Nivas.hr blog

I was thinking about this for a while now, and then this article on Tech Crunch kicked my thoughts right into the place.

Do you remember when iPhone first generation came out how all manufactures rushed out to make look-alike copy? It was crazy, in less than 6 months there were touch phones everywhere. Of course, all of them were utter rubbish in comparison with iPhone and I am not talking just hardware. Yes, hardware was way crappier than iPhone's (dragging screen lagged, click was laggy), but software was horrible as well. Interfaces were ugly, not touch-friendly and above all, it was that App Store with hundreds of sweet Apps that sealed the iPhone as the leader.

Remember that? OK.

So then Apple kicked out iPad.

Where are the knockoffs? Where are the attempts to mimic a successful product? I know there are few "tablet" like computers out there in the world, but none are at the same mental level as iPad (they either can do too much, or can do too little). No one rushed out their device in order to steal part of the cake that Apple generated.

And then there is this Tech Crunch article sealing the whole year off. If you believe them, there will be no iPad competitors out this year. Ain't that strange? Apple is soon to announce iPad 2, and competition is still working on their first generation devices!

You wanna know why is that, in my super humble opinion?

It is because execs of those other companies believe, deep down, that there is no market for TABLET computers. There is only market for iPad. Dig that? Apple has through clever marketing created new market - but not market for tablet computers, they have created market for iPad. For that EXACT device. It is iPad that people want, not any tablet. I bet that if a better tablet computer saw light of day tomorrow, better in specifications / weight / memory / CPU speed / ... that it would not sell at a rate of 1-unit-every-3-seconds as iPad was.

The world (at large) does not want tablet computers. Yes, you geeks reading this might want to see Google's tablet, or Samsung's, but you do not form mass of buyers. The world at large wants iPad, and only iPad. Not tablet computer.

And that is why companies are slow to release their attempt at tablets. They just do not believe they will sell their magical device.

And you know what? They are right.

For the fun of it, I just went to see how are other search engines doing. Yes kids, there are other websites that do search, other than Google.

Lycos: it is horrible.
Altavista: oh please, put this site out of its misery.

But look at this - www.ask.com. Now look at it carefully.

The search box is pointing at the noun Ask making me believe that you should click it in order to ask the site your question! After all, the whole idea behind Ask is that you should construct your query in form of a question. Combined with the fact that the main search button is identical in color with the rest of the site so it melts right it, it further enhances the feeling that the red Ask logo is the main action button.

But of course, it is not.

All the design elements point in one direction, the site wants you to go the opposite way.

I have no sympathy for the "other" search engines. Seeing ridiculous fails that they are I am really glad Google killed them all.

All this recent fuss growing in the last months that peaked (and is still peaking) when iPad came out and people quickly saw that it too - much like iPhone - does not play Flash is driving me mad.

As much as I love Adobe I am quite confident that Apple will N-E-V-E-R enable Flash player on their devices. OK, maybe not never, but certainly not in the next 10 years.

Why? Read on.
Read the rest of this entry »

iOS4 was released yesterday. It is awesome. It introduced true multitasking, folders for Apps, all-in-one mailbox (yay!) and many more cool features.

It also introduced an ability to have wallpaper behind your App icons as well. Neat feature, but what happens if you do not want to have wallpaper behind your icons? When you go to settings there is no option to disable wallpaper on your Homescreen! And speaking honestly, wallpaper behind icons just adds a layer of unnecessary visual clutter, and makes some icons look pretty bad because they were originally designed to be placed on black background.

What to do?

Simple. Start camera, put your finger over the lens completely covering it and take a black photo. Then set that black photo as a Homescreen wallpaper.

Ta-daaah! Black background for your Homescreen.

November last year, Google announced that they will make turn-by-turn GPS free. Following that announcement the current players, Garmin and TomTom, crapped their pants as stocks fell rapidly.

- If you haven't already, read about that incident.

Today, half a year later, let's see how are things doing:

OH, WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT?

