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WildStar's new interface profiled in video
Friend of Massively Richie "Bogotter" Procopio is back with yet another WildStar video, this one focusing on the beta title's brand-new user interface 2.0, which flattens some of the UI elements that before floated a little bit too high into the field of play. Of course, as he notes, the UI is moddable and can be altered to taste by each player. Combat popups, inventory, and menu options have also been tweaked. If you missed it, Bogotter covered the new character creation options in yesterday's video. Enjoy his UI preview after the break!
Mirama hopes to replace your smartphone with a headset, your camera button with a finger gesture
Mirama wants do away with the the camera button on your smartphone. In fact, don't even get the smartphone out to begin with. Its prototype headset lets you frame and take a picture using your hands and its built-in camera. No buttons, no vocal cues, not even a wink. Other gestures, registered by the camera sensor, add the ability to confirm or cancel (thumbs up and down, respectively) while you can even attempt a hand-written message ... if you have the right level of motor control. (Our own gestured penmanship during a quick demo proved we didn't.) The cameras on the left and right, meanwhile, offer a constant stream of what you'd be looking at if you weren't wearing the headset. Gestures (well, your hands) then appear in bright cyan on top of the video feed.
Apple comes to its senses, will re-center iOS 7 page indicators
You're welcome. All it took was my threat of a strongly worded letter to get Apple to correct the egregious wrong that it had committed in letting the iOS 7 page indicators drift aimlessly to the left. It seems that Apple's latest iOS 7 beta corrects the alignment of the tiny dots so that they are indeed perfectly centered once again. The image above (full-size version here), which was created by Marc Edwards, director and lead designer at Bjango, shows how the centering of the page icons changed between various iterations of iOS. The drift began during the "iPhone OS 3" days, but became more pronounced in iOS 7. Now, with the upcoming release of iOS 7.1, the world will be set right once more. OK, OK, so it almost certainly had nothing to do with my article, but I'm still extremely glad this little niggle has been addressed. That is, until iOS 13 launches and we realize those mischievous dots have begun rolling to one side once again.
iCloud website gets iOS 7 makeover, fresh app interfaces
To prepare for iOS 7 bursting out of the developer bubble into public release, Apple has clothed the iCloud website in raiment that reflects the new platform's looks. Next time you log into the website, you'll be greeted not only with redesigned icons, but also with fresh app interfaces -- Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Notes, Reminders and Find my iPhone got complete makeovers. The iWork for iCloud beta apps still retain their old UIs, but hey, at least they're still free to use. As a nice bonus, Apple has also added quick menu access, which you can see in the image below the cut, when you click on the name of an open app. Head to the website to get taste of the new platform before iOS 7 comes out today.
The Daily Grind: Do you like a simple, complex, or customizable UI?
Is it just me, or do MMO interfaces seem as though they're slimming down as of late? The bloated HUDs of the past are giving away to streamlined, almost minimalistic on-screen elements. Maybe that's just because I've been playing a lot of Guild Wars 2 as of late. Perhaps. But that's not really today's topic, now is it? I'm curious how you like your UI. Are you all about this sort of simple, streamlined setup? Do you adore a really complex interface that gives you scads of actions and information? Or do you just prefer it when a game allows you to modify it to your heart's content? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Mozilla previews new, cleaner Firefox for Android UI on Nightly build
Before you know it, you'll be enjoying a cleaner, shinier Firefox UI on Android -- but not before Mozilla gets the more adventurous to test it out. The brand-spanking new interface merges the Start Page and the Awesomescreen, which is what you see after tapping on the URL bar. Thus, it will house your history, bookmarks, reading list and most visited websites in one place. While Mozilla UI engineer Lucas Rocha calls it the "biggest UI change in Firefox for Android" since the app was released, the update isn't quite yet ready. If you're unafraid of testing unstable releases, however, you can take the new UI for a spin via Firefox Nightly -- Mozilla's launchpad for new features. Everyone else, feel free to head past the break for a comparison image of the current and future interfaces.
Xbox One dashboard: what to expect
So, you want an Xbox One? Do you really want one though... like, really? How do you know? Maybe the interface is terrible. That's something you'll just have to ponder until you play one. Well, that's only partly true, we sat down with Microsoft today at Gamescom for a bit of a tour. The bad news? Microsoft wasn't quite confident enough to let us show you the interface with photos or video, due to its pre-release nature. The good news? We're going to paint you a word picture instead! The results await after the break.
Haptix wants to turn every surface into a multi-touch controller
Motion-based PC interfaces are all the rage, thanks to Microsoft's Kinect and the folks at Leap Motion. San Francisco-based Haptix is sure it's got a better solution than the rest, but it needs a healthy $100,000 to get there. The company's got a Kickstarter page going for its self-titled peripheral that can be clipped to a device or placed on a table to offer up both a 3D sensing layer in the air and a multi-touch layer on a flat surface. The dual layers give you more ways to interact with your device, and a chance to rest your palm on the table, when the whole reaching out thing proves too tiring. In the Kickstarter pitch video below, you'll also see a Haptix picking up brushstrokes, which could certainly have some cool implications for artists.
