What Is Wrong With iOS 7?

It’s going to be raw.

The Internet has been flooded with iOS 7 related news ever since its announcement at Apple’s WWDC on June 10th. While I’ve been trying really hard to resist adding to the shitload of iOS 7 related noise from self-declared designers giving their “expert” iOS 7 reviews, I’m unable to hold back any longer so here’s my two cents worth.

Let’s begin with a bit of a background. My very first Apple product was a MacBook Pro back in 2009. I’d never really heard of Apple before that and always thought that Apple products were bought by people who had the extra money to spare and nothing else better to do. Boy has that changed. That clunky machine is still going strong today and is still what I use everyday.

I’ve not looked back since and have added to my collection two iPhones and a classic iPod. That’s pretty much how far I go back with Apple. So before you start shitting on how I’m just another Apple fanboy, do understand that I embrace technology and seek whatever pleases me the most.

Now back to my thoughts on iOS 7. I really hate to say this, but it peeves me that every other Tom, Dick and Harry is ranting on and on about how hideous and broken iOS7 is. Do they really mean what they say, or are they simply in it for the traffic and fame?

Don’t misunderstand me. The people I have issues with aren’t those who painstakingly take time and effort to render their own improved versions of Apple’s iOS 7. I don’t have issues with them because they are the ones who actually are trying to make a difference by influencing Apple’s direction for iOS 7 for the better. These people are the ones who’ve realised that they can change and influence things that happen around them and we have to thank them for it.

“When you grow up you, tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world, try not to bash into the walls too much, try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money. That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”

– Steve Jobs

What I can’t stomach are those who ridicule Apple and everything else Apple related for no apparent reason. They stereotype Apple users and shit on everything else Apple related. They go on and on about how Apple is not going to survive post-Jobs and how Tim Cook is a wuss. The list just goes on.

The truth is, I don’t care.

Instead, what really pisses the shit out of me is how these people are constantly getting their bullshit published on recognised tech blogs all over the web. Of which some I’ve already made a mental note to unsubscribe from.

In my opinion, the iOS 7 beta is what it is. Be nice about it. It’s an OS truly in it’s beta stage that has been rolled out to developers to test for bugs and software compatibility. It’s not meant to take over the running of your iPhone from the current OS, at least not for now.

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How I Wrote My About Page

I’ve just finished doing up the About page for danl.im. Thing is, I really dread writing about myself. About pages have never been fun to write for me, and I can’t figure out whether it’s because I just don’t feel comfortable writing about myself, or because I don’t know myself well enough.

Anyway, I tried keeping things simple this time. It’s really amusing when you come across blogs that have About pages that look like dating site profiles, not that I know how one looks like, you get what I mean. I really didn’t want to give off the dating site profile vibe on the About page, and hope I managed to accomplish it this time.

I’d imagine that good and interesting about pages should have at least most of these things:

  1. Brief introduction of oneself
  2. A photo at least
  3. Some trivia that would make the page seem more personal (e.g. family info, background)
  4. Aim of the blog
  5. Contact

What do you think?

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The Two Most Important Days In Your Life

I stumbled upon a really beautiful quote today by Mark Twain. It goes like this:

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”

– Mark Twain

I’m really looking forward to the day I find out why.

Move Over Topman, Say Hi To Everlane

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Really sick of expensive, shitty, low-quality basic Topman t-shirts. They really aren’t paying me for saying this, but thank you Everlane for coming to my rescue.

The link to Everlane above is my referral link, and I’ll only get $20 in store-credit if you make a purchase. Well, if you’re going to anyway, why not help me out? Hehe.

Never Giving Up Pays Off

I know I ended off last week with an emphatic “Blog design complete!”, but truth be told, I wasn’t happy with what I saw. Having come across a really good article written by Pearsonified on how readability on the web can be optimized for readers by following the ancient Golden Ratio, I became really inspired and wanted to keep this in mind for the design of danl.im.

My ideal style setting was to have a single column, 650px wide post area, with 650px wide photos. Using Pearsonified’s typography calculator, such a width would’ve needed a font-size of 20px.

However, after spending many hours pouring through the style sheets and code of Standard 3.0, I just couldn’t find a way to bring the max-width of the blog down from 940px to 650px without breaking the responsiveness of the theme (Standard 3.0 is awesomely built on Twitter Bootstrap).

So if you’ve visited my site during the last two weeks, you would’ve seen a very ugly interim version of it with a 940px wide post area, 940px wide photos and 27px sized font. It was horrible.

Thankfully, Jason Bradley came to the rescue again. The article that he shared got me thinking and wondering how else I could shrink the site’s width down to 650px, and after a while of tweaking, I finally got it!

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Intention: Designed By Apple

I’ve always loved how Apple puts so much effort into designing their products, and this video, Intention, clearly demonstrates their design philosophy and what goes on behind the scenes. There are so many people who love Apple, yet there are even more who hate them and criticize them for everything they do, every product they come up with and every move they make.

But if you were to strip all that noise away for a brief moment, forget about whether you’re an Apple geek or Apple hater, and spend the next minute and a half watching this video, you just might never look at the things the same way again.

“If everyone is busy making everything, how can anyone perfect anything? We start to confuse convenience with joy. Abundance with choice. Designing something requires focus. The first thing we ask is what do we want people to feel?

Delight. Surprise. Love. Connection.

Then we begin to craft around our intention. It takes time… There are a thousand no’s for every yes. We simplify. We perfect. We start over. Until everything we touch enhances each life it touches. Only then do we sign our work.

Designed by Apple in California.”

Forget everything Apple about the video you’ve just watched. Even then, it should form the basis of how we build and design our world, our lives and the things around us.

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Design Isn’t Just The Way Something Looks

This particular quote from WWDC by Sir Jony Ive really resonated with me. This is especially true in today’s world, when almost everything we look at or touch is interactive in one way or another. Design has never played a more important role in the history of mankind.

“Design isn’t just the way something looks. It’s the whole thing, the way something actually works, on so many different levels. Ultimately, of course, design defines so much of our experience. I think there’s a profound and enduring beauty in simplicity, in clarity, in efficiency. It’s about bringing order to complexity.”

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Blog Design Complete

After 2 weeks of tweaking, I think I’ve finally completed designing danl.im. The design this time was much more challenging and time consuming than before because of the the Twitter Bootstrap framework that Standard Theme 3.0 was built upon.

These key principles guided me throughout the design of danl.im:

  1. Clutter-free
  2. Content focused
  3. Readability
  4. Responsive

I’m really happy with what the site looks like now, and want to extend a big thank you to Jason Bradley from 8bit. Jason was an immense resource and help and I definitely wouldn’t have been able to make the many changes to the theme without his kindness and patience. Thank you Jason!

With Jason’s help, I also managed to style the different post formats that Standard 3.0 has to offer. The theme has a strong suite of different post formats such as Image, Video, Status and Normal post formats that I previously didn’t manage to utilize because I didn’t know how to style them to fit the overall look of the site. That isn’t a problem any more.

One more key implementation for danl.im is that of embedded Disqus comments. I’ve always been against the use of embedded third-party non-wordpress native comments, but I must say that the Disqus comment installation process was quick, easy and painless. They’ve really outdone themselves with regards to making the whole transition as seamless as possible for people who wanted Disqus comments installed.

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