After initial overreaction, the market understood that GSM/3G based navigation is not all that super great. If you bought Garmin stock at the moment they fell, now you are 50% richer.

You're welcome. =)

I wrote an article on why is interface bad for you, but I didn't feel like posting it on this (black) blog. It is instead setup as a small webpage here: http://nivas.hr/pub/destroy/. Check it, you might earn something =)

It's simple.

An App that has a fullscreen browsing experience by integrating Safari (as many iPhone Apps do), and over that in two dragable and maybe resizable "windows" Twitter and Facebook client.

This would enable users to be on two of the most popular social networks at the same time, and clicking/touching any links from them would open those pages in Safari running behind them.

Charge this $2.99, and you are a millionaire in one week.

(Why $2.99? Because Tweetie, the best iPhone Twitter client costs $2.99, Facebook App is free, and Safari is integrated from OS).

Like this:

Apple approved Opera for iPhone. Whole world is in shock & awe. I have installed it, and took it for a test drive on about 10 sites (mostly our latest sites, Facebook and similar other hard hitters).

Conclusion? Opera, as it is in this first release, sucks donkey balls. Yes, it is fast. There the good things stop. It renders pages horribly. Does not support any rendering engines (webkit comes to mind). Zooming is horrid. Scrolling is pain. Interface was poorly thought of. Copy to clipboard is insane (by insane I mean: not there). It is just bad.

Furthermore, there is no way to integrate Opera deep into iPhone. When you click a link from Mail, it will open in Safari. Shortcuts to websites you have on your Homescreen open in Safari. It is just too timeconsuming to jump from Safari to Opera in order to faster surf there.

In short, Apple approved Opera so people could quickly understand how sucky it is, and start talking words of praise for Safari and at the same time removed some of the Nazi attributes they gathered lately. They turned this while thing into superpositive spin for them. Hat down to you Apple, masters of marketing.

Shazam, out of nowhere, Twitter bought Tweetie.

The need for Twitter to have an iPhone App named "Twitter" is more than obvious. New users, who do not fully understand Twitter and it's ecosystem do not instinctively know that there are other applications that connect to Twitter. Hence, many people after not finding App named "Twitter" simply quit.

It was a long intention for Twitter to make official iPhone App. Not buy one!

But, alas, they bought Tweetie, App that many call the best Twitter client for iPhone. You could argue is it, or is it not the best, but no matter what is the conclusion, it is really really good.

Twitter bought it, and will put it back to Appstore as a free App.

WAIT ... WHAT?

One of the best Apps will become free and under direct control of Twitter. Yes. Exactly.

With this move, Twitter, in my super humble opinion kinda shot them selves in the foot. Jumped the shark. Why?

1: Unfair competition
Looking just from the level of development, Twitter does not need to use it's API and all the limitations. Other clients have lots of API limitations, they cannot fully stream tweets, but instead need to pull them in batches. And many more limits that are set by the API. Twitter's own App does not need to be hindered by any limitations.

2: Pricing
Tweetie / Twitter will now be free. Why would ANYONE buy another Twitter App (Twitterific comes to mind) when this one is free. By making the best Twitter client free and super-powerful, they basically screwed all the developers making Twitter Apps. Good bye Twitterific, it was nice to know you. Good bye Tweetdeck, see ya!

3: Killing community that created Twitter
Desktop and Mobile applications are the only reason Twitter exploded like crazy. Being able to connect to Twitter from anywhere is the key to Twitter's success. And who made that possible? People who made applications. And why did they make applications? Because there was some money involved in that for them as well. Atebits, creators of Tweetie, were selling Tweetie at $2.99. Even after you remove Apple's part, there is still a lot of cash earned there on that App. And now all the new App creators are simply discouraged to make new, diverse, Apps. With diversity being the key. Different people will find different Apps that fit them, that's why diversity is good.

So basically, Twitter killed the community that made them popular.

