My dear readers, the perfect notes app doesn’t exist. What? You’re surprised? Come on guys, it’s a matter of fact that perfection isn’t part of this world, and as long as we can think about making something good, we’ll only be able to make something great. That’s the human nature. This concept applies to every kind of human creation: art, food, software. So what are we talking about anyway? We just strive to use / create something great, in the best way that’s possible. Back to notes, perfection doesn’t exist there either, greatness does. Well, let’s say that among 3000 notes app available in the App Store, maybe 10 of them are great. Do the math, you get the hang of how life works. But greatness alone isn’t enough: you should add a good dose of personality and usefulness to the mix. A system can be great and admirable, but it couldn’t work for someone. Summing up: I need a great notes app, it has to adapt to my personality and it should be useful. Can you believe I found all of this in Simplenote?

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“But there’s another dilemma: it looks like there will be significant pressure, both political and technical, for universal apps that run on both the iPad and the iPhone. Like multiple-iPhone owners, this only counts as one sale, since one purchase of the app will run on both devices. So for any apps that use a universal edition, their entire existing customer-base will result in zero new sales. “

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Interesting roundup of stuff found in the latest iPad “Human Interface Guidelines”.

Dear Loren,

Let me state this straight up: I don’t want to sound like one of those creepy fanboys that daily knock at your door asking for a “BETA VERZION PLZZ”. These are just my thoughts, hoping that you won’t be disappointed by my position.

I understand that making a good app requires time. A lot of time. Guess how much time an high-quality app such as Tweetie would require. But the situation is getting a little bit awkward.I’m talking about Tweetie for Mac and the long-awaited 2.0 version which, in your words, was due to be released after Tweetie 2 for iPhone. You said Tweetie for Mac was upcoming back in September. It’s four months ago.

Now, please define “upcoming” Loren, because I don’t get it.

Really, I do understand that you don’t have a 30+ people working team and that you’re an independent developer, but you can’t treat the people who purchased Tweetie for Mac like this. They believed in your product, I still believe in it and I’m sure many other people do, but this is just wrong. Promising an upcoming huge update and then not giving a single hint about it. No news about the development, no replies to the users who daily ask you on Twitter about it - nothing.

I agree with the “don’t promise. just ship” policy, but the problem is you actually promised something months ago and never shipped anything. Not a single blog post about it. To me, it seems like you just don’t care about the situation and prefer to cover this buzz with silence. This is wrong.

And you know why? Because customers want to trust the person they’re paying. It’s not about “I give you money, you give me updates”, it’s about believing that the person you gave part of your money to will care about you and your trust in the future. I strongly believe that an application isn’t just some lines of code thrown up together, it’s so much more. A good application can change a life, I dare to say so. I would have never been able to achieve 10k Twitter followers if it wasn’t for Tweetie. It’s become part of my workflow, so seamlessly integrated that I just can’t imagine how can I work without it now.

But you’re making that fantasy a real thing, Loren. I’m finding myself looking for a new Twitter client for Mac everyday - I still haven’t found a good one. That’s because I still trust you, man. It’s just that I don’t understand this way of acting.

Glad to be proven wrong.

Your truly,

Federico Viticci

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“Now think about app quality. Not being able to test on an iPad will suck for sure. That’s why responsible developers won’t ship before they’re happy, and irresponsible ones will churn out crap with the same speed and vehemence as always. You can’t stop stupid. Apple will hopefully reject unusably crappy apps, but beyond that, expect the same mix of pearls and dogcrap in the store as today.

I wouldn’t be surprised if top-rate developers such as EA, Rockstar, Activision, ngmoco got early units to test on. I also wouldn’t be surprised if a huge number of apps got iPadded without too much fuss, real units in developers’ hands or not.”

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“You don’t have to try to please everybody and eventually create an application that is liked by nobody. In fact, since your users are in all likelihood in a situation where they can switch applications easily, and since they probably are not locked in by the need to open a specific file format in its native application, it might be a really bad idea for you to go down the «simply add up all the requested features» route of application design.

So eventually, the best course of action is to get rid of some features that just don’t work out anymore.”

Let me state this: I don’t need multitasking from the iPad. Even better, I don’t need multi-tasking from a 10 inches portable tablet device. But before I go through this, I believe we need some “background” about the whole multi-tasking problem.

First, go read this post from John Gruber where he explains the reasons nehind the lack of “backgrounding” on the iPhone.

“The profound simplicity of the iPhone user interface stems in part from the complete lack of interface elements for managing processes. There is no task manager or memory meter; if you want to know what’s running, the answer is simply whatever app it is that you’re looking at. “

Indeed, the iPhone is the finest example of “human interface”: you’re doing what you’re looking at. I could have Mail and Youtube running at the same time on my Mac, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m watching a video. Multi-tasking can be workflow, as Milind Alvares wrote in his SmokingApples piece, but it’s not an imperative. Just take a look at all those Mac applications that help you focusing on one app at a time: they basically bring single-tasking into your workflow once again.

I don’t need a multi-tasking capable portable device. I just need an excellent single-tasking oriented yet multi-purpose tablet. And that’s what Apple is building. How am I supposed to run 3 apps at a time on that screen? But physical limitations aside, let’s look at the concept itself.

The iPad isn’t meant for people who require multi-tasking.

My mother doesn’t need multi-tasking. She doesn’t even know what it’s multi-tasking. But surely she would appreciate an intuitive multitouch “tablet computer” which requires a few taps to have a very good browsing experience. I strongly believe that a great and focused user experience is better than a crappy and unusable “let-me-resize-that-window“-based workflow.

Does this mean I hate multi-tasking? No. It’s just that I want a new and different experience from the iPad. You know, focusing on one task at a time is really productive sometimes.

Great post over at Cocoia blog, where Sebastiaan has asked some questions to Mike Matas, former Delicious Library UI designer and worker at Apple. You’ve go to read this.

“My favorite designs are the ones that don’t just solve a problem, but also engage you on an emotional level—where you take away more from it than just the end result of its function.”

Nik Fletcher nails it in his latest blog post:

“Yes, it’s an entirely prescriptive way of computing - one that the hackers, tinkerers and geeks will find alien and protest about its lack of openness. But here’s the thing: for the people who the iPad is aimed at it really doesn’t matter that this experience is prescriptive - and the more you look at the decisions Apple seem to have made in building the software on the device, the more you realise that the iPad is perhaps the first high-technology product ready for - and entirely aimed at - a mainstream audience right from the get-go.”