Mind the Gap

Hi, I’ve just been reading a more or less interesting article regarding both the iPhone / iPod Touch’s limitations with regard to both how many apps can be displayed, and the almost impossible ways a developer might hope to have his or her app noticed in a sea of eye-candy, hard to differentiate, uniformity.

Incidentally, I like that app uniformity, but have noticed how unsatisfactorily it is to locate an app that might be of interest on an iPod Touch, say?

There are currently 30,000 apps vying for your eyeball attention. Trouble is, there are only 9 pages on an iPhone. With the default apps already installed, that only allows for another 132, depending on your iPhone model.

It’s been said, that this app buying (of free to cheap) is rather addictive. And, because there are so many eye catching, eye-candy apps it’s no wonder that 132 apps (for some) may already not be enough. Since the only way to make room for more apps may lead to the deletion of an already paid for app(s). This might be viewed by some, including developers, to be a barrier.

For myself, I’ve only just recently got into using an iPod Touch, so, there isn’t much chance of me losing any sleep over this, just yet.

I thought the article well thought out, and while there maybe a problem easily locating the right app that stands out for your particular needs, I don’t think there’s much more Apple could have thought up to make these apps any more desirable than they are now on whatever iPod Touch / iPhone you have.

Having said that, it seems that Apple, at the outset, applied the gloss or shine by default, whereas now a developer can ‘turn it off’.

This article should also be an eye-opener for any new app developer, as there are hints to how an app can be designed to stand out.

Source: Package Design Magazine

…In my mind.

When am I ever going to learn something rock-solid that I can finally put away, and say, yes, I actually managed to understand how I created that, and I can remember all the steps that it took to create it too…

Yeah, well, anyway, that’s ok if you’re baking a cake. Ok, so what if I don’t know how to bake a cake already.

Anyway, about those gaps… Sometimes they’re not even in my mind at all, but can be outside of my control. I mean, take this WordPress, thingy blog. It was an absolute doddle incorporating into me website. Maybe I’m one of the lucky ones who just happened to have a hosting service that included a ‘cpanel’, user interface do-dah, which has enabled me to so easily incorporate it in the first place.

But I dunno? There’s always something isn’t there? Ok, so what if the 5-minute installation took me a little bit over half an hour. Yeah, well anyway, no one’s perfect. That’s my excuse anyhow.

You know, I had more fun playing around with my Blogger account than I’ve had trying to figure out which of the humongous files are associated with those silly ‘Meta’ links that take you to your login page. And why they’re not also manageable in the ‘manage’ area of your ‘Dashboard’ is beyond me.

Turns out it was one of the sidebar php files: wp-content/themes/default/sidebar.php

Sidebar code to snip out

Normally, I wouldn’t have much trouble in finding the culprit code, but on this occasion I found myself — for a time — going round in ever decreasing circles.

Ok, so I’m new to this WordPress thingy, and for now there are bound to be a few gaps… the size of the Grand Canyon.