And let's get real for a moment now. If Twitter had volume of people even remotely close to Facebook's, it would MAYBE be understandable. But Twitter at this moment has less accounts than Farmville on Facebook. Yes, one silly game on Facebook has more people farming digital vegetables than all Twitter accounts put together. And into that account count go even those funny accounts made by people just to screw with someone or have some fun (I got few funny accounts besides my main account).

It will be pretty cool to watch what will happen with Twitter in the next 6 months. I mean, Twitter will not cease to be, it will not vanish (even tho many would like that), but there will be bad backfire from this acquisition, I guarantee it.

By the way, you should follow me on Twitter @gpeuc

I know that for some of you this might be stating-the-obvious, but I will say it anyhow: absolutely no other device will be able to rival iPad in the foreseeable future.

Many will try, but all will fail.

What everyone else is doing (as far as I know, maybe someone will surprise me) is try to replicate the hardware iPad has – sleek tablet-like touch screen device, and then on top of that they slap Windows / Linux / any other operating system.

And this just does not work.

Those operating systems are made to be used with mouse and keyboard as primary interface devices, and as such absolutely cannot function in a world of touch interface. How do you scroll a website in a normal browser? You use mouse scroll wheel. And if there is no mouse scroll wheel, then you click and drag a scrollbar. Now take your finger and place it close to the scrollbar of your monitor – it is at least double or triple the size of it!

How would you close tabs with touch interface? Trying to poke into that small [x] is just impossible and impractical.
Let’s say that you want to access some software that is running from your Windows system tray (for the new ones: that’s the little row of icons at the bottom right). Try tapping on that with your finger. There is no way you could do it without accidentally hitting two other icons.

Windows and similar systems are made to serve environment where keyboard and mouse are present, and that is OK, since they were thought of and developed to serve that purpose. iPad and iPhone was developed from zero to serve touch interface.

But besides these obvious interface problems that cannot be easily solved for Windows based tablets, there are more issues that users will just not like. First of all, if your tablet runs Windows, it will require constant maintenance. You will need to install antivirus software, run periodic hard drive defragmentation or at least registry clean up, and install all sorts of addons to keep the system alive. Whereas iPad OS requires basically no maintenance at all.
Furthermore, Windows based devices have boot up time. Even if you have put it into sleep mode instead of full shut down, it still requires some time to wake up. iPad – swipe unlock, and you are ready to go. In normal day to day use iPad is always on, so to speak.

And that is just the basics of operating system and primary logic behind it. If you look more into software you use in your normal day, you will see how Windows based touch devices are just not possible. Scrolling through that Start Menu with your finger? Outlook? Word? MSN messenger? Photoshop? Insane & impossible.

iPad's hardware, operating system and all applications are designed from scratch to be used through touch interface. Current competition just focuses to make hardware that is portable and has touch screen, completely ignoring software. What Microsoft and other should be doing is create competition starting from the operating system and usability logic, and the hardware part will easily come then.

MORE:
Check out this review of Slate PC from Stantum on Wired.

Could Google fail more?

Their latest creation Google Buzz is so wrong on so many points that is is just hilarious. Google tried to improve Twitter by adding more features, and failed so horribly that this fail will be retold by the generations to come. "Hey grandpa, please tell us again about the epic fail that was Google Buzz back when you were young."

1. Integrating Google Buzz into Gmail is conceptually pretty bad idea. If you are a hard core Gmail user - having Gmail (or Gmail interface) as your main email - you will have your inbox flooded during the normal work day. So why add more pressure on the user by making a FOLDER named Buzz which contains more to read? On the other hand, if you are not a Gmail user, you will most likely not have must to Buzz about, or will just not be interested in this. If Google made Buzz a stand-alone service that users could perceive as a separated software, Buzz would have better chance.

2. Google obviously failed to realize why Twitter is so good. Hint: it's the 140 character limit. Through Twitter information flows quickly. There are no old threads to which you can reply, they just quickly go into the oblivion of the past. Buzz tried to "improve" Twitter by not limiting post characters, and by having Comments on each thread. Comments just force users to constantly return to the past to check if maybe someone commented something that was said 2 days ago.

