iTimeZone 1.1: Coming Soon With Updated Icon, and a Retrospective

iTimeZone 1.1 is feature complete and coming soon. One of the things I wanted to improve was the icon. When iTimeZone 1.0 shipped, I was perfectly happy with the icon, but also nervous if it would be up to snuff with the other App Store competition. There are great, good, mediocre, and terrible icons for apps on the App Store. I think the iTimeZone icon already belonged in the good category, and the changes I made to me only solidified that assessment, but if you disagree don't be shy to post a comment. That said, once the rush to release 1.0 faded and I had time to reflect, some things started to bother me about it.

Design
The icon design that I finally settled on as seen in iTimeZone 1.0 and 1.1 had to have these elements:

• World Map Background. The first public iTimeZone icon only had various clocks on it, a more traditional representation of world clocks. It seemed to me the easiest way to say world clock was to show an image of the world.
• Clock Face/Target. I didn't just want to convey that this is a world clock application, I want to show that this application shows you where the time is at this point on the map. That's why I distilled the analog clock down to just the markers for the 4 quarters of the clock face, it conveniently visually looks very similar to the iPhone's locate icon in the Maps application. Somewhat ironically, I am not using the location features in iTimeZone, yet...
• Clock Arms and Anchor Dot. The dot under which the arms intersect is like a bullseye under the clock face/target. The arms need to be there to clearly show you are looking at a clock.

iTimeZone 1.0 Icon
The iTimeZone icon everyone sees on the iPhone or iPod touch is a 57x57 PNG (pictured right). You can either choose to allow the iPhone OS to composite a plastic layer on top and round the corners, which results in your icon being lighter on top than it is on the bottom, or do it yourself. I just let the iPhone OS do it since that is much easier for me. This became issue one for me, the gray just ended up being to washed out. Second, I realized that I could easily tweak the color scheme just a little and maintain (well I guess really establish) that this was a Tangerine Element icon.

iTimeZone 1.1 Icon
Changing the clock face/target to black and removing some shadowing shows up much better on the iPhone, and also black of course is one of the core Tangerine Element colors. The new arm colors are straight out of the Tangerine Element logo, and provide a nicer contrast to the teal continents. The arms are also slightly repositioned so that all quarter markers of the clock face/target are visible and distinct. Further, the arms are as completely in the whitespace between landmasses as possible, allowing more teal to come through. Also, the teal is brighter, so that the plastic composite washes it out a tad less. In other words, it "pops" a bit more.

First Public iTimeZone Icon

Other Discarded Ideas

iTimeZone 1.1: Feature Complete

iTimeZone 1.0 was released on July 11, 2008 alongside Apple's App Store. We started work almost immediately on iTimeZone 1.1, with the main goal being to greatly expand the city list. It has taken far longer to get to this point, almost as long as 1.0 development, but iTimeZone 1.1 is finally feature complete! Here's what we at Tangerine Element have been working on.

21,072 Cities
There were a little over 100 cities in iTimeZone 1.0. The new list doesn't require network access, just like iTimeZone 1.0 didn't, its all included in the application. Developing the infrastructure to make the new city list work took far longer than I thought. Now that the SDK NDA is lifted for released iPhone OS version, the trials and tribulations warrants its own post.

Revamped UI
The User Interface of iTimeZone has been overhauled in just about every way, but I think it's clearly still iTimeZone. Here are the 1.0 and 1.1 screens side by side and notes on all the changes for made in 1.1.

	1.0	1.1	Changes in 1.1
Main with Cities			Added toolbar and moved + and Edit buttons. Had to do this to make room for some new stuff, and future stuff :-) Now. Resets the dials to, well, the current instant i button. Shows the new about screen Added detail disclosure button to city. Done to implement standard way to get to city detail Moved sun/moon icon to center. Had to be done to accommodate detail disclosure button Shrunk the city cell height. With the new toolbar, had to reclaim some space so that it was still obvious there was a row below the toolbar
Main Empty			Double-tappable Map Image. Double tapping on the map brings you to the Add City screen.
Add Empty			Removed the browsable list. With the number of cities, first attempt at a browsable navigation model didn't work out to well. It may yet return though... Changed navigation model so your top city can always be seen
Add Search			Country Flags. Adds a little pizzaz and makes the city you are looking for easier to spot Detail Disclosure Button. See some details about a city before adding it State and Country. Put as much info in the cell as possible without customizing
Main Edit			Actually this view hasn't changed much
City Detail	N/A		Tap the Maps icon. Launches Google Maps on that city.
About	N/A		Tap the iTimeZone icon to open Safari on the product page Tap the Tangerine Element to open Safari on the company site Tap either of the link buttons for the sources of some content in the application

What's Next
We just started a private iTimeZone 1.1 Beta. We will go with the flow of feedback as it comes in, but hopefully it won't be too long before the update is published through the App Store. Even if you aren't in the beta right now, feel free to post feedback in the comments, and thanks if you do.

Apple lifts the iPhone SDK NDA

Right now on the Apple iPhone Developer Portal is the following greeting:

We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software. We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others. However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released. Thanks to everyone who provided us constructive feedback on this matter.

That is a pretty large weight off my shoulders. The NDA has had a silencing effect which was obviously not helpful to the long term growth and stability of the iPhone OS platform.

Somehow I don't think Google has lost 1,184.60 today

Stocks.app sure looks broken...

