Thank you Steve.

Our friends at Realmac have just launched the latest version of their award winning app for creating beautiful websites in minutes. And we’re very proud to be a part of RapidWeaver 5 – with completely seamless integration of GoSquared’s real-time analytics tools.

If you’ve purchased a copy of Realmac RapidWeaver 5, you’re entitled to sign up to GoSquared for free on the RapidWeaver plan and monitor any websites you may have with up to 10,000 pageviews per month, and a completely ad free interface.

For more information on RapidWeaver 5, head on over to the Realmac site. For more information and support documentation on integrating GoSquared with your RapidWeaver site(s) head on over to our support site.

We’d love your feedback, so feel free to get in touch at any time! Enjoy.

It’s been too long since we gave away anything on Liquidicity, so here’s a few icons we’ve been working on.

Unlike our previous icons, these aren’t vector. Don’t cry yet. They’re pixel perfect and were made using an app I’ve been using and learning for many months now called DrawIt. The main benefit to making icons at the size you need them (not as vectors) is that from the start you can ensure the icons look great and are crystal clear at the size they need to be displayed.

Apple Wired Keyboard

Apple wired keyboard icon – PNG without shadow, PNG with shadow, and original DrawIt file download.

Apple Wireless Keyboard

Apple wireless keyboard icon – PNG without shadow, PNG with shadow, and original DrawIt file download.

Apple MacBook-Style Keyboard

Apple MacBook-style keyboard icon. This product doesn’t actually exist, but we made it anyway. PNG without shadow, PNG with shadow, and original DrawIt file download.

Apple MacBook Pro

Apple MacBook Pro 15″ icon. A whole MacBook Pro, free to download. PNG without shadow, PNG with shadow, and original DrawIt file download.

I’m using DrawIt more and more for interface work on our LiveStats application. I highly recommend the app if you do a lot of user interface design and need your icons, buttons, and other elements to be pixel perfect. Pieter Omvlee is a fantastic developer and provides fantastic support. Something Adobe will never, ever, EVER give.

We hope you like the icons.

It seems pretty clear that the future of Apple (and general human interaction with computers) is touch based.

Apple’s responsible for kickstarting the touch screen revolution with the iPhone, so why would they do anything other than push themselves as far as possible along the trajectory they’ve already begun? When you consider the possibility of Apple building a device that not only sits alongside your iPhone, but replaces your MacBook, the game changes. Whatever Apple’s tablet finally shows up as, I’m pretty sure it’ll be more “this is the end of keyboard and mouse computing as we know it” than “oh it’s a big iPhone”.

Many people seem to assume that the keyboard and mouse are here to stay for the foreseeable future, and one of the main reasons they cite is that you can gain pixel level accuracy with a mouse and cursor. The tablet, if it becomes the MacBook replacement many have suggested, will not rely on finger input alone. Sure you’ll never need anything more than your fingers (on both hands) to use the device, but I think there are a number of scenarios where using a pen or stylus (or whatever you want to call it) could be incredibly useful.

The Tablet is to Production what the iPhone is to Consumption.

Artists may not be the core target audience for the Tablet (or at least that’s what I thought until seeing the invite), but when you consider how many creatives purchase Wacom graphics tablets, and that Wacom can can be the size of company it is through selling graphics tablets alone, this market segment is not insignificant. Perhaps my opinions are swayed being the graphic designer I am, but having a 10″ Tablet that I could draw directly on with a beautiful aluminium pen would make my life considerably better – I could save a fortune on Moleskines.

With regards to text input, I don’t think I should even begin to pretend I have worked out what Apple has decided upon. After 4-10 years of development time, text input on the Tablet could be a completely new concept, or (more likely) a very smart implementation of text input that we’re already at least slightly familiar with. My guess is that we will see handwriting recognition in some form, and if so, likely not see an onscreen keyboard. Just as Apple encouraged the use of the mouse over the keyboard with the first Mac, whatever they perceive as the best method of text input, we will likely end up being forced to use.

As many have already pointed out, text entry on a 10 inch display is not the same as text entry on an iPhone-size display. The iPhone is designed to be used with one hand free, and only rarely requires both hands for efficient use. The Tablet will likely require both hands for operation at most times – one to hold and one to touch the screen when in portrait mode.