3. Massive amounts of text and different media are just impossible to translate into mobile devices. Look at this screenshot, this is the first Buzz that appeared in my Buzz-inbox:

You will notice the comments. Expanded, it looks like this:

Does Google really expect me to follow this amount of text being pushed to me every 5 minutes? I can only imagine how Buzz-inbox looks like for hardcore Gmail users. It must be like the Matrix - letters and numbers scrolling down on screen at the speed of light. Maybe after some use you do not see the text any more, you just see a redhead chick here, and a lolcat there embeded in all that code, pardon, text.

On the other hand, this is a screenshot of Tweetie, a supreme Twitter iPhone client. Buzz will absolutely NEVER achieve this simplicity of communication.

Can you imagine Buzz App that is simple to use and simple to read? Neither can I.

4. Two days after Buzz appeared, the hottest topic on the net was how to turn it off. How to block people, how to remove all posts, etc.

The Google engineers live in their little Ivory Tower totally separated from the world. They think that everyone is like them - a techno crazy people who can visually parse tons and tons of code, pardon; text. Starting with Wave, now continuing to Buzz, they are just showing us that they have completely lost all grips of reality, and real user needs. We need simplification of processes, aggregation of existing services, and order in chaos. Google is pushing the ball the other way, and the users say: "No you don't."

I am a long time Logitech fan. To put things in perspective, I used Logitech mice while they still had a ball in them, that was some 10 years ago, I believe. Over the time Logitech managed to always out-do themselves, and be on the very forefront of input technology.

Not to mention that their customer support is awesome. When I bitched about my mouse falling apart, they saw that on this blog, called Nivas office and offered to mail me new one ASAP. Amazing.

But what is really amazing is that Logitech really gets *it*. They really do, and they blew me away with their latest product. It is called Logitech TouchMouse, and it is not a hardware. It is an iPhone App that hooks to your computer via wireless network (and small Mouse Server software you need to download).

Then through your iPhone you can control mouse pointer and keyboard input. And it works like a charm, smooth and precise.

But what really shocked me (in a positive way) is the concept behind this. This free App just replaced my need for wireless input devices. Logitech wireless keyboard that people use to control computer from bed while watching a movie just became redundant, as well as many other devices that Logitech is selling.

Someone at Logitech actually had the balls to conclude the following:

Even if this means less sales for their main product line, they still released this software. What balls, eh?

Furthermore, this concept of iPhone controlling your computer could be taken to the next level. Take any driving game (Need for Speed, or whatever) - make it use iPhone as steering wheel input device. It's that simple. I bet you that in the next 6 months we will see games start using iPhone as input device, based on this proof of concept Logitech handed to us for free.

Apple will never, or at least not in the foreseeable future, enable Flash on iPad and iPhone.

So far, none of the internet theory-crafters did not manage to hit the nail on the has as to why does Apple hate Flash so much. People are talking about CPU/battery consumption, they are talking about Flash being too slow to run on iPhone, and all sorts of different technical reasons.

Technical reasons are the least of Apple's worry.

Let me put this simple: enabling Flash on iPad/iPhone would seriously harm App Store. That's right. Think about it - the majority of games and Apps can easily be replicated in Flash. OK, I must admit, games using 3D engine, and Apps using camera could not be replicated to Flash (at least to my humble knowledge), but the major volume of income for Appstore comes from retarded small fart-apps, and from simple easy to play games. Games like Bejeweled, Lexic, apps like Tweetie, TweetDeck and Things could all be available via Flash applications as well.

Not to mention that Flash could enable even better UX than iPhone native apps due to effects such as blurs that would enable motion-blurring of items that move in and out of the screen, perspective blur for items that are in the "distance", etc.

All that would remain then is to create a central marketplace and viable business model (flat rate Apps?) that would allow users to create account and leave credit card number and purchase Flash based Apps. Hell, why one, why not many! Competition is always good!

