the shape of the standard rounded corner app icons! (Duh.) Using the side profile conveniently provided the circle area where most tape measurers display their branding... perfect placement for calculator buttons. Rounded buttons best fit the design, so I went with buttons that were reminiscent of almost identical to the original iPhone’s calculator icon.

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]]> http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20090214_About_Darren http://www.darrenbeckett.com/20090214_About_Darren Sat, 14 Feb 2009 13:03:00 -0800 Threemagination, an “ideas studio” in Southern California, owned by myself and my friend, Craig. My role in the company mostly deals with the interface design, but I also have been known to dive into the code. This is a journal that talks about some of the fun stuff I’ve been working on.


darrenbeckett.com was created using my own blog software. After several attempts at trying the big ones, I gave up and made my own. At some point I plan to wrap it up into a nice package and allow others to use it. But chances are, by the time I get around to it, blogging will be so 2009.

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