Now that the holidays are over and everyone has some fun new toys, we decided to showcase some of the most popular gear for web designs. From Laptops to books, we have highlighted the 10 most popular items. The following list is a compilation of the most popular design gear sold on Amazon as well as the most purchased by the Outlaw community.
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It is no secret, I am a sucker for good interface design. If you watched this video on the importance of good interface design, you’ll see that I sometime buy or download apps just because of how they look. It’s silly I know, but theres something about a sexy looking interface that makes me just want to touch it. Boy, that sounds dirty. At least I didn’t say that sexy interfaces make me want to touch myself. Below are a few of my favorite iPad app interfaces.
What are your favorite iPad app interfaces?
Prevue is a new web app that allows users to upload graphics and web designs to an account and easily share with clients. These uploaded designs are packed into a tidy little email and sent off to your client. The client can then view online or on their phone.
There are a number of other web apps out there that do pretty much the same thing as Prevue. However, Prevue has a few small tricks up its sleeve that I think are quite impressive. For starters, they have a really cool feature for web designers.
Web designers, I know you have heard this one before; “why doesn’t my design fill the whole browser window?” What is it about some clients that they dont understand that they are looking at an image and not a live website? I can’t tell you how many times I have had to add a 3000px wide background just to get them to shut up.
[sws_blockquote align="right" cite="Dumb Client" quotestyle="style01"] Why doesn’t my design fill the whole browser window? [/sws_blockquote] The point of that little rant is that Prevue gives web designers a tool to create a background for their mockups. You can add images and margins to the mockup so your client can see it as if it were a live site and not just an image flush left in a browser. Prevue also claims to have a smart crop tool that will create a background for you with witchcraft. Spooky.
The other tool that Prevue offers that might be cool is some basic analytics on your posted projects. I’m not entirely sure of what they report and how, but Prevue claims to let you know if your client has viewed your work or not. I don’t really know how useful this is, buts cool none the less.
Of course Prevue comes with all the other features you would expect in this sort of app. It allows for commenting on the mockups and basic annotation. The interface is mostly drag and drop, allowing you to easily setup and manage projects.
All and all Prevue looks pretty sweet. Its simple, stylish, and has few but awesome features. What more do you really need? As I said before, I really like the web design background feature. That in its self is reason enough to buy!
Air Display is a iPad app that allows you utilize the iPad as a external monitor. With a price tag of only $9.99 in the iTunes app store, it is far cheaper than any Apple monitor ever made. I have been playing with the Air Display app for a few days now. All and all I think its pretty rad, but it does come with its own set of pros and cons.
Recently I started working at an awesome co-working space in downtown Atlanta called Strong Box West. If you are a local reader, let me know and we can do lunch. I’ll Have my people call your people. As a result of working away from my home setup, I’m having to work from my 13in MacBook.
Working from the MacBook is ok on days that Im just blogging and browsing the web, but on days I need to design and do some real work, it’s a bit of a pain. Having to go back and forth between IM clients, Photoshop, and email is cumbersome at best. Even with the use of keyboard shortcuts and spaces, it is still a bit of a hassle.
This is why I decided to try the Air Display app. Having a second monitor, if only to fill with email and chats, makes a world of difference in my productivity.
The Air Display app uses Bluetooth technology to wirelessly connect your iPad to your computer. You will need to first install a small server app on your main computer before the app will work. Once you have purchased Air Display it will walk you through the setup process, which is very simple.
After you get the app setup and running, you can manage your displays through the display settings on your Mac as if it were a dedicated second monitor. You can mirror your display or set it up as an extended display.
One interesting thing about the Air Display is that even as dual monitor it can still utilize a touch interface for clicking around.
[sws_yellow_box box_size="700"] While there is a touch interface on the iPad, the keyboard will not be available for use. [/sws_yellow_box]
The Air Display certainly does what it advertises to do and does it well. That said, it is a tad buggy and could never really replace a dedicated monitor. The Air Display is a bit sluggish and sometimes randomly refreshes both displays. Those two bugs are really the only drawbacks I can see.
As I said, the Air Display is perfect for use with laptops to give you a bit more screen real estate and improve your productivity.
A while back we were asked by the creators of DesignScene if Outlaw Design Blog could be featured in their collection blogs that get aggregated through their app.
We of course said yes.
We are excited to announce that the app will be launching tomorrow. Here is what the creators have to say about the app:
We graphic designers are visual creatures. We get inspired by the world around us—the media we consume, the objects we desire, the designs we wish we had created ourselves. DesignScene is a real-time inspiration app for graphic designers drawing from myriad relevant sources, from art to architecture, illustration to fashion, photography to typography.
The creators of the DesignScene app our also throwing a contest to celebrate the launch of their new iPad app. Prizes include things like iTunes GiftCards, the entire Emashing Magazine eBook Collection, and a subscruption to COmmunication Arts magazine.
All you need to do to enter is send them something that inspires you. Check out the contest link for official rules.
I’m not going to lie, I decided to try this web app out just because it looked freakishly amazing as far as interfaces go. If you wantched my video a while back about the importance of good interface design, you probably won’t be surprised. Interface design aside, the app also has a pretty sharp website design. But, if it was done by the same people who designed the app, I would expect no less.
I burned through my free deliveries on this app almost instantly just because it was so fun to use. You know a app is doing something right when people get excited about using it. Job well done RealMac Software. This makes up for how much Little Snapper sucks.
Courier is a desktop based app that allows you to publish media to a variety online services in a fun and efficient manner. The application works off of a number of APi’s for many of the popular media sites. Currently the default application supports Flickr, Facebook, Vimeo, YouTube, Amazon S3, EmberFTP/SFTP. They are also constantly adding new services as APi’s are released. As of now, you can also get support for Cloudly and TwitPic.
As I have mentioned several times already, this app is just amazingly fun to use. Better still, it does a great job at what it does. It’s not just a fun app to use that serves little to no real purpose. It is actually a handy little tool to have if you upload a decent amount of media across various websites and services.
As with most apps, there is a free trial download. This free trial doesn’t expire after a certain amount of days, but rather after five “deliveries.” Deliveries are what the app calls a start to finish upload. As in, the files have been delivered from your computer to the web via the courier service. All of this play on the postal system will click better once you see how the app works.
If you enjoy the app, it is available for purchase for only US19.95. The checkout form is painless and takes only a minute to fill out, pay, and license your copy.
The Courier homescreen plays off the bookshelf look that has become increasingly popular in many Mac apps, including the Books app for the iPad.
If you have yet to visit the website, this is where you get your first glimpse at why there are so many postal references going on here.
Despite its un-conventional interface, the Courier app is pretty easy to figure out. You simply drag “stamps” of the services you want to send files to onto the envelope. There is of course some authentication you wil have to setup the first time around.
Once your envelope is created and stamped, you simply drag and drop files into your envelope.
Everything that has happened up to now has be fun, but was nothing really over the top. However, when you hit the “deliver” button is when the real fun begins. Upon clicking the deliver button, a map pops up showing the progress of your upload as well a cool in transit animation of your files moving across the globe.
I’m not sure, did I mention how much fun this app was to use? the only thing that bother me here was that I seemed to have some authentication issues where I was force to authenticate every time. Because I have used up all my free deliveries, I can’t say if this is a bug or just the way the app works. Either way, it’s nothing that would be a deal breaker for me.
This app is infinitely more fun than going to all of these websites and manually uploading media. Hands down.
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