Eye of the (Digital) Storm

To almost everyone else in the world, the British probably seem pretty dull when it comes to small talk. The default topic invariably kicks in and we resort to riveting conversation about which road we took to a particular destination... or the weather.

This wouldn't be such an issue if we actually had some interesting weather in the UK. We’re noticeably short of hurricanes, snow storms or tropical monsoons. To listen to us, you would think we had an average of one meteorological catastrophe a week. We don’t, but it doesn't take much to shut our airports, delay our trains or ruin the school sports day so better to keep an eye on the weather anyway.

Which brings me to apps and a selection of utilities helping to keep track of what’s going on outside the window. Don’t expect a meteorologist’s in-depth review of any of these titles but I’m happy to give my opinion in passing about what they’re like to live with and if the information on screen regularly matches the physical evidence outside.

I’ve grouped the apps into two categories – ‘boundary-pushers’ and ‘information junkies’. Let’s tackle the pioneers first...

Boundary Pushers

These apps all have one thing in common – form over function. I applaud their approach to user experience it’s just that most rely on a series of gestures to access or input information. This works if you only have one app and no distractions. There are no common actions so you need to relearn to navigate each time. This is a fault across many apps, not just this weather category.

Haze £1.99/$2.99

A great looking app full of energizing colour and slick animation. It appears a little light on information at the top level but tapping on the centre circle reveals more and swiping from side to side or tilting your phone in either direction achieves the same thing but is more entertaining for a while.

WeatherCube £0.69/$0.99

It’s called the weather cube because it works just like a cube. You swipe left, right, up or down to reveal more sides. Each surface features weather symbols, temp or other information that quite frankly I can’t keep track of because all sides of the cube are the same colour so you’re never quite sure where you are. This doesn’t really provide at-a-glance reporting but is fun to play with for about 20 seconds.

Weather Dial £1.49/$1.99

If all I wanted was an app that gave me a brief snapshot of the weather in my current location then I’d be happy to live with this Dieter Rams-style title. Unfortunately, although it looks great (including automatic day and night skins and a sliding hatch to reveal setting controls), there just isn’t enough depth to compete with some of the other apps.

Foresee £0.69/$0.99

This is a new title currently being praised for taking a different approach to weather forecasting. You focus on activities such as dog walking, jogging or arranging a BBQ and then set your ideal weather conditions – temperature, wind speed and time of day, etc. Each activity already starts with some recommended parameters to avoid night-time balloon flights in a hurricane or skiing in a heatwave. When the conditions are matched in your desired location, you get a digital nudge.

A nice idea but I’ve really struggled with the gestures for the nav and the location remains uneditable so all my activities have to take place in Farnborough, about 3 miles from my house. There needs to be a round of bug fixes and amends before Foresee gets the thumbs up from me.

(left to right) Haze, WeatherCube, Weather Dial, Foresee

Information Junkies

Information-rich and gimmick-light, these apps take a more conventional approach to weather reporting. They're less entertaining so are they more useful?

Apple Weather [Default iOS app]

No need to review this one – you can’t delete it but I’ve spent years using this app and mocking its apparent inaccuracy. It even seems to get the weather wrong as it’s happening but it uses Yahoo for information...

Yahoo Weather Free

...speaking of which, here’s Yahoo’s official weather app. They’ve made a really good job of the visual approach (the app draws in Flickr images as the background to each location) and the visual data representation is excellent – somewhere between Android and iOS7. A subtle parallax effect is employed as you swipe left and right to change the location and a panel slides up from the bottom of the screen to reveal daily and weekly forecast, an expandable location map, rainfall, Wind & pressure and a sunrise/sunset animated visual. The only visual glitch is an odd 1 pixel purple line at the top of the screen. I don’t think it’s a branding attempt.

BBC Weather Free

Does exactly what it says on the tin. Big bright graphics relay information in an instant, with clear forecasts by the hour or day. No fancy tricks, just instant weather. This is now my default app.

Netatmo Free (plus £139 for Weather Station)

So which app provides the most accurate reading? Well, it’s this one. How do I know? Because the free app comes with its own £139 weather station! Netatmo offers more than a forecast or report on current conditions, it streams continuous data via its smooth aluminium indoor and outdoor modules. These devices connect to a home or office Wi-Fi network then relay all information to the smartphone and tablet apps.

As the monitors are physically set up in one place, you don’t have the multiple location options on offer with other apps unless you’re prepared to spend another £159 and place one somewhere else.

What you lose in global information, you more than gain in localised data. The weather stations relay temperature, humidity, 5-day forecast, CO2 and dB levels. The last two offer a glimpse of Netatmo’s focus on environmental quality and the app alerts users when levels breach certain parameters, requiring a simple action such as opening a window or making your kids shut up to bring quality back in line.

The weather stations also provide (anonymous) global data for meteorologists and environmentalists to give a clearer picture of climate change.

