My app was featured in the Apple Store.

This morning I received an email from another iPhone developer in the Raleigh-Durham area (Tantrum Apps, if you have small kids these apps are a great find). He shared an image he had taken from one of two local Apple Stores showing the icon for my app, iAdvent (iTunes Link). Checking out the other local store, I found the icon hanging up as well.

So how does this happen? I can only speculate. I wasn’t contacted by Apple or anything. I assume a store planner designed an in-store “App-Christmas” tree, and searched the store for matching themes. The design was approved, printed and sent to the stores. I have learned that this design is likely in most of the US stores, so my App is hanging up with other Christmas apps all over the US. (If you see this as true or not, let me know, it would be interesting to know if these displays are standard)

Still quite exciting to walk into your local Apple Store and see the icon you created hanging up for all to see.

Here it is, yet another video showing the process of creating an iPhone app, just a bit inspired by the video posted by tap tap tap. As you’ll see, this whole post is full of inspiration.

My latest project has been for a client that was looking for a focused percentage calculator. A quick search through the App Store shows a lot of tip calculators and even some percentage calculators. It would be very easy to pop a few controls and some simple math together to make an app, but aren’t Mac / iPhone interfaces supposed to be a bit more thought out? Well, yeah.

Keep reading for a video showing the process of designing the app from sketch, to final product. Or just check out the app on iTunes (iTunes link)

More on Inspiration

Ok, I said the post would be about inspiration. You don’t have to look far to see the inspiration for the design of 100percent. Tapbots create wonderful apps that are “utility robots designed and engineered for your iPhone and iPod Touch”. Now, 100percent is not a robot and not a direct clone, but you have to give credit when its due.

Find out more

Learn more about 100percent at Triple D Design or buy it now on the iTunes App Store

Why? I don’t know. Maybe I have pre-conditioned myself to automatically open the browser over the last 15 years. In some cases, I simply preferred the web version. These are all great apps though, here’s the break down:

• Postbox is a great app, but I just prefer gmail. The web user interface is about as good as I could wish for.
• NetNewsWire was the same as above, google reader (with the help of ByLine on my iPhone) is what I prefer.
• Tweetie is the one case where I did use the desktop application. Tweetie has a better user experience than twitter itself.
• MarsEdit was a long shot anyway, I mean, this is the first post since a month ago, I just haven’t blogged enough to even remember it exists.

So there it is. I’m a web-based junkie.

I’ve been a Twhirl user for some time, it ended up being the better of many, many twitter clients. I think I may switch, however to Tweetie for one feature alone: Conversation view. Being able to click on a conversation I have no context for and seeing what is going on makes so much sense, I’m suprised it hasn’t happened before. (It may have, I just haven’t looked)

The worst part, no opacity option. While this seems simple enough to ignore, It helped in the focus department. Set the opacity to 20% when not active and you don’t see the thousands of tweets streaming by every second.

Sacrifice! I’ll have to sacrifice opacity for a better, in my opinion, UI. Good UI makes me happy.