No, this would not kill Appstore outright because there are some things only native iPad/iPhone App can do, but it would be a huge chunk in it's revenue. Just check your iPhone, and see how many of Apps you have could be easily recreated in Flash, and see for your self what Flash would do to Apple.

Apple introduced iPad. The world is in shock. In shock of how much it sucks. It does not cure cancer on command, and it fails to live up to the silly expectations people had.

But, what people do, and that's wrong, is compare it to iPhone or Notebook. The iPad is none of that. It is new product targeted at specific market. That market is not you and me, since you are here reading this blog located on web developer company. iPad target are people who are casual users that use electronics and gadgets in a casual mode, focusing on one thing at a time - view little YouTube, read few pages of a book, check what's new on their favourite website, and just turn the damned thing off. iPad is an awesome thing if you were your father/mother. It's like an out-of-the-box computer that our parents can actually use!

Looking from that perspective, if you can downshift into this mindset - iPad is AWESOME. Of course, there are some things that it misses to make it supreme consumer toy (such as camera to take photos, true GPS) but remember iPhone - all that will come in second or third generation. Apple wants your cash too, they are not here just to make the world a better place.

For us, the powerusers that chill out from time to time, one thing is missing. This:

Give us ONE "window" to run native iPhone apps that floats above iPad. Just one. I do not ask for more. This way I could check Tweetie, or Things to-do list, or use the bloody calculator without the need to exit main app I am using. Just one!!!

But, I got some bad news with this as well, from the developers point of view.

iPad has a resolution of 1024x768. This resolution is here to stay, they will not increase it in second generation. The Apps developers will build in this year will fit this resolution, and as with iPhone, once Apps are massively developed for this resolution, it would just be bad to introduce bigger/different resolution.

And what that means for us, website developers? We are back to square one with our wishes for increased monitor resolutions. All of the developers were looking into Google Analytics for the past 3 years, and watching the 1024x768 resolution go down, as 1280 increased. We were just waiting for the point to start thinking bigger. And now, BAM on the head, we cannot any more. For the next 5 years, if iPad explodes into general population, all of our sites will have to be created to be optimized for 1024 resolution. Even if desktop monitors go to million by million, we will need to deploy our websites onto iPad.

Have a nice future, you silly web designers.

////
Nivas White

////
Worship

Or, if you have some troubles downloading, here are the direct links:
Nivas White
Worship

What has Apple done to all of you punks, eh? They didn't even properly announce their new product, yet entire world is naming and renaming products - slate.

For the sake of argument, let's pretend that the new product will in fact be called "iSlate" and that it will in fact be a tablet-kind of a easily transportable computer.

Entire internet is trying to guess how will it look like, and (almost) entire internet thinks it will be an oversized iPhone. Now listen up, you ignorant fools! Do you all have attention span of a goldfish in a bowl aquarium? Do you not remember how your last predictions ended up?

Rewind time few years back ... and we are here with the almighty iPod, and Apple announced iPhone. Everyone, thought iPhone will be a glorified version of iPod, just with an capability to call someone. There is even an archive of your ridiculous attempts, check it here at http://appleiphone.blogspot.com/.

What can you first notice in those concepts? They are all based on iPod (or are completely nonsense). And do you know why is it like so? It is because people in mass are not product designers. People, in general, cannot create NEW things, but can just recycle what they have seen and add on to it something that they think. If you could create NEW things out of thin air and your own imagination, you would probably be working for Apple or some other hard hitting techno company. But you cannot. So you think that iPhone will look like iPod on steroids.

And the same thing is now happening with iSlate. People, yes you, cannot create new things, so in lack of imagination everyone is taking iPhone as a relevant starting point, and just build up from there.
Let me tell you something really short: I will be bloody surprised, shocked and somewhat disgusted if iSlate turns out to be oversized iPhone. That would mean that Apple did not try hard enough to make new and original product, and has instead gone "The Porsche way". You know - every car looks the same since 1963, only a bit tweaked. The laziest designers in the world.