Some Tweaks to the Blog

Finally got around to making a few changes to the blog that I have wanted to make for a while now.

1. Replaced my headshot with iTimeZone and Tangerine Element
   I wanted to have a permanent place for links to iTimeZone and Tangerine Element using the branding that has been created. I have just been putting it off because the way the HTML, CSS, and header image were structured previously was going to be a few hours worth of work to pull apart and put together again so that the images where clickable. My old headshot was just embedded in the background, the replacement design allows me to replace the header images whenever I want to. Also, this was a little bit of prep work for finishing up work on the next version of iTimeZone since I wanted to have the branding on the blog before the next version launch. Also, I have tweaked the iTimeZone icon slightly to make it more prominent on the iPhone OS since the "plastic" affect is composited over top of the icon.
2. Removed the Wakoopa application list
   This was cleanup from my decision to stop using Wakoopa to track application usage
3. Removed the RSS button on the page
   This may not be news to anyone, but it dawned on me a few weeks ago that with Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2+, and Safari 2+, having an RSS button in the actual content was redundant with browser chrome. Ironically, Google Chrome has no chrome for RSS, or I can't find it, but seems like that was one exclusion that shouldn't have been made.
4. Removed the Tip jar button
   I am not offended, but no one used it :-), so it was an easy deletion. Also, the only money maker on the blog, ads, were pulled up about 15 pixels.

I Quit Using Wakoopa

Back in May I started using Wakoopa. Well 4 months later, and I find the information about what applications I am using mildly entertaining at best, and actually totally unnecessary. I am not a software reviewer, my application set is relatively fixed. The Wakoopa Tracker was running in the background the entire time. Though I didn't notice a performance hit, and I didn't expect one, I must admit that regaining 2:30 in CPU (since my reboot 3 days ago) does please me somewhat.

Could this be where Apple got their inspiration for the name MobileMe?

On page 195 of Thomas L. Friedman's "The World Is Flat" Release 3.0, the following paragraph appears:

The "mobile me" [emphasis mine] revolution will be complete when you can move seamlessly around the town, the country, or the world with whatever device you want. The technology is getting there. When this is fully diffused the "mobile me" will have its flattening effect, by freeing people to truly be able to work and communicate from anywhere to anywhere with anything.

I am not saying that Apple's MobileMe satisfies Friedman's definition, but could this be where Apple, uh, got its inspiration for renaming .Mac?

John Gruber Nails the Apple "Get A Mac" Ads and Microsoft's Response

John Gruber @ Daring Fireball posted ★ Digging Deeper, saying exactly what I have been thinking about Apple's Get A Mac ads and Microsoft's response ad.

There are a ton of people, and I usually see this from people who's career depend entirely on Windows, that believe Apple's ads are in fact making fun of PC users. That's not just wrong, it's a stupid conclusion. I am not saying people that think this are dumb, but they have lost the plot. In addition to Apple's ads telling the viewer that Macs are special PCs, all other PCs are generic, as Gruber says, they are also showing the viewer there is a choice in computers. That is job #1, since for years, most people didn't even know Macs still existed. If you are trying to sell Macs to people, you won't do that by telling them they are dumb. Apple shows how Macs are special in three ways:

1. What Macs have that generic PCs don't (Leopard, Time Machine, iSight camera, etc.)
2. What Macs and PCs have in common (Office, file format compatibility, both run Windows)
3. What PCs have that Macs don't and is bad (viruses, upgrade hassles, hardware and software compatibility problems)

The headline on the Get A Mac site right now is Why your next PC should be a Mac. I don't think the point could be much clearer, the Mac IS a PC, the only one that is different than all the others. Microsoft's ad has attempted to co-opt Apple's "I'm a PC" part of the message by, as Gruber puts it, only emphasizing Apple's ads, because it incorrectly puts the emphasis on PC, and doesn't emphasize what's special about PCs that aren't Macs. It couldn't be more obvious that Microsoft believes PC in the Apple ads is about users than the part of the montage where people are talking about their glasses. Microsoft has only shown the first ad, so it will be interesting to see if they course correct out of this, or continue down this path.

The Javascript Performance Battle of 08

With the announcement of WebKit'sSquirrelFish Extreme, there has predictably been some additional coverage. A sampling:

• Vertigo: Blog posted V8, Meet SquirrelFish Extreme
• SquirrelFish Extreme: Fastest JavaScript Engine Yet via Daring Fireball
• SquirrelFish Extreme has landed! via Daring Fireball

It's amazing to watch the horse race for Javascript performance supremacy between V8, TraceMonkey, and SquirrelFish (Extreme or otherwise). If all Google was after by building there own JS engine was performance, and SquirrelFish delivers that to the WebKit rendering engine, why continue with V8? Why not combine efforts? Or if V8 turns out to be ultimately better than SquirrelFish Extreme, its all WebKit compatible, why not use it in Safari?

Tip: Signing into AIM/.Mac/MobileMe through a firewall

By default, iChat tries to connect to the AIM network for AIM/.Mac/MobileMe accounts using port 5190:

If a firewall you don't control blocks port 5190, then click the SSL checkbox:

Chances are, you can now logon to the AIM network using your AIM/.Mac/MobileMe account through port 443, the SSL port. Your network overlords would have to be blocking access to specific AIM hostnames for this not to work. While entirely possible, far less likely than port blocking. No guarantee that video iChat will work though...