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Apple's Cards available on October 12 for iOS
Apple has announced a new official app for iOS. Cards will use any photo taken with an iOS device, and put that photo, along with a message, on high-quality paper to your specifications. The company will even mail it out for you with Apple-designed postage and lettering. Essentially, it offers a way for you to design and deliver custom greeting cards directly from your iOS device, wherever you happen to be. Apple's Cards is due out on October 12. The app seems to be free, though obviously it'll cost you to send and print a card -- $2.99 in the U.S., and $4.99 around the rest of the world. You'll even get a push notification on your device whenever the card is actually printed and sent out. Sure, this might not be the hottest announcement from today's event, but it's a service that a lot of users might want to take advantage of.
360iDev: Lessons from the design of Postage
Developer Chris Parrish hosted a talk this week here at 360iDev in Denver looking back on the development of Postage, RogueSheep's Apple Design Award-winning virtual postcard designer and sharing app for the iPhone. He walked the developers in the crowd through a few of the lessons he and his team learned during development and a few of the principles they stuck by as they built the app. Parrish said the first principle RogueSheep stuck to was focus. "Cut, cut, and cut some more" was the slide up on the screen. Parrish said that when they set out to make what's basically an image-editing app, there were a lot of things they could have done, like including lots of tools and items to edit images in intricate ways and help users line them up just right. But it turned out that none of that fit the app they were trying to make. Instead, RogueSheep decided to boil the experience down so the user could go from image to postcard to pressing send in just 60 seconds. Parrish called it "putting the user on rails" -- not limiting options, but guiding and rolling users along so the process is as quick and easy as possible. Instead of the desktop model (which is what the team might have done if it really wanted to create that full tool-based experience), the focus of the app became the postcard itself. Parrish said the team worked to make sure that at every step in the process the postcard was always in view and clearly being built. Instead of moving from screen to screen, the interface slides around the virtual postcard, zooming in and focusing on whatever part of the area the user is working on. Even sending the postcard brings up an envelope instead of going off to some separate email screen, so users are always acutely aware of what they're doing in the app and why. That email sending feature led to one of the biggest compromises the designers had to make with the application. When it was first introduced, they had to cook up their own solution to send an email with the image directly from the app, a solution which came with its own pros and cons. They were able to use a custom HTML form for the email, but some users -- and their spam filters -- wondered about the email address the message apparently originated from. After the app was released, Apple allowed apps to send email through the OS, and the Postage team eventually decided to create their only preference option: Letting the user decide whether or not to use the custom emailer or the official one. Even that preference was hidden, however. Old users of the app just kept the old feature, while new users got offered the choice. The team wanted to make things as seamless as possible. Parrish said that devs dealing with whether an option should be offered or not should make the best decision they think possible; 80 percent of users will be grateful, even if the other 20 percent would rather have made the other choice. Parrish also said that whenever you make an app, it's always worth it to go the extra mile on the interface, using custom animations and doing it "right" whenever possible. The team worked for a long time on the "bounce" that the postcard first does when it drops into view, making sure it felt correct and natural. The buttons on the app were sized so they clipped off of the screen in order to inform the user that the button bars were actually scrollable. Parrish encouraged developers to make it look good, blending animations together and making them move in a natural and real way rather than just snapping into place because it's easier to code. That said, Parrish also recommended making use of Apple's UI classes as much as possible. All of Postage's interface buttons are subclasses of the official UI elements, though they're styled and customized to fit in with the rest of the design. Parrish said that while it's worth working on making things look right, it's not worth writing up your own options only to have them break when Apple changes the system. Use Apple's elements and work hard on the code, said Parrish, but then design it so it works for you and your users. Parrish's insight was really excellent, and it was great getting a look behind the scenes on Postage's award-winning design.
Canada Post issues BlackBerry stamp, for your less urgent BBMs
The US Postal Service just honored the IBM Selectric typewriter and some other icons of American design with their own postage stamps last month, and now Canada Post has gotten in on the act to recognize four key Canadian inventions. That includes the pacemaker, the electric oven, the electric wheelchair and one that's considerably more recent: the BlackBerry. A bit of an ironic choice, perhaps, considering that it could also be seen as contributing to the decline of the postage stamp itself, but Canada Post acknowledges that the "invention freed information workers from their desks and changed the way the world communicates." The company may be facing some tough times these days, but it's hard to argue with that.
