How to improve mobile user experience to simplify creating: the example of iOS Photos

As part of the exploration that Marek Pawlowski and I have been conducting around the user experience at the intersection between consumption and creation, we looked at how various services handled the transition. This is part of a series of articles that we are publishing here and at www.mobileuserexperience.com.

The iOS Photos app now delivers a more fluid UX for photo editing. The editing functionality in the app itself is quite powerful and will fully meet most users' requirements. For those, like me at times, who want more tools or are used to tools available in desktop software, iOS now enables easy access to the editing functionality of third party apps. For example, I use ProCam. What is particularly striking here is that the app functionality appears to load directly in the Photos app.

1. Tapping on a photo within the Photos app brings up the top and bottom frame elements, which show where the picture was taken and options for returning to an album, editing, sharing (actually quite a bit more than that), marking as favourite or deleting.

2. Tapping on Edit loads the editing interface. In the bottom left is an icon, a circle with an ellipsis within it.

3. Tapping on the icon brings up a menu of apps that have access to the Photos app for editing. Tapping More will reveal further app options that can be switched on to appear in the menu. I have other photo-editing apps, like Lenca and Hipstamatic, but they don't have access to the Photos app.

4. I then simply tap on the ProCam icon and the ProCam editing interface loads immediately - no switching between apps. There is some loss of functionality. Within the ProCam app there are various options for cropping, realigning and altering perspective, which don't load in the Photos app.

Video editing works in a similar way. Since there is no video editing functionality in iOS, one step is removed. Instead of Edit on the first screen, there is the circle icon, which on tapping shows third party video editors. For me, that means 8mm.

There are some slight differences to how iOS handles photos and videos that are edited within Photos as opposed to being accessed through third party apps. For one, the editing interface is streamlined, without some of the app designs. Also, the edited image is then stored 'on top of' the original rather than as a separate entity. With regards to the latter, there is some benefit to this approach, in that it is possible to re-edit the picture or to revert to the original, taking up less 'space' in the app. However, it is not possible to keep the edited version and to make a new version from the original. Ideally, edits versions could be kept in a set, as is possible in desktop software.

 The trout was delicious.

We'd very much welcome any comments or thoughts around this exploration.

Breaking: Apple responds to Google Glass with iBall

Google Glass naysayers have my sympathy. More than that, I wholeheartedly support their point of view, even though I disagree. See, when people say "that's never going to happen", they're really saying "I hope that never happens" and I, for one, sincerely hope that Google Glass never happens.

Except it's already happened.

Google Glass is not a product. Those product reviews complaining that it slips down the nose or tilts to the right or is uncomfortable, don't get the point. The privacy advocates complaining of intrusion don't understand. Google Glass is the realisation of a concept, not a piece of hardware. Of course the product design aspects aren't quite right but it doesn't take a clairvoyant to see where it's headed.

The concept I'm talking about is none other than the one that has been doing the rounds since the whole Web 2.0 malarkey got going. It's the notion of enhancing reality with a virtual overlay in order to enrich life. And is that any different to what you've been doing since the birth of the Apple App Store? Location-based services, song tagging, instant photo sharing... they're all just part of the same idea that leads inevitably to ever more biologically-proximate devices.

We're all familiar with the rush to decide an argument by checking the facts on our portable devices. How difficult it is to resist that urge to see what's new on social media! Don't we have an incessant and insatiable appetite for combining what is happening here and now with what might be elsewhere at another time?

While today it's difficult to get used to a lopsided, ugly device that slides awkwardly down your nose and whose operation depends on spoken commands, we're not so far away from effectively invisible implants that function seamlessly with our conscious minds.

So is it surprising that many people fear what Google Glass represents? And perhaps that fear will be sufficient to slow down the trajectory upon which humanity finds itself. Slow down, not halt. The Google Glass product might fail but you read it hear first, beware the Apple iBall!

How Instagram beat Hipstamatic to the $1 billion prize

Three weeks ago, FastCompany broke the news of a new partnership between photo app darlings Hipstamatic and Instagram, which essentially meant that Hipstamatic was the first service that could post to Instagram. The suggestion implicit in the article was that Hipstamatic and Instagram, winners of Apple's iPhone app of the year award in 2010 and 2011 respectively, should work closer, perhaps even merge.

In the short time that has passed since then, Instagram - with heavy VC backing yet not a cent of revenue - has been acquired by Facebook for $1 billion, while Hipstamatic - entirely bootstrapped and profitable since the second week of its existence - is left on the sidelines (for now).

So how is it that Instagram has won, while Hipstamatic makes money?