And there ends my theory on the looks of iSlate.

What is more important is what will iSlate do. What has become a norm, a MUST, is that the slate line of products from any company needs to be able to connect to the internet. If the slate is not connected, it is useless. The ergonomic nature of that shape prevents some normal work activity, slate is not laptop. There is no keyboard, and perpendicular to it - a screen. Rather, it is just one surface with onscreen keyboard. And that layout makes it basically impossible for anyone to do some serious work on it. You cannot type text easily, you cannot do a quick Photoshop action, you cannot create presentations, etc. The only thing you can easily do is what you now do with iPhone: use applications that have simple touch interfaces to do things that are in the cloud. Twitter, Facebook, read blogs, read news through their aplications, watch video, listen to music, play some games, but all that through, I repeat, simpe touch interface.

And for all that to happen, iSlate needs to be connected to the internet, and needs to do it on the move (not just wireless in your home/office)! Who needs iSlate in closed desktop environment - I have my own computer in such environment.

And this opens up a Pandora's Box of problems.

How will iSlate connect to the web on the move? You cannot just insert SIM card into it. And even if you could, would you want to? SIM card means that you could basically perform phone calls with it as well, and I seriously doubt that iSlate will be oversized iPhone. SIM card would mean one more thing: contracts with operators. Meaning iSlate would not be out in the open market, rather, it would be bound to operators. And that is bad. And let’s face it, iSlate without internet connection is only good to use as a plate holder for your lunch.

So what then?

One word: iPhone. The iSlate will be, I am 99% sure, heavily bound to iPhone. It will use Bluetooth, or Wireless, to connect to iPhone, and through it tether to the internet. Knowing Apple, this bond will be seriously tough. Like, superglue that NASA uses tough. That bond would also enable limitless options. For example, Apps for iSlate could be bought on the move via iPhone, and when you pair them up, iPhone could transfer it to iSlate. They could share movies and music. iPhone will act as a remote control for iSlate as well. Hell, they could even share battery power, why not? I could think of millions of other ways iPhone and iSlate could be connected, but I will leave that to Apple to figure out.

But this also means that iSlate will be in offer at mobile operators as well. You would have it in bundle with iPhone, subsidized.

And now tell me that does not make you all sparkly inside: iPhone, iSlate, good internet connection, subsidized price, let’s say: $500. Yes, there is a monthly charge, but monthly-schmontly.

I admit it. I do not see the purpose of Gowalla for me as a user. I have been using it for 3 weeks, and I just do not see what is the end game.

Just in case you have been living under the rock in the last months, Gowalla is new game-social-attentiondeficitdisorder internet thingie with an edge for locations. As you walk through the city, you can check-in into a location, like your favourite pub or restaurant. If that place is not yet Gowalled, you can easily add it right there, and neatly categorize it. The base platform for Gowalla is iPhone, preferably 3GS so Gowalla can pick up the fine GPS coordinates. The website is here just for the registration and some tweaking of location (for example, if iPhone missed your location).

With all this comes the game element of collecting items and pins. When you first create an account you get a few random digital items, like boots, pizza slice, toy robot. You can drop those items on locations, or swap them for items someone else dropped there. Basically, you can collect some digital items.

By doing some combo check-ins, you get pins like awards. I collected a couple of pins, I am "Wanderer" and "Explorer" and got some pins for creating 10 spots, and all that. That is neat.

However
I am not sure what the end game benefit for me as a user is. Why would I use Gowalla? Twitter has uses - it keeps me informed about stuff happening in my city, in my country, in the world, and on the internet. Facebook also has uses, there is a benefit for me as a user in it. But I just do not see benefit for me as a user in Gowalla.

First of all, it requires work from my side, but let's say we got that covered. I, as well as many of my friends, are early adopters, but more than that, we are willing to help for a good cause. It is not a problem for me to walk around my usual routes and just mark all the locations so that later generations of users can see them.

