mrgan:
Nial Giacomelli has done a bang-up job with Showtime, his web app for keeping track of your favorite TV shows. It’s not fabulous “for a web app”, it’s fabulous period.
John Gruber has two fair and true complaints about it:
- Scrolling (it’s slow even at maximum speed.)
- The ON/OFF toggle switch has to be tapped (instead of the deeply satisfying native ability to slide it as well.)
As someone who’s into iPhone web apps, I’m going to side with Nial and focus on the positive.
The latter problem, the toggle, is fully solvable. There’s no technical reason this can’t be done with Javascript; it’s just not a ton of fun recreating native behaviors (who am I kidding - yes it is, sometimes!) If Nial doesn’t fix this soon, I’ll take a crack at it. But here’s the punchline: when it’s fixed, it’ll be fixed on everyone’s copy of Showtime the next time they launch it. How much would SDK developers give up to gain that ability?
The former problem - scrolling - may be trickier, or even unsolvable (or not!) It’s a bummer. But, I can live with it. I know Nial’s developing this with a pocket knife and a can of plumber’s putty, so I’m granting him a generous handicap.
iPhone-style checkboxes with touch events are entirely feasible. There’s even a jQuery plugin available to do just this. I’ve never used it in a project myself, but their demo page works as expected on my phone, dragging and all.
Oh, and Showtime’s not so bad either.
mrgan:
Japanese iPhone commercial. In which a dog plays piano. (via rands)
What a whimsical country.
staff:
Tumblr iPhone 1.1 Sneak Peek!
It’s been submitted to the App Store and should be live this week! Here’s a preview from its wonderful developer, Jeff Rock:
- Video posts. Choose from your camera roll or capture a new video right from the app (iPhone 3GS only).
- Native editing. Need to add tags or update a post on the go? Just tap the ‘edit’ button on a post in the Dashboard to load it up in a native post editor.
- Search. Supports searching across Tumblr, in your Dashboard or on just your posts.
- Built-in web browser. No more losing your place when you tap a link in Dashboard. Now a web browser will pop up and let you investigate the interwebs.
- Post upload status. Never wonder how long it’s going to take that Audio post to upload again.
- Post geotagging. Even I’m not sure what this is for, but I’m sure that it’s going to be awesome.
- Rewritten Dashboard tab (replaces the Sites tab). See all your posts from each of your blogs, including drafts and queues.
- Rewritten Advanced Post Options. New support for Save as draft, Add to Queue, Publish on, Custom post URL’s, Send to Twitter and Ask a question.
- Dashboard now only reloads on command. Not every time you tap the tab. Sorry about that one :P
- Better quality photo posts. Photos are now sent with less compression.
- New bookmarklet format for links. More info coming once 1.1 goes live.
Note: The rest has been removed for brevity’s sake.
Whoa.
I’m excited. And the first thing I did upon reading this was start playing with URLs. Turns out the tumblr website components of the 1.1 release are already up and running. See:
I still can’t figure out, however, what the URL is for viewing just your posts.
This is a big deal. I know support for grouping functionality has been much contested across desktop and iPhone Twitter applications. Making it a native API feature is going to change things. Looks like Mr. Brichter has his work cut out for him.
The feature appears to have a custom-tailored interface to boot. Twitter is discernibly driving forward with updates abound. I’m excited.
To whoever is responsible for the redesign of Tumblr’s mobile site. I’m guessing an updated Tumblr app isn’t too far off. I just wish there was an apple-touch-icon for the mobile dashboard and an option to view the page in chromefree mode from the homescreen. The application is nice, sure, but nothing beats full screen landscape browsing goodness.
Updates to Safari don’t end there, however, as Apple has also (yes!) given us the option now to open links in new pages (the iPhone equivalent of tabs). Tap and hold on a link, and a menu pops up with the link path listed on top, and the option to Open the link (in the current page), Open in a New Page, or Copy to the clip board. As this is the same gesture used to allow Image Save in iPhone 2.0, if the link happens to be a picture, Image Save is rolled right into the same menu as a an additional option.
Cool. Just what
I wanted. Albeit a different implementation.
instapaper:
That’s better.
Beautiful. Did you make it yourself?
davidkaneda:
Has anyone gotten a Default.png file to work on a full screen iPhone web app (either 2.2 or [REDACTED])? Was secretly hoping it’s possible.
As far as I can tell, that’s not doable. Sites running in the fauxapp mode from the home screen default to a screenshot of the last position the user visited prior to adding the icon to the springboard. In a way, this is kind of like the default.png, since it displays what the app looks like.
I’ve got a counter-question. Have you been able to get rotation detection working in full-screen app mode? For some reason changes in window.orientation don’t seem to register in this mode.
“I have no idea whether this description of how it’s going to work is accurate, but from what I’m hearing Copy-and-Paste is a big part of tomorrow’s announcement.”
Daring Fireball on tomorrow’s iPhone 3.0 announcement. It’s kind of sad when copy and paste can be categorized as a “big part” of an event, but dammit I’m excited.
I use tabs a lot when I’m browsing on my computer. In fact, I probably command+click links more frequently than I click them. After hundreds of hours of using Mobile Safari on my iPhone since the device’s original launch back in June of 2007, I’ve noticed I always feel boxed in when browsing on the device. It’s not because of the tiny screen. It’s because browsing on iPhone is too linear. I’m accustomed to switching between content at will. iPhone doesn’t offer me this flexibility, and it definitely could with the addition of a simple, unobtrusive multitouch gesture.
First, let me better explain my frustration: Say I’m reading an article online, and halfway through the article, there’s an interesting link. With a conventional desktop browser, I’d just open the link in a new tab and continue reading the first article. On iPhone this is impossible. I have to either: 1. ignore the link, continue reading, then find the link again once I’m finished with the original article, or 2. click the link, browse the new site, then go back to the original page and finish reading the original article.
Now, the solution: allow me to press on a link with one finger and, using the other finger, click on the “window” button on the right of the bottom toolbar to open the link in a new window. That’s it. It’s effectively translating the command+click gesture to multitouch. It’s technically more of a combination of two presses than it is a “gesture,” but it’s logical in my eyes, albeit slightly hidden (then again, a lot of things in the iPhone interface are, eg: tapping the top bar to scroll up to the top a list).
Make it happen, Apple.
Via: Neven Mrgan's tumbl
