WWDC Quick Thoughts
iPhone “SDK”
Web apps can’t use the iPhone’s multi-touch input method. That’s reason enough that web apps can’t be real apps on an iPhone.
Stacks
From a more personal perspective, the lack of a “real” iPhone SDK wasn’t the part of the keynote that left the biggest impression. Rather, I couldn’t help but notice that the new Stacks feature looked an awful lot like Overflow. It is cool that enough people know about Overflow that I’m not the only one that noticed though (a few people at the conference have asked me about it as well - thanks for your concern!). After thinking about it for a few days, I think that Overflow hasn’t quite been Watson’d. There is a lot of stuff that Overflow does that Stacks doesn’t, and I think there is a lot that Overflow can do in the future to continue to innovate (to continue with the general overuse of that term). I get the impression that Stacks are meant to be used as more of a temporary holding place, whereas Overflow is much more configurable, accessible via a hot-key, and not something that you’ll likely want to change the contents of every day. The intended use of each turns out to be only slightly similar. Really they are more visually similar than conceptually similar.
ADA
Also, congratulations to all of the Apple Design Award winners, especially Panic / Coda for Best User Experience and MacRabit / CSSEdit for Best Developer Tool, both of which I think are just awesome, extremely useful applications with great UIs. Sandvox from Karelia (who also created Watson) got the runner up spot for Best User Experience, and although I’m not a target user, it’s also a really nice looking app.
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on Thursday, June 14th, 2007 at 6:22 pm.
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I was thinking of your app vs. Stacks as well. Glad to hear you think it’s got room to live on it’s own. Also, it was nice to meet you this week.
[…] Echando un vistazo al programa, descubrí el blog del programador donde el hombre habla de las sensaciones que tuvo al ver que Leopard incorpora una característica MUY parecida a su programa. Él tiene la impresión de que esas stacks son ubicaciones más o menos temporales de accesos y archivos, algo que vas a usar por un tiempo mientras estás haciendo un proyecto, mientras que su programa es muy configurable y tendente a un sistema de trabajo estable. En su web tiene un vídeo de cómo funciona el Overflow y la verdad es que resulta más que interesante, aunque sea de pago. Comparte: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]
Dan, I’m pretty sure Stacks won’t “Watson” Overflow. AFAIK Stacks doesn’t have “catagory” tabs, so it’s going to take up more space on the Dock (if you have a lot of “catagories” like I do…) whereas Overflow is invisible (i.e., takes up NO space) until it’s invoked.
While I’ve got you, I have a suggestion for a future version. Could you have a preferences option that opens Overflow at the cursor instead of where it last was? That way the user can invoke Overflow with a mouse button (or function key) and not have to move the mouse so far to reach the icon of the app they wish to launch… Just a thought
[…] I wanted to see what Stunt Software thought of the new competition. Here is a relating entry I found on the Stunt Software blog: There is a lot of stuff that Overflow does that Stacks doesn’t, and I think there is a lot that Overflow can do in the future to continue to innovate (to continue with the general overuse of that term). I get the impression that Stacks are meant to be used as more of a temporary holding place, whereas Overflow is much more configurable, accessible via a hot-key, and not something that you’ll likely want to change the contents of every day. -Dan Messing, Stunt Software […]
Stacks have been around since before OSX. They where originally on the desktop and I believe that they where just referred to as piles. I actually like the original implementation better, but it does fit with where Apple is going with the Dock. When you moused over a pile on the desktop, it would fan out out and a preview icon of the current item would appear above the pile. Piles could be moved, copied, deleted and so on as one item and you could add / remove items from each pile. Here is an article about piles - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/04/23/deep_inside_apples_piles/