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Another little pre-Christmas treat from us at GoSquared – the iMac in all it’s glory, in vector form.
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So Apple’s Media Event (on the memorable date of 09.09.09) is done and dusted, the new iPods are on the shelves of every Apple Store you care to visit, and iTunes 9 is most likely sitting on millions of people’s desktops.

But what’s changed? I’m pleased to say quite a few things, in varying degrees of magnitude. Most of the changes to the iTunes app itself are subtle, but could be good indicators of where Apple’s UI intentions are heading. Then there’s the iTunes Store which has seen its biggest overhaul yet. There’s no shortage of design tweaks to have a look at and learn from.

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As what seems like the entire world knows, WWDC is tomorrow.

We are all looking forward to seeing what’s in store for the final version of the 3.0 firmware for the iPhone – we all know it’s going to contain more than what we’ve been shown, but we don’t know what more.

Everyone also, with good reason, expects new iPhone hardware tomorrow. Some expect a new iPhone with a few updates over the existing 3G. Some expect a new iPhone which goes all out to be the best video taking device ever. Some expect a number of new iPhones, right from a tiny “nano” iPhone with 4GB of memory, all the way up to a “pro” iPhone with 32GB memory and every feature a power user could ever need for the next 3 years.

New Hardware

Personally, I think tomorrows announcements will follow Apple’s style over the last 2 years – there will be one new iPhone, and it will introduce new hardware features that will be tempting, but not mind blowing. By this, I mean I think there will be the much rumoured digital compass – that allows, with GPS, for the iPhone to know exactly where you are, and what way you’re facing; there will be a slightly upgraded camera, with a 3.2MP sensor, and (more important to image quality than the average consumer realises) an auto focus lens. I think the 3G will get faster, with AT&T and a number of other carriers upgrading their 3G networks to double their existing speeds.

Better Processor. Better RAM.

The much more noticeable changes to the iPhone hardware will be the core power of the device. If we see a doubling (or more likely, an increase of 50%) of CPU speed, and perhaps a doubling of RAM, the iPhone OS will suddenly feel incredibly fast. I would already argue that the 3.0 firmware, which we have been using for the last month at GoSquared, is far less sluggish than when we were all running 2.2, so these small optimisations, combined with dramatically increased CPU and RAM will pave the way towards improvements on an already very slick mobile OS. In fact, many complaints about the speed of internet access on the iPhone will be addressed by a faster CPU – web page rendering is where most of the bottlenecks occur, not as is a common misconception, at the data transfer point.

That Front Facing Camera

There has been a lot of talk about the next iPhone including a front facing video camera for video chat and for Photo Booth style self mockery. However, I can’t see this happening this year. Apple has filed a ton of patents on video conferencing with the iPhone, between iPhones, and between Macs and iPhones. When Apple finally allow video chat on the iPhone, and they will, it will be fantastic. But I don’t think they’ll do this tomorrow, for a number of reasons. Considering Apple has not even mentioned video to developers, who are building apps for the 3.0 release, and considering not one developer, or any “reliable” source has even so much as hinted at the possibility of video chat capabilities, I have my doubts. Then take into consideration the already overloaded 3G networks of AT&T and others due to the amount of bandwidth-hungry iPhone owners out there, and imagine what an influx of thousands of 2 way video calling iPhone owners would do…

I really would love to be proven wrong on this one – I want video calling on my iPhone. The US market, in fact, doesn’t always notice how commonplace it is in Europe and elsewhere – in the UK, the 2 phones I owned before my iPhone 2G both were capable of video calling. That was FOUR years ago. Yet, in the UK especially, video calling on phones has never taken off as it should have. It will be Apple who get the world speaking face to face on a phone. But to do that will take time. And my gut feeling is we’ll see that next year. Not tomorrow.

Oh, and that “spy shot” above? Gimme a break. The Ui while you’re in a video call will never be as cluttered as that. Expect something as minimal as the current audio call screen, without the large “merge, number keypad, mute, etc” icons overlaid.