But what after that?

Checking into locations becomes just a boring task that I need to do, with no real benefit for me. I check in Nivas every day. I check in restaurants and apparel store. So what? I sometimes find digital items there. So?

One good thing that I have managed to find in Gowalla is that it could force me to visit some locations that maybe I would not visit on my own. But walking around the city just to get some digital pins; I do not see it happening.

The more I use Gowalla, the more I fail the see the point in it. Can you enlighten me? Tell me why is it good?

Last year, precisely - November 2008, I wrote about traffic lights with progress bars that would visually signalize how much time there is until the switch from green to red (or vice versa).

Recently, an idea about progress bar traffic light got a Red Dot design award for safety and ecology. You can read about it here:

• Red Dot official site
• Relogik - designer's website

I am quite willing to accept the fact that more than one person can think of an idea at the same time in the world, after all, there is over 6 billion of us chillin' on this planet.

I am also quite willing to accept the fact that on Relogik site, only the traffic light concept has a little disclaimer under Project info saying: "Date:Apr, 2009 (initial sketch: 2006)", clearly stating, for just that one project, that they thought of this at 2006. All other design ideas are, I guess, an instant thoughts that get thought of, concepted, visualized and created in the same day and do not need further disclaimers. But I digress.

What I absolutely cannot accept is the fact that such traffic light is NEITHER SAFE OR ECOLOGICAL.

Let me elaborate on Ecology part, it is simpler:

The project proposes that people should turn off their car engines when they see there is a lot to wait at the red light. I call bullshit. First of all, turning off your engine just to restart it again after 30 seconds is not that much of a save. Most modern engines are very ecological when idling. Googling just a little on this subject you can get a good read. I recomend this article on Slate about turning engine off.

But what is probably the biggest point why NOT to turn the engine off is the fact that a car with engine off does not have power steering and power breaking and on most cars - airbags will not deploy. Let me repeat that for you: if you get hit by a truck with your engine turned off, your airbags will most likely NOT deploy. You will not be able to steer, and your breaking power will be minimal. This is why in most countries turning your engine off on public roads is ILLEGAL. So, thanks, I will just keep my engine running.

Also, the wear and tear of your car's starting system and battery will in the end produce more carbon output than if you just keep the engine running. If you have to replace your battery sooner than regular - you have just polluted the world A LOT.

Second point, the Safety.

By showing timer, this concept gives drivers an ability to predict and speculate how fast they can go. Imagine this scenario; you turn around the corner onto the main street, and 50 meters in front of you is a red light with progress bar almost empty (meaning it will be green soon). What do you do? You speed up knowing that the red light will go off soon and that most likely you will pass that intersection at green. The words "most likely" are the catch. Because you could as well misjudge the timing and distance and cause crash.

The more you give to the drivers to speculate and calculate the more accidents there are on the streets. As simple as that.

On the other hand, the traffic lights already have timer, it is called: yellow light. It acts as a progress bar - it tells you that pretty soon the red will turn to green. And, if you are an experienced driver, you know that most intersection related crashes are directly linked to the yellow light speeding cars (be it yellow going to green, or yellow going to red). This is a clear indicator that even a simple progress bar, represented by yellow light, is obviously problematic. Giving more flexibility in misjudging time would just cause more accidents.

Furthermore, the signalization in modern cities is not done by "stupid" fixed-time traffic lights, but by smart traffic light systems that change the timings according to traffic load. The system can determine that the traffic load is low and can instantly switch to green light - rendering the timer useless.

Institute of Transportation Engineers
If anyone had any doubts, there are institutes all over the world that devote their full time on research of public signalization. It's not like someone invented traffic lights back-in-the-day and now noone is looking further into development of signalization. There are people who work on this 24/7 and if they did not conclude that progress bar traffic light is good, I believe that stands for something.