(left to right) Apple Weather, Yahoo Weather, BBC Weather, Netatmo

If you want the most accurate atmospheric report in a specific location, Netatmo Weather Station can’t be beaten. It’s not cheap but essential kit for weather nerds, it really does become quite addictive! If you don't want to buy hardware then either the BBC or Yahoo apps (both free) get my vote. The others get marks for trying, but after initially entertaining, they ultimately confuse or disappoint their audience.

The Phone Ranger Rides Again

It's hard to believe a whole year has passed since my last US coast-to-coast WWDC week. A lot has happened in that time, much of it as a result of that week. America feels like my second home now so you can't beat the adrenaline rush of 6 big towns in 6 big days (June 9-16) – San Francisco, Cupertino, Mountain View, Los Angeles, Washington and New York.

Last year Apptain America and the 'Avengers Dis-assemble' poster took centre stage. This year it's the turn of The Phone Ranger.

There are a few familiar faces starring in this production. See if you can spot Chris McVeigh, Dan Franklin, Apptain America, Sam Missingham, Eric Huang, Charles Catton, Alastair Horne, Nikki Bedi and taking centre stage, Mark Staufer and er, me.

Hi-Yo Silver and all that...

There's an app for that?

My original Jan 2013 Computer Arts Column: now revised, updated and on ARB

The internet gave us clients demanding their own version of Amazon.com. Social networks gave us clients demanding their own version of Facebook. Now they all want apps that combine Flipboard, Instagram and Angry Birds. Stop. Just stop. Take a second, slam your fingers in your desk drawer, then we'll talk.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating digital (fingers, not pixels) dismemberment because I don’t like apps. Quite the opposite – I love ‘em. It’s this intimate connection on a personal device that drives millions of smartphone and tablet owners to interact with them on a daily, if not hourly basis.

There are very few situations where an app is less-effective than a website when trying to access information or engage an audience. However, if your website isn’t optimised for mobile browsing or your information would be better suited to a PDF, HTML5 web app or even an iBook, then you shouldn’t be thinking about a native app first.

At our current rate of app proliferation, in a couple of years I’ll be discussing the merits of the latest Crimewatch-sponsored Photo Fit Fat Booth or Gillian McKeith’s Turds With Friends. Brands need to focus and spend their money in the right places but designers and developers also need to push back and tell them where to stick it. So to speak.

This ill-conceived digital targeting hit home when I spoke at the Mobile World conference in Dubai last year. One of the more bizarre moments was a debate between mobile network providers (incidentally, big sponsors of the event) and developers. The premise of the debate was “should Telecommunications companies operate their own app stores?” And this set the alarm bells ringing, in my head, not at the venue.

The Telcos argued they should be able to operate outside the official app stores to avoid 30% loss of revenue and set up their own digital retail outlets. The developers wanted to sell individual apps without a store at all. With no one to physically restrain me, I was free to heckle the panel and inform them they were all idiots and not a single one of them was taking the consumer into consideration.

Something I frequently tell developers is "Consumers don't give a crap about how complicated it is to build an app, collate all the assets, co-ordinate the contributing parties and steer the product through the Apple review process. They just want to know the end result is stable, looks and works beautifully, features appropriate content and is available through a trusted platform with a single touch and a password". As a result, I don’t get many Christmas cards from developers, but we deliver amazing results by avoiding complacency and putting the consumer first.

We’ve now reached an interesting point in the evolution of the app. On one hand we have a market voraciously pursuing the development of apps for any brand and any subject at any cost. On the other, we have those that think apps are merely a stepping stone to the next big thing.

As a designer, I spent many years defending Apple during the Jobsless wilderness years with PC devotees mocking me like a child with a melting ice lolly "Apple won't be around this time next year", "Everyone uses PCs, Macs are for the minority (designers)", "You can get Adobe software and Quark on a PC, so why would you use a Mac at twice the price?"

Anyone with a similarly negative opinion of mobile applications needs to sit back and think about what they’re really saying. Apps are neatly packaged software titles and no one in their right mind should be betting against software as a long-term investment. Consumers want the instant gratification of downloading a product direct to their device and syncing content across smartphone, tablet, desktop and TV.

If we take a sensible approach to the way we develop and the digital strategies we adopt, apps will continue to provide ‘a’ solution, not ‘the’ solution. Designers and developers must also be consultants, demonstrate a willingness to reject a bad idea and steer clients to the most appropriate digital platform – which may not always be an app.

UPDATE: When is an app not an app? When it's an iBook of course.

To illustrate the above example, Brandwidth recently launched 'Led Zeppelin: Sound and Fury' with Rhino and Neal Preston.

When we were tasked with finding the ‘best platform’ for ‘the best photographs’ of ‘the best rock band in the world’ we turned to iBooks Author for ‘the best coffee table book’.