A couple of Sketches

I decided to do a few quick sketches of what I reckon the new iPhone may look like based on the rumours that have been circulating. I sketched them on paper because 1) I didn’t have enough time to do anything in Photoshop, 2) I can’t use Maya to save my life, and 3) If I made them look at all realistic I would get at least 5 haters shouting FAKE – PHOTOSHOPPED. So, here are my honest, simple, quick sketches of how very similar the next iPhone may look.

And another, the Leopard style dock, in retrospect, won’t happen.

One More Thing

I know Apple applied for a patent on this last year. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure why – Microsoft (gasp) have had a start screen like this for years. Either way, I want Apple to implement the option for me to see what’s happening today on my Unlock Screen. If not, I may consider jailbreaking.

Hope you like the suggestion, Apple. And I hope we’re pleasantly surprised by the announcements tomorrow. Heck, I haven’t even mentioned Snow Leopard. Although, then again, neither has Apple. Except one very nice banner.

Happy WWDC everyone.

Introducing GoSquared’s latest world changing project – iPhoneFAIL.org. If you’ve ever suffered from a failing iPhone, a stupidly buggy app, or just come across an error that you thought was laughable, you can now share your angst with the rest of the world.

If you have an account with GoSquared (including Liquidicity) then you can sign in and comment with the same username and password etc. We like to make things easy for you.

All in all, we’ll let you check it out for yourselves – we’ve kept things nice and simple so you can just focus what’s important – the FAILs.

Hope you like it,

The GoSquared team.

We’re pleased to bring you our latest icon set, the current (as of March 2009) line of Apple iPods in vector format.

Sure, there are only four icons here, but we’ve put as much effort into these four as we have done for our larger icon sets. We’ve aimed to make them as realistic as possible – from the subtle glare on the iPod touch, right down to the chrome switch on the new iPod shuffle.

As you can see, we’ve recreated the wonderful work of Johnny Ive and his team in Adobe Illustrator for your icon using pleasure. There’s a current (as of March 2009) generation shuffle, nano, classic, and touch ready and waiting to be used. So what are you waiting for?

For those of you new to GoSquared – we help people improve their websites. GoSquared real-time web analytics enables you to understand what’s happening on your site right now. We run this blog, on design, technology and marketing to share our thoughts and content with wonderful people like you in the hope that you’ll also try GoSquared.

Get the Adobe Illustrator CS2 File (1.6MB)

Don’t have Adobe Illustrator? Download the SVG.

We hope you like them and as always you’re free to use them however you wish, as long as that’s OK with Apple. Is that OK with you, Steve?

If you like this and any of our other icon work we always appreciate a link back. If you really like this and our other icons, please consider giving us a little monetary incentive for us to produce another set in the near future. You’ll be glad you did, we promise!

Pay whatever you want

We put considerable effort into the resources we make. We’re asking anyone who actually gets some use out of these icons and buttons to pay for them, and for the time we spent creating them. We won’t set the price point, so pay whatever you like. Hate them? Don’t pay anything!

Using these icons commercially

If you want to use these icons and buttons commercially (on your company’s website, in client work, in any scenario where you’ll be profiting from the work they’re in) then we kindly request that you donate at least $40 to justify the time and effort we’ve put in to creating them. It wasn’t a small job, and your money goes directly back in to creating more quality design resources.

You may also like some of our other icon sets: 64 Vector Arrow Icons, 40 Vector Icons for your Photo Editing App, 85 Vector Window Icons, 40 Vector Icons for Apple Products, and many more.

Apple’s latest version of Safari is out (in beta), with some evolutionary interface changes, and a dramatically faster javascript processing engine. The release of Safari 4 was not anticipated by any of the typical rumour sites, so it came as a surprise to just about everyone. As always, though, it was no surprise to see Apple’s bright and simple marketing pages selling the browser as the best thing since sliced bread.

The Mac maker’s marketing team appear to have had a field day promoting all 150 of the fantastic new features of their latest browser. But is everything they say completely true? Have they pushed the boundaries of honesty with their sensationalist slogans? Taking a look at the list of new features, I started to get a little suspicious. Just about none of the new features listed on Apple’s website are original – most are already out there in other browsers, having already been invented by the likes of Google, Mozilla, and the open source community. Or they’ve actually been features in Safari already, but Apple are drawing more attention to them in this release.

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