PS4 vid shows Killzone: Shadow Fall download can be split into single-player, multiplayer
A new PS4 promotional video reveals users can choose to either get the single-player or multiplayer portion of Killzone: Shadow Fall first when downloading the game. The vid, which shows off the console's interface, uses the example of a Shadow Fall player pestering his friend to play the game with him ASAP. We doubt Shadow Fall will be the only game with this feature on PS4, but the extent of its implementation remains unclear. The video also explores the idea of clan-based flirting for the hip, young, and cool, but we'll leave that for another time. Slightly more notable, perhaps, is the apparent ability to seamlessly switch from things like the PS Store and watching shared videos to going back to the game you're playing, demonstrated in the vid via a double click of the PS button.
Bungie's Chris Butcher talks about Destiny's public areas
Is Destiny a shooter with MMO elements or an MMO with a lot of shooting elements? According to a recent video interview with Chris Butcher, it's the former, and seeing as he's the Engineering Lead at Bungie he probably knows what he's talking about. But there's also some more nuance to the game which Butcher explains, and while it might not fall comfortably within the MMO header it's got a lot of persistent options. Butcher explains in the video how the game's many public areas work -- there's no UI elements to let you know that you've entered a shared space, just the sudden sight of other players alongside the announcement of dynamic events in the area. It's certainly an interesting take on shared spaces, and it's more than you might expect from a straight shooter. If you're looking forward to the game, the video embedded past the cut is well worth your time.
Paranoid Android's HALO does Chat Heads-inspired multitasking, goes open source
It's been a couple months since we first saw the fruits of team Paranoid Android's labor around in-app pop-up window multitasking, and it looks like Paul Henschel and co. are finally sharing the finished product. HALO, as it's called, loosely combines the ideas behind Samsung's Multi Window and FaceBook's Chat Heads into a slick multitasking interface. The feature is activated from the notification tray. It places an icon -- or halo -- on the display, which can be moved around very much like Chat Heads, or dismissed by double-tapping and dragging it towards the red X at the top. Swiping sideways from the halo shows a series of white lines and text bubbles that match and highlight the notifications in the status bar. Releasing your finger is like tapping on the selected notification, but instead of launching full-screen, the app opens in a pop-up window on top of whatever's already running, just like Multi Window. The background app continues to run while you interact with the foreground app -- to dismiss the pop-up window, simply tap outside of it. Other cool functionality includes swiping up to dismiss the last notification and the ability to pin apps permanently to the halo. But what's really most exciting is that team Paranoid Android's decided to make HALO open source so anyone can be involved. Check out the awesome demo video after the break.
Wordpress for iOS gets a new user interface
The Wordpress app for iOS has been updated again, and it features a brand-new interface for browsing, writing and editing posts on the popular blogging platform. As you can see above, the new interface apes Facebook's "side menu" (as have a few other big apps lately), and the update also fixes some other bugs, and adds some performance improvements in regards to emoticons and notifications in general. Wordpress for iOS is an open-source project, and thus you can download it straight from the App Store any time for free.
Gmail 4.5 for Android rolling out today with multiple tabs, slide-out navigation
Gmail's desktop inbox just went through some pretty significant UI changes, and we've just been waiting for Google to update its mobile apps with many of the same elements. The Android app, which Android Police reports is beginning its rollout today, reflects the new multiple-tabbed interface we've had the opportunity to play with for the last week -- it offers the same five tabs that are found on the desktop version, in addition to a new slide-out navigation interface. We're still waiting to get official word from Google about the update, but we'll let you know as soon as we have it. In the meantime, if you feel daring enough to try the new APK, head below to the source link to find a selection of available mirrors. Update: it looks like the update is starting to appear in the Play Store. Head here to see if it's available for your device. We've had the chance to download it, and can confirm that it offers swipe to refresh in addition to the features mentioned earlier.
IK Multimedia intros AmpliTube 3.0 with timeline editing, ships iRig HD
Artists going all-out on mobile music editing have relatively few options -- GarageBand won't always cut it for the pros. IK Multimedia thinks its newly launched AmpliTube 3.0 could be the solution for those producers on the move. The $20 iOS app introduces a full, multi-track audio editor that can create a final masterpiece. With the help of a guitar rig and customizable drum loop, the suite is theoretically good enough to keep computers out of the studio. Even if musicians don't want to go that far, they may be happy to hear that IK Multimedia has shipped the iRig HD. The $99 interface gives iOS and Mac users a preamped adapter for instruments with quarter-inch plugs. While we're sure some performers would rather stick to traditional recording methods, those who've embraced digital with open arms can check out both AmpliTube and iRig HD at the source links.
