Jason Purdy's Virtual World

My iPhone Home Screen Today. I'll admit it, I Sort Apps by Color

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:53:13 -0500

I love my home screen of my iPhone and if your app makes it there, let alone the bottom app bar, you deserve huge kudos. I take these 20 locations very seriously and strive to minimize the number of swipes/taps to launch my most common apps. That said though, once I get my set of apps on the home screen, I’m constantly sorting by color…it just looks cool!

There’s the obvious ones, Weather Channel, Instagram, Economist, but probably a few you’ve never seen before.

New AP Mobile! We’ve completely redesigned out app, should be in the store in ~2 weeks.

Looking for a new ToDo list? Check out Clear. Some of the best interaction design I’ve ever used.

Like Instagram? Try out Cinemagram, it has the same feel that Instagram did when they were first starting. Plus, their technology is super cool.

Looking for an apartment? Nestio is the best hands down.

Honorable Mentions:

- Games: Ticket To Ride (TTR Pocket), Tank Hero, Temple Run and Super Stickman Golf.

- Utilities: PadMapper (great to find new apts on a map), WikiOffline, PBRmeASAP (Find a PBR near you!), UDID and TestFlight.

- Photography: Postagram (send high quality postcards), ColorStream (easy tool to create color pallets)

- Sports: WatchESPN, PrePlay

What’s on your home screen?

Search App Store/iTunes

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:49:46 -0500

Have you ever had someone say, “O man, have you checked out this new app?” and thought, “Ya, I’ve heard of it and I think I downloaded it a few weeks back”. You go to the search area, type in the app name, but it doesn’t show up. It is here I ask Apple a question…when you search through my apps and my music, but don’t find it, why isn’t ‘Search App Store’ and ‘Search iTunes’ one of my options? To make me cancel my search, launch the app store and search it again is kind of ridiculous, no?

Artist rendition below, Apple feel free to copy as you see fit. I would like this in iOS 6 please.

I’ve decided that i’m going open a mexican...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:34:13 -0500

I’ve decided that i’m going open a mexican restaurant and call it ‘the perfect chip’ (Taken with instagram)

Meet The Next Self-Made Internet Billionaire – Sahil Lavingia

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:29:19 -0500

Watch out Mark Cuban, Zuck and those Google guys, Sahil Lavingia is coming.

I’ve been following @shl for about a year now and he continues to impress me with his design, vision, hard work and overall awesomeness. I wanted to write about him because he’s a perfect example of what our country needs more of. He had some great opportunities growing up, like having a computer and a stable internet connect (something far too many Americans don’t have), but nothing anyone who works hard today couldn’t have achieved.

At age 14 he started to play around with photoshop, googling around and learning some of the basics. It’s clear he’s a very creative guy, and certainly more artistic than I will ever be, but he simply wanted to learn how to better harness his design abilities. After he had a few projects under his belt he started designing web pages and earning some side-money.

It’s this moment in his life that I find fascinating. Not wanting to be at the whim of another person to actual program the site, and roughly 16 years old, he took up learning HTML, CSS and JavaScript. After he conquered that, he learned PHP for the backend driving the site. By his own accord, this was difficult, but the Stanford iOS classes were a nice break for him to get away from the dry, UI-less backend and learn how to create iPhone applications. At this point he has the ability to design, engineer and ship products across the web + mobile. This is a very powerful toolset to drawn from.

He built Color Stream, which allows you to take a photo and create a color palette (acquired). He built caltrainer, an amazingly simple timetable app for the bay area caltrain system (4.5 stars and my fav caltrain app). He’s also helped build Pintrest, which is one of the hottest startups on the web right now, not to mention tons of other “side projects” that any one of which I’d be proud of. The kid is a rockstar, and after recently dropping out of USC, just keeps on going. His latest project, and his first serious business, Gumroad, aims to make it easier to sell things online. Just need a link to the content you’re selling and a paypal account. It’s going to be huge.

When people talk about being innovative, it’s hard work and creativity like Sahil’s that has allowed him to make 10+ production products and a very credible business…all before his 20^th birthday. I don’t get how people talk about “job creators” as only being this class of wealthy businessmen. Yes, some industries need significant capital like manufacturing and or high end biotech, and even tech companies need some level of VC investment to scale accordingly, but there’s 1000’s of Sahil’s working their ass off, innovating and creating the next businesses of the 21^st century. This is where true job creation, and increases in productivity, will come from. Jack Dorsey, founder of both Twitter & Square, “creator” of 1000s of jobs, comes to mind.

Congrats Sahil on your latest investment round for Gumroad, look forward to what the future brings!

TechCrunchTV Interview

Sahil’s site

Various Projects: Gumroad, Pinterest (iphone app), TurnTable (iphone app), LetsCrate, Dayta(app), Caltrainer(app), Rmmbr, Color Stream, Trnsfr

Side Note: I spent well over 15 minutes trying to find a different photo of Sahil, but this seems to be the only one on the internet. Strange considering his recent rise in fame, I’m sure they’ll be a wiki page for him soon.