IBM Selectric Typewriter turns 50, yells at tablets to get off its lawn
Imagine all of the waiting rooms and typing classes it's seen in its half-century on earth. IBM this week is celebrating the 50th birthday of its best-selling Selectric line of office typewriters. First introduced in 1961, the line featured a rotating typeball that increased typing speed and could be changed for italics, symbols, and different fonts and languages. The typewriter also eschewed the traditional moving carriage, with the typeball and ribbon taking on the motion, reducing the unit's overall size and leaving more space on office desks for family photos and troll dolls. These innovations helped make the line nearly ubiquitous in offices spaces, and in 1964, the Selectric line offered up an early word processor capable of storing characters. IBM would go on to retire the line in 1986. Fittingly, the now defunct typewriter will be honored with its very own postage stamp.
Swedes to start text message-based postage system, girl with dragon tattoo reportedly pleased
The Swedish Postal Service has announced that it will soon replace traditional postage stamps with a text message-based system. The system will work pretty simply -- customers will send a text message to a particular number, and a special code will be texted back to them which they can then write on the letter. A spokesperson for Posten AB, the Swedish Postal Service, says the system will work for packages weighing up to two kilograms, and that it will be just as secure as traditional postage. That's all well and good, but how will they adorn their letters with famous Swedish crime writers?
First Look: Postman adds social networking to the iPhone ecards mix
In the ecosystem of the App Store, the postcard-sending app occupies a healthy niche; about two pagefuls -- 60 apps -- show up in the store, for a category weighting of 0.125 flatulans. The flatulan, of course, is the unit of measurement of App Store penetration, equaling the 480 individual apps that include the word 'fart' somewhere in their description. Among those postcard apps, there are several standouts for virtual cards (ADA winner Postage, for example) and even a few that let you send physical postcards for a small fee (TapTapCards, goPostal and Postino). With Postman (iTunes link/website), released today by Freeverse and Taptivate for $0.99 for iPhone OS 3.0 devices, the postcard-sending app category gets a social media boost. Postman lets you deliver your two-sided ecards (yes, the app gives you the option of simulating the back of a traditional postcard, complete with stamp graphic) via Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, email, or simple upload to the postmanapp.com website for public review. You can already track several tweeted postcards (some which probably should never have been sent.) You can also simply save your postcards to the photo roll on the device. Creating postcards with Postman is fast and easy; all the controls are persistent in a small icon bar at the top of the screen and large front/back and 'share' buttons at the bottom. Postman has style and several handy features. In addition to using your own camera images/photo library or the included stock images for postcard sources, you can locate yourself on a Google map and use that graphic instead (this leverages the Map API in iPhone 3.0). Once you pick a graphic, you've got a choice of one-click filters to apply that spice up the look of your card. You can easily switch fonts and colors for your text input on the card front or back, and then send with a couple of taps. There are a few rough edges with the first release. I found the lack of a portrait mode frustrating, as I'm actually a faster typist on the vertical keyboard; not that you'll be keying in a chapter of War and Peace, but there's quite a bit of room for copy on the postcard back and I'd like to be able to rotate on that screen. The selection widgets seem cramped a bit, particularly the one for the stock templates. It would be nice to save postcards in progress and switch back to them, but for now there's only one card and no way to revert to earlier versions. If you want to have super-slick, email-only postcards from your iPhone, and are willing to spend a couple of dollars more for some added flexibility, you may be better off with Postage or the still-awesome Comic Touch. For $0.99, however, the first pass of Postman delivers ease of use and some very handy delivery mechanisms on the back end.
Thank you Mario! But our postage is in another country!
The Japanese Postal Service released a set of Mario stamps last year in a nice collectible binder. Somehow, NCSX has gotten a small shipment of these stamps, which carry a postage value of 80 yen ($0.66) each. The markup for this set ($105) is pretty severe, but if you are a desperate Mario collector, this is one of the coolest things you could have. They have fewer than 50, and of course we just publicized the item, so go go go buy buy buy.We want the US Postal Service to get in on the act. We're afraid that there's a short moment before opening mail from us that someone might not be able to determine that we're huge nerds.
Have Mario send your mail (via stamps from Japan)
Sure, old Mario has been known to paint, play professional sports, and even do some actual plumbing work on occasion, but he'll soon be able to power your mail through the postal service in the Far East.10-stamp sheets of 80 Yen stamps are now available for pre-order in Japan, where gaming otakus will soon be able to adorn their snail mail with the likes of goombas, magic mushrooms, and mustachioed men. The set will be out next month.Has the government of a country like the US ever done anything this official to honor one of the icons of gaming? Perhaps when we have avid gaming advocates in Congress -- or even, dare we say, in the White House -- things will look a little different with game legislation proposals and the postage of unwanted junk mail.[Via GameBrink]See also: French stamps to feature video game icons (Super) Mario Bros. question mark and POW block speakers
