Did the iPhone Kill Google Reader?
The End of Google Reader
This week Google announced the death of Google Reader, its RSS reading solution. Is it possible that the iPhone was one of the major causes of the failure of Google Reader?
What is Google Reader and What did it Bring to Google?
Rich Site Summary (RSS) was first released in 1999 but really became popular in the mid 2000s with the rise of the readership of blogs. The idea behind RSS is that content from various sources such as blogs or newspapers can be aggregated and read in one place without having to visit various different websites.
For Google, this represented a challenge to its advertisement business. If different …
What’s the difference between an e-commerce website and an e-commerce application?
One of the key trends of 2013 is the expected uptake of mobile e-commerce. But what form will that take? What we’ve seen with some of the more adventurous companies to-date is a mobile enablement of their website, either through responsive design or a targeted mobile site. But is that enough?
Mobile is about Emotion.
Mobile offers a great opportunity to provide much more than just a store front. A person’s mobile device is their most personal device. They have it with them all the time, they hold it close and have an emotional attachment to what they do with it. Because they can touch products and manipulate them with on screen directly with their fingers, they can more easily create an emotional link …
Why Apple and Samsung will Rule the Future of Television
There are several trends in television that will concentrate hardware sales in the hands of just a few companies, but will enable consumers to have a much deeper televisual experience.
How Television Will be Consumed
On February 1st, 2013 Netflix released its first commissioned series, House of Cards. Not only was this a first for the company, it was a first in another sense too.
Television series have been traditionally released on a schedule. This made sense in an era of over-the-air broadcasts when distribution was limited by available slots.
However, in an era where television is distributed by broadband internet, people are consuming programmes at their own speed. For some, that might be occasionally, but for many they binge on a series until …
How will Skeuomorphic design fare in 2013?
According to legend, Steve Jobs had the interface of the iPad’s calendar application modelled on the type of leather he had in his private plane. Whether or not this is true, it speaks to a design concept called Skeuomorphism.
What is Skeuomorphism?
Skeuomorphic design is the concept of taking design patterns from one context and placing them in another. For example, you can take the design of a book in the physical world, and then add page turns to an electronic version.
Some hold the opinion that skeuomorphic design is good for users because it gives them something to relate to. If you already fully understand how an object works in one world, you can apply the same clues into another world. In our example of a book, because you …
The Future of App Design is Minimalist
Design is an interesting subjects and to many, design is very much in the eye of the beholder. One things is sure, design on mobile is very difficult due to smaller and more fixed screen sizes. Yet Apple has always placed a priority on striking visual design, making it important throughout the whole sector.
There are very different design philosophies, skeumorphism, minimalism, cartoonism, high-density or other styles.
At Digital Possibilities, we see an increased trend towards minimalist design. More and more applications are being released with such a design and are being warmly welcomed. The poster-child for this movement has been twitterific 5.
Minimalist design entails creating an interface with only the information required on it. Usually it also involves leaving-off a lot of …
