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 design and engineer web applications for site owners to monitor their traffic and earn more money from their Site. We run Liquidicity, the blog on design & technology to share our thoughts and content with wonderful people like you in the hope that one day you'll use our products.

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!

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.

The main new features list promoted by Apple:

• Top sites: suspiciously like Chrome's "most visited" section on opening a new tab. But of course it's all shiny and in 3D, which makes meel feel like I'm in the Matrix - so I like that bit.
• CoverFlow: OK, this isn't currently in any browser, but we got there first!
• Full History Search: this has been around in Opera for a rather long time (since the betas of version 9.5 back in September 2007), and was actually available to some extent in the previous version of Safari - they promoted it as a "new" feature back then.
• Tabs on top: Chrome - did we even need to say? But that said, Opera again had the idea of putting the tabs above the addressbar waaay back in the day. They could at least put the little favicons in the top corner to help easily identify different sites on different tabs - isn't that the point of a favicon?
• Nitro Engine (Squirrel Fish wasn't up to scratch for Apple's Marketing Department): notice how in the performance graphs they've subtlely left off Firefox 3.2 and Chrome 2.0 betas, both of which have amazingly fast javascript engines.
• Windows native look and feel: I could go on and on about this for ages, but I won't. The transparent tabs are really quite ugly (Chrome definitely had the better idea there) and the whole thing with darkening the inactive areas of the title bar really doesn't do it for me. Plus it's all misaligned in the Windows 7 beta. But all the same, even in vista, where it does work - I still much prefer chrome for simple native interface feel.


Good one Apple. However, both Safari 4 and Windows 7 are still in beta, so I'll let Apple off for this one.



Seriously, what's going on there? Which would you choose?

• Developer Tools: Is it just me, or hasn't this been in Safari for a while now? I use the developer tools in Safari 3 all the time (all the time I actually even use Safari that is - Firefox FTW!) I can see they've changed the icons from Safari 3 in the web inspector, but other than that can anyone point out to me what they've added?

Ok, I won't go into a huge wealth of detail about all the other features, but here's a couple more from the 150 features page that were tagged as new which really caught my attention:

• Full page zoom: Unbelievably, the first time I came across this was in IE. I don't know if it was around before then though.
• Phishing and malware protection: IE again unbelievably.
• Smart address field: Firefox Awesome Bar, and then the Chrome Omnibox.
• Inline Progress Indicator: Firstly, this isn't new, even for Safari, and more importantly, it looks to me suspiciously like this has been taken out rather than introduced.

Acid 3

And then there's Acid3. I don't like being too pedantic about this matter, but the Acid3 test isn't just about getting a pixel-perfect rendering. To pass the test, the animation has to be smooth as well. I've tested the beta on a couple of different platforms and while it produces an absolutely infallable rendering, the animation is by no means smooth. Test 69 continually takes more than 50 attempts to succeed. So when Apple are professing to be the "first browser to pass Acid3", they are actually wrong in that they're not the first (Opera betas have passed before this one), and they don't actually pass the test! What really puzzles me about this matter is that all the WebKit nightly builds for quite a long time now have passed perfectly with a perfectly smooth animation. So have Apple put a 6 month old version of WebKit into "the World's most innovative browser"? It would appear so.

Toolbar Troubles

The toolbar is only a gripe for the Windows version - it's slightly different in OS X because the menu bar is separated so a few buttons are differently arranged, but the issue can be summed up very well with a simple screenshot:

Spot the difference anyone?

See what I mean? Just for those of you who don't recognise it, the top one's the toolbar from Google Chrome, and the bottom one's the latest Safari. There's just the tiniest bit of a similarity there methinks.

The idea of compressing the main menu bar into a couple of dropdown buttons is quite established (first seen in IE7 I believe), but the simple fact that the two toolbars are so alike is what bothers me. Back and forward buttons at the beginning: a standard UI convention that makes perfect sense. Add bookmark button attached to the left side of the address bar: getting a little bit suspicious. Then the address bar is a bit different (as an aside, I think the refresh button is in the wrong place, but maybe that's aimed at users who have only just got used to the fact that IE decided to put it there too for no reason). The refresh button's new location is also a result of its placement within Mobile Safari on iPhone. But then there are the two dropdown buttons. Now I know these aren't there on the mac, but that's because the menu bar's already at the top of the screen so there's no need for them. Still - they're EXACTLY the same buttons effectively. Come on - they've even nicked one of the icons! OK so the actual content of the two dropdowns is slightly different, but the sheer fact that they are both essentially for the same purpose in both browsers shows unquestionable similarity to Chrome.

On the plus side, the installer for the latest beta FINALLY no longer insists on adding an icon to my quick launch, as per the latest Windows 7 guidelines. Many's the time I've got inordinately annoyed by icons appearing after every time I run an Apple Software Update. I appreciate that one Apple.

And of course I love the fact that the wording of their info pages implies that Safari has only 150 features. That's all. No more. Wouldn't be much of a browser if that were true.

I think that's just about enough ranting for now. The point is, these features may not all be entirely original, but I'll admit bringing them together in one browser makes a pretty good package overall (apart from the Windows interface I don't really like). Let us know what you think on the matter, especially those of you who, like me, aren't complete Macheads (like James.)

Update: June 9th 2009
Following yesterday's launch of the final version of Safari 4, some of my gripes have been fixed.