The Daily Grind: What frustrates you about official game sites?
Working at Massively has given me several years to gain an appreciation for official game sites done properly. You wouldn't think that putting together a website for a game that's already online would be the difficult part, but apparently it is. EverQuest II and Lord of the Rings Online both hide their screenshot galleries in unrelated headers. Final Fantasy XIV doesn't link to the official forum from the main page. And this isn't even discussing sites with auto-playing videos or Flash elements preventing you from interacting with the site normally. Pretty much every MMO requires you to go through the official site on a semi-regular basis, which means that any minor problems start to become continual irritations given enough time. So what frustrates you about official game sites? Wonky graphic placement? Poor font choices? Too many separate logins? For that matter, what official game sites do you think have pretty much gotten the formula correct? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Kids' iPad magazine Timbuktu rethinks in-app purchasing model
Timbuktu is an iPad magazine meant for children, and as our friends over at TechCrunch have noted, its developers recently rethought how it implements in-app purchases. The previous incarnation of Timbuktu (and most famously, Smurf Village, among others), made in-app purchases too tempting and easy for children. The result was high rates of in-app purchases, which was good for the company, but bad for parents who didn't approve of the large associated costs. Before, Timbuktu had little virtual bubbles that you "popped" to make an in-app purchase. The interface was clearly designed to pique childrens' interest, perhaps too much so. Now, Timbuktu has implemented a subscription plan, so that parents can buy lots of content all at once, and then kids can be free to discover it themselves without accidentally spending any money they're not supposed to. That definitely sounds more reasonable. It's worth noting that there are other ways to block in-app purchases. For example, Apple's Restrictions settings lets you to disable all in-app purchases entirely. Also, you can customize the amount of time iOS will require your Apple ID between successful App Store purchases. By default, it's set to 15 minutes. Keeping your children from spending too much on in-app purchases is an avoidable problem, and it's good to hear companies like the makers of Timbuktu are taking steps as well.
Gmail's mobile web interface now looks just like the app
I use Gmail pretty much exclusively for my incoming email, with three or four different accounts that redirect to my always online, easily accessible, and seemingly bottomless inbox. I thought the app the company recently released with a brand-new look was pretty impressive, and apparently so did the web designers at Google: They have just switched the mobile website to make it look just like the official Gmail app. Unfortunately, the changes haven't proliferated to my corner of the web, but the screenshots of the new design look great -- nice and clean, with just a few important bits of color to keep your incoming messages straight. This version is also available on Gmail Offline, says Google, though strangely enough it hasn't made its way to the official Android client yet. I find a certain irony in the fact that the web interface is catching up to the official app interface, especially considering how the iOS app environment started as a series of web apps. And who knows -- maybe the desktop web interface will see some of these changes soon. I'm used to the way it works now, but I'd be up for some tweaks and twists if they help unify the platform. [via Engadget]
UIU Android launcher targets non-techie users with easy cloud management (video)
Emblaze Mobile's First Else may be no more, but its legacy lives on. During MWC we caught up with the company's ex-CEO, Amir Kupervas, who started a company called UIU in June 2011 -- only a month after his departure and almost a year after the tantalizing First Else got canned. Over at UIU, Kupervas and UX strategist Itay Levin (who also took part in the First Else project) have a more humble ambition: to offer an Android launcher and an accompanying cloud management platform that are simple enough for non-techie users. "In the US, smartphones generate twice as much the amount of calls to the customer centers than the featurephones," said Kupervas. "There's a lot of hustle and a lot of confusion on how to work these guys. People are struggling with them, even existing users."
Instagram now lets you browse your feed on the web
Instagram has already made the jump to the web with profile and individual photo pages, but it's fully embraced it today. You can now keep an eye on your entire Instagram feed in your desktop web browser (or mobile browser, for that matter), and make use of most of the functionality found in the mobile app. The key exception is that you still can't upload photos using the web interface; Instagram says that it's "about producing photos on the go, in the real world, in realtime." You can like and comment on photos, though, and take advantage of a responsive design that lets you narrow the site to a single column more reminiscent of the mobile app.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: DC Universe Online in review
One of the things I like about my job is the part where I have to play a lot of different games. This is not my default state -- I will happily latch on to games that I like and play them into the ground. The 100-plus hours I've clocked into every Mass Effect installment is proof enough of this. But playing a wider variety of games has given me several opportunities to see things in games, nod my head, and exclaim, "Yes! This is what people should be doing? Why do more games not do this?" DC Universe Online had me saying that about a lot of elements. And every time I figured I was good and done, I found another one. A month boomeranging back and forth between lower levels on both factions isn't enough time to get a sense for how the game shakes out over the long run, but it does provide a fairly good overview of the game as a whole. And there's a lot of elements in the game that I found astonishingly clever. It didn't offset the parts that I found somewhat tedious or broken, but it did make the game as a whole interesting on multiple levels.
