This week’s episode of Virtual was recorded straight after Nintendo Direct on January 14th. Expect conversation about Majora’s Mask, amiibo, the new 3DS and so much more.
On yesterday’s Virtual, we talked about the Nintendo Direct announcements and discussed some games we’ve been playing lately. You can listen to the episode here.
Sponsored by:
Danah Boyd makes an important point about Andrew Watts’ article on teenagers and social media:
Andrew’s depiction of his peers’ use of social media is a depiction of a segment of the population, notably the segment most like those in the tech industry. In other words, what the tech elite are seeing and sharing is what people like them would’ve been doing with social media X years ago. It resonates. But it is not a full portrait of today’s youth. And its uptake and interpretation by journalists and the tech elite whitewashes teens practices in deeply problematic ways.
Many (including myself) failed to mention that Watts’ article was only reflective of a segment of teenagers who use social networks in the US. Danah’s comments on Twitter and Ferguson are especially apt: some teenagers may not see the point of Twitter, but the network proved to be an essential information sharing tool for many citizens of Ferguson through the use of hashtags, photos, Vines, videos uploaded elsewhere, and more. Danah’s post is an important reminder and I recommend reading it.
Studio Neat’s Dan Provost writes about how they integrated Apple Pay in the latest version of their iPhone app, Slow Fast Slow:
Integrating Apple Pay into the app wasn’t too difficult, but it wasn’t trivial, either. In a future post we will dive into the nuts and bolts of how we implemented Apple Pay. As far as we know, we are the first “indie” company to utilize it in an app.
We are excited to see how this integration affects sales. In theory, it is now much easier to purchase a Glif, so hopefully sales will trend upward, even as traffic to our site moves downward. We are also offering free shipping on the Glif, if purchased with Apple Pay; to grease the wheels, as it were. If you want to check out the redesigned ad with Apple Pay integration, simply tap the S/N logo on the home screen of Slow Fast Slow. If you are on a device that doesn’t support Apple Pay, the buy button is replaced with a button to studioneat.com.
Slow Fast Slow is an excellent app for slow-motion videos and I’m looking forward to playing with the new version (especially now that I have a new friend who will soon want to run and jump daily). I think it’s clever that Studio Neat is leveraging software to sell hardware and the experience of buying with Apple Pay in-app is intuitive and fast. I hope the experiment goes well.
Every day, people all over the world are clicking, tapping, typing, and touching and dragging things on glass screens. Our ability to use all this fancy technology with ease didn’t happen overnight. So how did we end up here?
I enjoyed Dave Wiskus’ video on the history of user interfaces and how we went from keyboard input to the first PDAs, skeuomorphic interfaces, and multitouch. A great complement to Neven Mrgan’s video. You can watch it below.
I missed this talk by Allen Pike of Steamclock Software (they make Party Monster, which is great) when it came out, and I highly recommend it. With a focus on indie developers, Allen explains what he means for Maximum Viable Products and how developers should look at the App Store market. Even without writing software, I can relate to this. You can watch the video below.
Well, I think a lot of us are out there, quietly doing just fine. HoursTracker had its best year ever in 2014, and five years of best ever years before that. If you can solve an important problem in a way that resonates with a sizable group of people, you can find success. There’s always room for a fresh take on an already well-served problem, too.
We often hear about the frustrations of indie developers who are trying to make a living on the App Store, which has essentially become the default narrative for many (I often talk about this topic, too). Carlos Ribas, developer of HoursTracker, has a good article about the opposite scenario and how he managed to turn his app into a profitable business. Well worth a read to get a fresh and different perspective, and a good reminder that there are indie developers who are doing fine after years on the App Store.
We could sit and listen to Neven talk forever. Like so many of our interviewees, the guy has insight for days and the work to back it up. We knew this gem in particular would be a great addition to the ongoing conversation around design aesthetic. So we’re letting it fly the nest early for your enjoyment.
One of the projects I’m most excited about is App: The Human Story, which I covered last year.
I believe this is a project that matters because the stories of people behind apps go largely unnoticed. Covering the details and stories of apps has always been one of my personal motivations behind this site, but a blog can only do so much to expose the general public to what it means to be an app maker.
The team has posted a short clip featuring Panic’s Neven Mrgan today, and it’s about the transition from skeuomorphic design to simpler and modern UIs. I love the comparisons and the style of the video, which further confirms that this documentary is going to be extremely important for the indie iOS development community.
You can watch the clip below and pre-order App: The Human Story here.
This week Federico and Myke talk about the New 3DS Ambassador Edition and theorise a mobile strategy for Nintendo.
And don’t miss the last part of the show where I mention the odd mix of Python and Nintendo Miiverse in my workflow (seriously). You can listen to the episode here.
For context, you can watch the Nintendo smartphone app concept below.
Sponsored by:
Andrew Watts has an excellent take on modern social media from a teen’s perspective:
Those are some reasons why many people my age tend to use Instagram more than they do Facebook. Everything about the application makes it less commercialized and more focused on the content, meaning more teens are inclined to visit it. When we do visit the application it is a much more pleasant experience so we are more inclined to Like and interact with the posts more. This increases our interaction with the application, meaning we will use it more, etc.
Facebook gets all of the photos we took — the good, the bad, etc—while Instagram just gets the one that really summed up the event we went to. It is much more selective, and honestly people spend more time on the captions to make them relevant/funny. On Facebook we just throw up everything we got so people can tag each other and show our family members that we’re still alive.
Do not dismiss this article, as Andrew makes some astute observations about how apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are used. Most of my non-geek friends are slightly older than Andrew’s (they’re under 25), but I also see the same behaviors mentioned in the article. WhatsApp is obviously huge in Italy (as he notes), but everything from Facebook Groups to Instagram’s massive popularity and Twitter’s struggle to become huge is true for my circle of friends as well. Recommended read.
