Just a quick link to the CocoaCast Podcast. They have an interview released today with me talking about my company, mobile development, design and some of the things that we’re doing. Listen here.
Archive for January, 2009
A better iPhone tip Calculator
Jan 09
17
One of the very first things I did when the iPhone came out was to write a little free web based tip calculator. This was mostly a tool to learn about the web-capabilities of the iPhone while writing a simple tool. We decided we could do much better with a native application. Our new version is available today.
For this application we really wanted to do a scenario based design. We had three core scenarios in mind:
1) I go to lunch or dinner and figure out a tip
2) I go to dinner with friends and split the check with a tip
3) I go to dinner with friends and one person just gets a salad and everyone else gets a full meal with drink.
Most tip calculators get you to Scenario 1 or 2. Scenario 1 is pretty easy we need the bill total and the tip percentage and we can quickly compute the tip amount.
Scenario 2 was a little more complex but not much. We perform the original calculation and then just divide the total bill and the tip line up between the number of people.
Scenario 3 was when it got a little more interesting and I think this is a unique feature I haven’t seen anywhere else. We allow the user to go into the details of the bill and manually adjust each dinners check.
If one person had an extra drink you use the slider or plus/minus arrows to adjust their price and everyone price adjusts automatically. This can also be used as people are putting money into a pile. You can quickly see who has put in how much and what amount is left. If you adjust a slider it stays fixed allowing you to move to the next diner.
Our calculator allows you to see if you have an underpayment or an overpayment. This makes it easier to ask everyone to chip in another buck or two as needed.
The visual design of the application is styled to look like a restaurant napkin. While this doesn’t impact the functionality it makes for a fun and attractive design that we hope people will enjoy sharing and using with their friends.
We learned an interesting usability lesson in building this applicatoin. It turns out that it’s critical to test on actual hardware and not just on a simulator. For most of our basic development we built the application and tested it in the iPhone simulator software. It was only when we got it on an actual device that we discovered that the slider bars can be a little tricky to adjust at a fine granularity. If you had a $90 bill the slider can go from 0 to 90 and making fine level adjustments with your finger can be quite difficult. After usability testing this we decided to add the plus and minus icons to make fine grain control a little easier. We also made it possible to just hold down the plus/minus and allow the button to repeat as an added way to help peeople get the price right.
There’s a lot of subteltly in building applications for mobile devices. We hope you like this one.
Download our new tip calculator from the App Store for $0.99
IPhone Application Design
Jan 09
9
I’m going to talk about four of our recent iPhone projects that we’ve been working on at Raizlabs. Two of them have shipped two have not. We started developing for the iPhone over the summer of 2008 and have had a fun ride. The mobile UI design space is quite different from traditional web-design in that it forces you to think about application design in a whole new way.
In the process we developed some tools to help other designers. Make sure to check out our iPhone wireframe toolkit.
RunKeeper
This was our first large application, we were approached by a new Boston start up looking to enter the fitness space. We discussed a number of ideas including a web-dashboard, GPS integration and other technologies. We hit upon the idea of creating a mobile version of a GPS watch.
This was before the iPhone 3G was announced so we were taking a risk that the upcoming phone would in fact have GPS capabilities. The value proposition was simple, why buy an expensive GPS running watch when you can get a low cost iPhone application to do the same thing.
The user scenario oriented around a runner who would start their music and start a run. The display had to be easy to read while running and provide easy to read and easy to understand information.
Through several iterations we discovered how many customers are actually bikers, hikers and the various ways that GPS data and accuracy can vary based on where you are and what you’re doing.
The application has won many awards and has been featured in a number of newspapers, blogs and other publications. RunKeeper continues to evolve as we disect deeper interaction problems and continue to refine the end user experience.
You can download RunKeeper and get additional information here
Loan Lite Mortgage Calculator
Loan Lite started off as an exploration by our summer intern, Justin. The goal was to develop an application that had one user interface page, was meant to be used in a mobile scenario, could be developed in about a week and sold for at least $0.99.
We explored a number of ideas and decided that a mortgage calculator could solve a problem for house-hunters or real-estate agents on the go. Figuring out mortgage calculations isn’t rocket science but it’s also something that people tend to need while away from their PC’s. We also felt that the utility of the application far outweighed the .99 cent cost, especially considering the typical price of a home.
We did a competitive analysis of existing calculators and found that many didn’t offer adjustments for home owner fees, insurance and similar considerations when trying to determine a monthly payment.
The application was put together over the course of a couple weeks and served as a good foundation for learning objective C.
This mortgage calculator is available from the iTunes app store.
A note to comp-sci students in the Boston area. We’re always looking for talented and driven people for summer internships.
Word Popper
Word Popper is our first design exploration into mobile games. We wanted to design a simple game that could be played solo while waiting for the bus or train but also incorporated an online multi-player component.
We wanted to create a fast moving game so unlike Boggle or Wurdle where you have to string nearby letters together to form a word we allow the user to pop letters anywhere to create words as fast as they can.
This creates a fast moving casual game that can be played by crossword junkies, scrabble and boggle lovers and casual users alike. The online component allows users to play the same board as other users and compete for high-scores.
Designing for a game is very different from designing a typical website in that you’re more free to explore effects such as animations, buzzers and sounds. The most interesting thing about game design is usability. The main purpose isn’t to accomplish a specific task but to have fun.
You can download Word Popper from the store here.
JetSetter App
JetSetter is a experiment in psychology and economics of high-end products. The majority of iPhone application are currently targeted at the low-cost or free side of the market. The assumption is that to generate the greatest profit you need to generate a ton of demand. To generate a ton of demand you need to have a low price point. For this reason you see many low cost apps.
Unfortunately for application developers having a low price point no-longer guarantees high demand. We wanted to try something different.
JetSetter was designed as a high-end game. In fact we plan to make it the most expensive game that Apple will allow at $999. While some may view this as outrageous this is intentional because we want the game to be more exclusive. A limited audience may garner a premium price.
The object of the game is to travel around the world on your private jet and accumulate points for the distance you travel. What’s that? You don’t have a private jet? Well then you probably can’t afford this game either.
The game explores the high-end of the iPhone application market a section of the mobile space that has been mostly ignored.
In the $0.99 cent world we need to sell over 14,000 copies to make 10K. While in the $999 world we only need to sell about 14. This means that smaller more specialized high-end apps can in theory be very profitable.
Weather or not this model for applications will work is yet to be seen. The application includes some interesting social features to make it appealing to an exclusive crowd. The application isn’t yet available but keep an eye out on JetSetterApp.com if you have a Jet or fancy yourself as a JetSetter and think you can afford it.