• Apple have obviously seen the light and put tabs back where they belong. Which is good, because I personally couldn't see the visual appeal of having them at the top. They basically just looked awful on both the mac and windows versions.
• Along with that, the Windows Native Look and Feel, as they call it, is therefore greatly improved. No more of those silly shadow effects along the title bar.
• The refresh button has now taken on its own special little "Loading" message in a blue box while the page is loading, much better than the pathetic little spinner they had in the beta.
• And a few other things that I can't quite put my finger on, but which do make the general experience better than it was in beta

However (and sorry for this), there are still a few things that really get up my nose...

• The toolbar's still the same, a Chrome ripoff. OK, I wasn't expecting Apple to go and drastically change it from the beta, so I won't go on. I did enough ranting about that earlier.
• Acid3. Aaahh, good old Acid3. Come on Apple, you've been going on about 100% compliance for a while now and you're just about getting there. But still, although the rendering's great, the speed still falls down in test 69. Now I know the speed is somewhat hardware-dependent, but I've run it on a couple of machines with pretty decent specs, and it still isn't up to scratch. I'll just take this opportunity to reiterate that old WebKit nightly builds were coping fine, ages ago. But there you go...
• And maybe I spoke too soon about the installer not putting icons everywhere. Apple Software Update still insists on shoving shortcuts in my desktop and quick launch. I don't need them! They just clutter everything up! If I wanted shortcuts there, I'd have put them there in the first place on the original install!

And I know this is advertised as a bit of a rant, and well I suppose it is. But in all honesty it is a bit harsh. Safari's a pretty damn decent browser, truth be told. But I'll stick with Firefox for now - FireBug just has the edge over Safari's developer tools for me, at the moment anyway.

Continuing from yesterday's post on Managing multiple photos on the iPhone, here's a suggestion of how much better app sorting and selection could be via iTunes.

We didn't come up with this concept, but it's impressive to see what could be done. Recent findings (after asking around on Twitter) showed the majority of people seem to download their apps directly to their iPhone (rather than download to iTunes and then sync) but this way of sorting could encourage people to plug in their iPhones a little more often.

The current method of organising and syncing apps with your iPhone in iTunes is not good enough right now. Apple, in a way, had to guess the way millions of people would download, organise, use, and delete apps on their iPhones an iPod Touches, and they did a pretty good job given how well things work right now. However, organising apps in iTunes has always been one of those areas that has seemed like an after thought.

Perhaps Apple have more in store? I have a feeling the Home Screen might change more than we expect in OS 3.0. Will we see a more effective way of organising our growing numbers of applications? It's been a long time since a major iPhone OS update, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Apple haven't been sitting around waiting for the competition to catch up.

If we can select multiple emails in Mail, and delete or move them to another folder in one go, then why can't we do the same with our photos on the iPhone?

Deleting Multiple Photos

This puzzled me the other day when I had been on a little photo taking spree. I ended up with a load of shots that were great. But an even greater load of shots that were dreadful. Deleting the multitude of dreadful photos was a real pain - the only way to do it at the moment is to touch each thumbnail, hit the trash icon, and then "Delete Photo" on the slide up "are you sure?" pane.

So, for me to delete 10 photos, it takes 3 touches (or taps?) each. That, for those without a calculator to hand is a whole THIRTY touches. And that's assuming all of the photos you wish to delete are next to one another. If they're not then you might have to touch the "back to camera roll" button at the top and then scroll to find another dreadful photo, then touch that. A real pain.

If we could delete photos in my proposed way, then we would reduce it down to 3 clicks plus one click for each photo you wish to delete. Touch the "Edit" button at the top > Touch the thumbnail image of each photo you wish to delete > Touch "Delete (#) > Then confirm with "Delete Photos".

Sending Multiple Photos

Similarly, it's pretty annoying if you ever need to email more than one photo to someone. There is at least one app currently available that is solving this problem, aptly named "Multi-Photo Email". That app is pretty much as good as it's going to get from 3rd party offerings, but it's not what I would call a complete solution to an integral missing feature. To send multiple photos with my proposed solution, you would do the same as for multiple delete, but hit "Send" rather than "Delete" (pretty obvious that one).

Rearranging Photos

A third useful, but not essential feature would be the ability to rearrange photos. Currently, photos are arranged in chronological order which makes perfect sense. Since the ability to take screen shots on the iPhone though, I have often found that I would prefer to be able to rearrange my Camera Roll to group screen shots separately from actual photos. Maybe that's just me, but it wouldn't be too much of a crazy idea seeing as you can rearrange Apps on the Home Screen, re-order towns in Weather, ticker symbols in Stocks, time zones in Clock, etc. etc.

All in all, it would make me that tiny bit happier to have the functionality to manage multiple photos easily in such a regularly used application.

Just a last minute idea, but being able to share photos via Flickr and Facebook (as you can with MobileMe) would be nice too. iPhoto 09 is ahead of the iPhone in that respect. Perhaps we'll have to wait for iPhone OS 3.0 before we start cluttering that slide-up menu too much eh?

Update

Hey, it looks like Apple are on the same wavelength as us (again!) as the new iPhone 3.0 firmware allows you to send multiple photos via email with a method almost identical to the one we've suggested here. They've even gone for the same red "tick" icons. I'm not sure if there's a way to rearrange photos yet, but this is definitely a very welcome feature addition to see.