Loving the new instagram. Great updates. (Taken with instagram)

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 20:17:58 -0500

Loving the new instagram. Great updates. (Taken with instagram)

John Adams & Declaration of Independence

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:07:00 -0500

I started watching the HBO mini-series John Adams last night and was moved to read the Declaration of Independence for the first time in years. What an amazing document, I highly recommend you give it a read again. Here’s a few of my favorite quotes.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for people to dissolve the political bands…declare the causes to the separation

We hold these truths to be self-evident,that all men are created equal,that they are endowed bytheir Creator with certain unalienable Rights.

Among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…Governments are instituted among Men, their powers from consent of the governed

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it

Institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles…most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness

[Here’s a few reasons for independence]

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

For Quartering bodies of troops among us. For imposing Taxes on us without Consent. For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world

He has plundered our seas, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries.

A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

We, the Representatives of the United States of America, solemnly declare, That these United Colonies are Free and Independent States

We are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all connection between them and the State of Britain totally dissolved

And for the support of this Declaration, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Harriet

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 08:57:13 -0500

Harriet:

Love this app cinegram. Amazingly real gifs. (Taken with http://cinemagr.am)

Holy Infographics!

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:39:42 -0500

If you know me, you know I love me a good infographic. Good design + Cool information = great experience. First off SwissMiss posted the above graphic on average lifespans for various animals. Pretty creative and taken for an even more impressive body of work detailing the history of “ISOTYPE” - The international Systemof Typographic Picture Education…aka, infographics. :)

Reading through the Brian Pickings site, who originally posted the above, I came across the most amazing site for fellow lovers of infographics: http://www.good.is/departments/transparency/

My favorites below, but I recommend you click through. So many great ones!

Mobile Usage from Bit.ly

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:03:09 -0500

How cool is this!? Bit.ly analyzed the links shared for the entire year of 2011 by mobile device vs browser. I’m fascinated by the sheer volume of data they were able to process and as their blog points out, the most interesting part of this graph is the mini-peaks and valleys for smart-phones and tablets between 10am-2pm for phones and 4pm-8pm for tablets. It’s like you can see the entire world taking a lunch break and clicking on links on their phone or using their iPad when they get home from work. Really awesome stuff. Wish they had more of a breakdown by iOS version/device but this is a great start. Thanks Hilary!

This is why i love twitter and IG. I met rowan (@mancow_) once...

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:43:26 -0500

This is why i love twitter and IG. I met rowan (@mancow_) once at a mobile conference and after 6+ months of shared arsenal frustrations, he sends me this for xmas. Thanks dude! #legend (Taken with instagram)

MURK AVENUE: I FOUND ICE CUBES 'GOOD DAY'

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:44:55 -0500

MURK AVENUE: I FOUND ICE CUBES 'GOOD DAY':

Ice Cube - Today was a good day. Ringtone here.

One of my favorite songs of all time. ALL TIME. And now we know what day that actually way. Thanks Murk!

murkavenue:

CLUE 1:
“went to short dogs house,
they was watching Yo MTV
RAPS”
Yo MTV RAPS first aired:
Aug 6th 1988
CLUE 2:
Ice Cubes single “today was a good day” released on:
Feb 23 1993
CLUE 3:
”The Lakers beat the Super
Sonics”
Dates between Yo MTV Raps air date AUGUST 6 1988 and the release…

Check out this guy building the golden gate. Not strapped in at...

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:24:44 -0500

Check out this guy building the golden gate. Not strapped in at all! H/t la boite verte (Taken with instagram)

I may whine about the east coast winter, but days like today are...

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:03:20 -0500

I may whine about the east coast winter, but days like today are just too much fun. (Taken with instagram)

I took a photo every day on my way home from work between May...

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:03:00 -0500

I took a photo every day on my way home from work between May 2010 and August 2011. The quality is kind of crap because I didn’t take enough time each day to really frame the picture, but hopefully you’ll still enjoy it!

How To: A New Album Every Time You Sync Your iPhone

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:01:06 -0500

When I bought my iPhone 4S, I opted for the 16GB model, mostly because I sync my phone a couple times a week clearing photos, videos and other data. I underestimated how much data 1080 HD video takes up and I would suggest future buyers to go for the 32GB upgrade. The other major data source on the phone is of course music.

I consider myself a bit of a music hound, getting dozens of new albums a month across all genres. I then throw them into my 2012 playlist and each time I sync my phone it automatically pulls in the new music and deletes anything I’ve either moved to my permanent collection or deleted.

This usually satisfies my musical appetite, but every now and then I want to listen to older albums from my 200GB collection. I try and keep a “classic albums” playlist together, but it gets stale quickly and I rarely listen to it, taking up valuable space of my puny 16GB.

The Goal: Every time I sync my iPhone, I want to remove albums that if I’ve listened to since the last sync and replace them with new albums that I haven’t listened to in over a week.

The way to do this is using smart playlists, which after you start using, opens up tons of possibilities that you would have never thought possible. Hat tip to the Apple engineering team for an underused, but very powerful feature.