Read more:

• Information Aesthetics (read the comments)
• Alternative traffic light (read the comments)
• Institute of Transportation Engineers
• Slate - turning engine off

For the heretics that never saw this game, here is a nice demonstration:

During the past 2 months I have tried quite a lot of iPhone games claiming to be "the best" or "really must have" and whatnot. I can tell you one thing with confidence: 99% of them turn to rubbish after just 2 minutes of gameplay.

Of them all, EDGE, turned to be the one game that shines on all points. Hell, it invents new points and shines on them too. And laughs in the face in all other iPhone games. Let me elaborate:

1: The idea
Whereas most of iPhone games are just clones of normal PC/Console games shrunk down and made ugly due to lack of true processing power, Edge goes original. Developers, Mobigame, thought of the limitations of hardware and set that as their boundary: make something that is original AND can smoothly run on all iPhone platforms. So they made an isometric world that consists of low polygon objects - cubes, added some life to it and a twist (being able to "levitate" the main cube on it's edge).

2: The feeling
What Mobigame really understands is psychology of games for iPhone. You see, the demographic of people that use iPhone the most today can be summarized into one sentence: the geeks that played games on Commodore 64 and Amiga. The people who were 15 years of age back then are now about 30ish, have cool jobs (see, all that geekines paid of - screw you captain of the football team) and run around sporting their iPhones. Edge is the perfect example of a game that was made for that demographic. It has a feeling like you are still playing Amiga game, only much smoother and fancier. It is a true future retro.

3: The graphics
There are no fancy 3D models, no shiny objects, no pixel pushed characters. Just smooth straight surfaces shaded in perfect gradients. Visually minimalistic, yet still this game provides orgasmic eye stimulation beyond measure.

4: Learning curve and skill factor
Where most iPhone games fail is learning curve. Take for example Aera, a 2.5D aeroplane game. I, a gamer, was able to complete level 2 only after about 15 minutes of play, and I decided to delete the game on level 3. It is just insane. Edge - smooth as a 20 year old whiskey. It drags you in. And then, once you comprehend how the game functions, it takes some time for you to really master it. The skill is a factor in this game, unlike most other games that once you "get" them - that's it, you can finish them by just pressing the A button fast enough.

5: Time investment
There are some great games out there. Real Racing comes to mind. However, the developers sometime go too far and make you invest at least 45 minutes per session in order to achieve anything! People do not have that amount of time! I bought Real Racing, it is impressive, and I just do not play it. I do not have a chunk of 2 hours on my hands in order to learn a track and then race it a few times in order to finish first. I guess people forget that iPhone is a telephone as well, and if someone calls you while you are racing and about to finish FIRST THE GAME JUST SHUTS DOWN AND WWHAAAAAAGGRRRAAAAAA PAIN AND SUFFERING ......

Edge session can last 5 minutes, and can be fun even after an hour of playing.

6: Re-playability
This, perhaps, is the single point where almost all iPhone games fail. Once you complete them, there is just no reason to try again. Edge provides full set of things to do on each level in order to out-do yourself and the rest of people playing it - how fast can you finish the level, can you find all the hidden pixels to collect, and keeping the death count as low as possible. Finishing fast, while collecting all the pixels and not plummeting to death can be REALLY challenging.

7: Fine touches
On one level you become a head of a robot that walks. On some levels you control by moving left/right switches that operate legs of a quad-walker. Crazy themes that go through the levels are just insane. Level design is awesome. The music is custom made to fit the retro feeling of game, yet is modern enough to listen as a regular music. Actually, Mobigame gives soundtrack as a free download. It's like ... a cherry on top of a supreme ice-cream!

Go get it now, you can thank me later.

Among all the huge monsters that we have been building lately, there was time to create one visual identity and super small site.

Honey Moon ( Medeni Mjesec ) is all about organizing honey moon trips. Apparently, they are capable of full service organization no matter where does the couple wish to go, or if they have no idea where to go - Medeni Mjesec will conjure and think up of a supreme location suited just for them.

Sounds like fun. Now, all you need is a wife. *wink* *wink*