Hipstamatic is fundamentally a camera app, which post-processes images taken with the iPhone camera, using selections prior to taking the picture. It mimics to a degree the pre-digital photographic experience, which did not (easily) allow for the manipulation of images after they'd been captured. In simple terms, you choose a film and a lens then take your picture. If you don't like the effect, you reselect a combination and retake the picture. You can share your pictures on various services like Facebook, Flickr and, now, Instagram. The app was born of a desire to recreate the cheap and unexpected effects of the original Hipstamatic, a plastic molded camera that had a very short life, and was in turn born of a love of the Kodak Instamatic. 

Instagram, meanwhile, is a social network. You take a picture and share it with your friends directly within Instagram, and cross-post to Facebook, Twitter and a number of other services. Yes, you can alter the image after taking it by selecting from a number of effects. However, that is not the main aim of the app. The name - Instagram - tells you all you need to know about the intended purpose: you use a simple image to tell the story of your occasion, instantly.

So while Hipstamatic has about 4 million users, who have paid for the app and many of whom have paid for further lenses, films and flashes, Instagram has around 30 million users, who haven't spent a single penny on it. Instagram allows you to share and see your friends' pictures easily with the app; and Hipstamatic forces you to choose the (far more sophisticated) camera filters prior to taking the picture. The ease-of-use of Instagram and the social connectivity built into it are worth far more than the sophistication of the Hipstamatic app and the clever business model.

Once again, success depends on being free, simple and connected.

Foursquare spam is wrecking twitter

Image by cote via Flickr

I have deleted my Foursquare account. Not being able to log in was a problem that was limiting the experience. The bug arose soon after I discovered that I was the first to check in at my gym. So the sweet glory of becoming mayor of my sweat-room was snatched from under my pinkies by a piece of dodgy programming.

The idea behind Foursquare (for my less geeky readers) is that it's a kind of location-based social networking iPhone app that enables discovery. As well as collecting 'badges' and gunning for 'mayorships' all over town, you can share and receive suggestions for things to do in different places.

And the best bit, you can ping your friends and your whole Twitter cabal. My Tweetdeck increasingly tells me that X is at [pizza chain], Y is at [coffeeshop chain] and Z is at [train station].

 Sorry, Rich!

Moonfruit was lambasted for its marketing campaign and yet somehow we're allowing Foursquare to fill an otherwise interesting, useful and entertaining stream of tweets with individuals' mindless attempts to become mayor of their local crack house. There is no value to your entourage of these tweets but I don't want to stop following these otherwise interesting people.

Image by gumption via Flickr

Foursquare says to establishments, look, you can offer special discounts to the mayor, or anyone who checks in. That will encourage people to keep coming and to check in more often in order to get a cheap cardboard pot of frothy warm brown milk.

That's not a novel business model, which is why I think it has real potential to thrive. In the meantime, I'd really like an end to the growing Fourspam.

Les 3 Vallées iPhone App Review [updated 02-01-10 with screenshots]

My father-in-law kindly invited my wife and I to join him for a week's skiing at the start of January in the small resort of Les Menuires, part of Les 3 Vallées. Well, guess what? There's an app for that!

The app promises to "revolutionise the comfort and safety for everybody on the slopes." It includes the following features:

Ski run map

A cool integration with the GPS functionality of the iPhone, places you on the ski runs making it a lot easier to navigate to the next vin chaud.

The map also includes a feature for open/closed runs and lifts and an avalanche warning page.

Clicking on the red cross button gives you the Aid Station Number along with your GPS position so that you can quickly call help to your location. This could be a real life saver, with the time taken to find lost skiers in the night often a factor leading to fatalities.

Weather forecast

A five day forecast gives you wind speed and direction, temperature and weather conditions. You also get open and close times for the ski lifts, as well as overall snow depth and fresh snow cover.

Webcams

Live webcams allow you to see the conditions and the crowds around the ski terrain, helping you to avoid the teams of school children, who are almost certainly better skiers than you. You get a still from the webcam rather than streaming video.

Mountain restaurants

There is a thorough listing of restaurants in each of the resorts of Les 3 Vallées. Choose the resort, select a restaurant and you get contact details so you can make use of your time on the ski lift to book a table.

Just be careful not to let your iPhone slip out of your gloved hand.

Les 3 Vallées iPhone app is free.

The developers, Skiplan Lumiplan Montagne, backed by the French State, earlier launched a similar app just for Méribel, one of the resorts in Les 3Vallées. It seems they will be releasing a number of variants on a resort by resort basis. Skiplan is the company that provides electronic communication boards around the ski slopes of France

This is the kind of app that has great potential to be rolled out to ski resorts globally. I believe keen skiers would pay a fair sum to have one app which covers several - or all - resorts.

Sadly I won't be going on the ski trip, what with a broken elbow, sprained wrists and shoulders, gained while cycling to the gym to get fit for skiing.