Step 1: Change the way iTunes “randomizes” content, instead of choosing random songs, choose random albums. Simply click Controls -> Shuffle -> By Albums

Step 2: Next create a smart playlist. File -> New Smart Playlist

Step 3: Now the fun begins. Smart lists are based on adding filters and I created 4, but feel free to add more to further narrow your content set. The ones I created are: 1) Filtering out the audiobooks 2) Removing albums if played in the 7 days or 3) Skipped in the last 14 days and, finally, here’s the tricky part: 4) In order to include the largest set of content possible, 4) Album contains ” “. Important to note that you need to have the space there, as the query can’t accept blank entries. So, basically a space means to include all albums (besides the above criteria).

The last few check boxes are to limit to 1GB so that we don’t overload the iPhone (you can use as much as you’d like) and finally live updating, which allows the playlist to update on it’s own.

Step 4: Last step is to include the smart playlist in your iPhone sycing, and you’re done!

**I’ve noticed that the play count is only updated if a song is played till the end for some reason. Further, also seeing some problems updating the play count if using a bluetooth headset. Let me know if you see these issues as well.

Image Credit: Deadmau5 & ClubDrive.org

Love walking in NYC. Such a great city. (Taken with instagram)

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:43:11 -0500

Love walking in NYC. Such a great city. (Taken with instagram)

Nokia Lumia 900: Better than the iPhone (Yes, Really)

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:26:30 -0500

Although I’ve had a Nokia Lumia 900 at work for a few month now, the device is now official after being unveiled at CES this week. I can’t say I’m surprised that it’s getting some pretty great reviews. Hell, even Apple fanboy MG Siegler is getting in on the positive reaction. I used the device around the office as my daily phone for about two weeks and was in love with it so much I didn’t want to go back to my iPhone…a big statement if you read my blog regularly.

I’ve used hundreds of phones over the years, but a rare few made me excited to open the box on launch day. I don’t say this lightly, but Nokia’s Lumia 900 unboxing experience is the best yet.

My personal cell phone infatuation history is a common one. Starting in the late 90s with the StarTAC flip phone, then in 2000 getting a panasonic GU87 (the first color screen phone in america), the black Moto Razr, and finally the Nokia N95, until Apple took over my heart with the iPhone. These devices struck my fancy for various reasons, from 80’s miniature coolness to technical capabilities, like a true 5MP camera. What peaked my interest about the Lumia 900 wasn’t it’s software (as the iPhone continues to do so well), but it’s creative hardware.

Simply put, the Lumia 900 is beautiful. Everything that I love about an electronic device this thing nails. The weight is that dense, but not quite heavy feeling that the iPhone 4/4S and the Nexus One have. The texture is right on, smooth but not slippery. Most of all though, are the edges and curves the phone has. It feels so nice in your hand, it just fits in a nice comforting way and I don’t want to put it away in my pocket.

Using the device is a joy as well, whether you’re using Meego (sad Nokia killed it, such promise) or Windows Phone (which I know more about than I should) the hardware is what sticks out.

So, how can the hardware stand out when using the phone? What about the software? The curves I mentioned before are on the edges of the screen as well. You’ll notice there isn’t a single physical button anywhere on the front and all navigation is done via swiping left <-> right from the edge of the screen. The first time you do it, it’s a bit weird, but then it becomes natural and really fast. Moving your thumb from the top of the screen, down the bottom to hit the home button and then back up is slower than you’d think, but trust me, after you start swiping as part of our navigation inside an application, it’s hard to go back.

Unfortunately though, like any device nowadays, it’s not just about hardware. Do I like this phone? Hell yes, and if I could make this run iOS I’d pony up the money and switch from my 4S tomorrow. I’ve used the device on both Meego and WP7, and it’s ok…not great enough to have me switch from iOS, but certainly not horrible. The rendering is done very well inside most apps, like for instance AP Mobile, and the previously mentioned app swiping is great, but there’s just that last mile in the OS missing that iOS continues to lead on.

How great can this device be? The new Galaxy Nexus is going to give it a run for it’s money for the non-iPhone, iPhone market. It would do amazingly well if it was out 3-6 months ago. Unfortunately, such as the pace of the mobile world, by the time this is actually out, it will compete with other Android phones, let alone the new iPhone 5.

The Lumia 900 is the best Windows Phone device made hands down and is going to help stop the bleeding for Microsoft, but they needed this out in 2011, not 2012. Techies will love it, I know I have, but it’ll take another great device, and soon, to keep Microsoft around.

NOTE: The photos above are actually of the Nokia N9, but the majority of dimensions and general FEEL of the two devices is the same…if anything the lumia is even nicer.

vermaelens-angel: Thierry Henry’s goal against Leeds 79’...

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:13:45 -0500

vermaelens-angel:

Thierry Henry’s goal against Leeds 79’ (09.01.2012)

Meet 18-mo old Killian, who found a nice place to relax after...

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 11:46:56 -0500

Meet 18-mo old Killian, who found a nice place to relax after playing with @harrietpurdy for over an hour. (Taken with instagram)

Wow, 60+ degrees in NYC today. Last year on 1/7? 29 degrees and...

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 18:27:11 -0500

Wow, 60+ degrees in NYC today. Last year on 1/7? 29 degrees and over a ft of snow. (Taken with instagram)