We began working with Warner Music Group eighteen months prior to launch and ahead of the introduction of iBooks Author production software. We soon saw the shortcomings of our initial app build and the benefits of an iBook and swapped platform at a critical time.

Neal Preston’s stunning photography was ideally suited to full screen pinch-zoomed enlargements and galleries within the iBook and we brought the Led Zeppelin portfolio to life with bespoke audio commentary and additional video interviews by Neal and key industry figures.

With over 250 photos, 80 contact sheets, 25 audio commentaries, 11 video interviews, 24 Led Zeppelin set lists and many samples of ephemera and memorabilia our greatest challenge was one of logistics and effective curation.

We created a unique character for the entire project and wrapped the engaging contents in a recognisable brand that would sit comfortably with the army of existing Led Zeppelin fans and those newly introduced via Apple’s iBookstore and iPad range.

This title also introduces in-book music preview and purchase for the first time within an iBook project – just one of many boundaries pushed.

So when is an app still an app? When it's a Door!

Well, 'The Doors' to be exact. An app offered the only framework flexible enough to accommodate the high technological standards of our client – Jac Holzman, one of the world's greatest living innovators and someone we've lived and breathed this project with for over a year.

Jac founded Elektra Records and signed The Doors to the label in 1966 (amongst other highly-respected recording artists) and this app tells the story of the band through an unrivalled collection of ephemera, music and stories with over 45,000 words of text, a graphic novel depicting Jim's arrest in Miami, FBI files, an interactive timeline and map, hundreds of images and, of course... music.

It's a major step on the road to the evolution of the music box set, but don't take my word for it... here's a superb article by Stuart Dredge for The Guardian and a few words from Jac in the video below.

iPod Bless America

If you know me or read my blog, you'll probably be aware of the fact that I'm no stranger to portraiture. The power to capture a fleeting moment of a lifetime's personality is a skill not to be taken lightly. Get the glint in an eye or the slant of a mouth wrong or a mis-angled eyebrow inflection and suddenly, the portrait is of someone else entirely.

This pressure to bottle the essence of an individual then apply the visual entity to canvas holds no greater importance than when the subject is the leader of the free world. When Brandwidth were given the opportunity to work with the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC we naturally (but reverentially) jumped at the chance.

So, how do you approach a project about America's figureheads without going over ground already covered by a number of other iPad apps? Well, we weren't keen to take the route of many whereby they regurgitate Wikipedia entries, shroud them in an uninspiring digital interface then spit them back out into the App Store. Others cater directly to the education market and dress the information appropriately – i.e. they appeal to kids, rather than the wider audience.

We knew we had unique (and official) access to a stunning collection of portraits, original supporting documents and artefacts. This wasn't going to be an exercise in creating 'the ultimate resource of all information about the US Presidency ever'. We wouldn't be using this as our catchy headline.

Instead, we tackled the artwork head-on, literally allowing the audience to get closer to every brushstroke in a Retina environment reminiscent of the gallery itself. This isn't a book, it's not a reference guide, it's a virtual visit to the gallery. Head straight to your President of interest or browse the full collection via the gallery's walls, delving further to discover the First Lady's portrait, historic documents, the contents of Abraham Lincoln's pockets, FDR's fireside radio broadcasts, 'Portrait in a Minute' video interviews or images of the Presidential pets.

But it's not all brush strokes and gilt frames. We took a light-hearted approach to learning about the facts behind the faces, with some interactive fun in the Games Room: test tantalising trivia, place the President with the quote and even play Presidential pairs by matching the leader to his First Lady. It's a fun way to learn and as we'll be adding more facts with future updates, the content will stay fresh. In four years, we'll even add another President!

But don't wait for another election, you can take part in a popularity contest via the app! We thought it would make an interesting feature to give you all the opportunity to vote for your favourite portrait so we gave each work of art a 'vote' button. The Leaderboard is illustrated live in the app and votes accumulate on our Facebook page to show the outside world if Washington, Lincoln or Kennedy's portrait is flavour (or flavor) of the month.

Our visit to Washington last month for Barack Obama's Inauguration gave us the perfect opportunity to launch the America's Presidents microsite so I'm not going to use any more pixels here when you can find out more there and download here for the promotional launch price of $4.99/€4.49/£2.99 to Celebrate President's Day.

It's great to finally write about a new app but you'd be forgiven for thinking we've been sat around with nothing to do for the past 12 months – our public launch (i)pad has been decidedly empty. Not so, we've been shut behind a wall of NDAs with some stunning clients and partners from Disney and Warner Music to Apple and Intel. There's a busy year ahead for Brandwidth and the wider technology industry and it remains entertaining and frustrating in equal measures as tech pundits speculate about the 'next big thing'.

Perhaps our next app should be The Vatican's Popes as that seems another hot topic right now...