Category: Mobile

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Force touch is the new multi-touch

When I first saw the video demonstrating Force Touch on one of Huawei’s new phones a few weeks ago, I found the feature pretty much useless. You have this amazing new sensor, and a scale application is the best you can do with it? Supposedly, the Chinese manufacturer has beaten Apple at introducing this new feature, but the fact is, Apple has done something completely different. The Force Touch 3D Touch - iOS integration has the potential to change the way we interact with our phones, in a similar way than multi-touch gestures did years ago.

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written 23:12 CET on chronolog
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Cool Slovenian brands, part 3: The rise of the Slovenian hardware startup

I've been writing about Slovenian startups for years now. In a post I published in the beginning of 2012, I've highlighted a few Slovenian companies there were able to gain global traction, and as you can see, all of them are focused on software. About a year later, I wrote on the topic again, and this time, the spotlight was on a new generation of companies, which were fueled by Kickstarter and the crowdfunding movement. These businesses were able to find their market with niche products that were interesting to the public mostly because of their innovative design. This year, I'll focus on the third generation of Slovenian technology startups, represented by companies that were able establish something that actually seems so logical today: the rise of the Slovenian hardware startup.

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written 9:55 CET on chronolog
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Tablets were invented for recycling old PC games

Remember when we were playing really great games on our first home computers in the 80s and 90s? Good times. My gaming journey started with the Spectrum 48K (snowman FTW!), and slowly progressed to where we are now. Today's games truly are a piece of art, I have to give full credit to ventures such as Angry Birds and GTAs, but back then, everything was so much simpler, as if different rules applied. Games were there purely for the gameplay, and were awesome even if they came in 4-bit colors.

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written 22:15 CET on chronolog
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Tesla Model S is from the future

In two years, we were supposed to have self-lacing shoes, weather control and flying cars. Instead, all we got are non-self-lacing shoes, global warming, and well - no flying cars. Of course, most of us have phones that are more powerful than a typical computer ten years ago, but who cares about that, that doesn't feel like the future. Or a guy that's been singing and broadcasting Space Oddity from space. Or Google's awesome new toy that will take ages to come around. No, that doesn't cut it. We need something that's available to have right here, right now!

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written 22:39 CET on chronolog
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Apple is just messing with our minds

iOS 7 is all over the place. Some love the new look, others think it's childish and confusing. Some even say the flat look symbolizes Apple's capitulation, since they're abandoning the skeuomorphic paradigm they have been using for ages. The new icons are obviously the most controversial part of the released software, and they seem - yes - wrong and unfinished. But what if the unpolished icons are just a marketing trick, a temporary solution presented on purpose to annoy people, especially the designer community? Rumors have it, they were designed by their marketing team anyways.

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written 7:50 CET on chronolog
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Reinventing the blog, part 2: The challenges, the opportunies

After the initial dissection of the most innovative and well designed blogs, it's time to go behind the scenes. We've seen how some of these blogs look like, but there's even more value in understanding why they look like they do. Every good user experience analysis needs to have a clear overview of the goals and good insight into the problems of the situation, and I will try to outline these by using my blog as an example. A lot can be deducted by monitoring the basic Google Analytics reports.

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written 13:42 CET on chronolog
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Reinventing the blog, part 1: Dissecting the most innovative and best-designed blogs

The blog is getting mature. Ever since Gawker did its eccentric redesign a few years ago, we've seen a lot of other blog (networks) doing similar things, trying to reinvent how the blog should look like in 2013. After the initial hiccup, Gawker managed to fortify its position and attract new users, showing others that people do like to see different things, things that are imitating the experience of reading electronic magazines on mobile devices. Today, there are many great cases of how a modern blog should feel, and since I'm thinking about doing something similar myself (it's been almost 4 years since I did this!), I decided to dissect a few of the most innovative ones, hoping to get a picture of what works and what not. Here are my picks of the most creative and best designed (mainstream) blogs on the Web, those that are standing out from the crowd and are unique in what they offer to their readers.

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written 16:23 CET on chronolog
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