11
Feb
2009

Fireworks toolkit for creating iPhone UI mockups

While designing Notespark, we did a lot of UI mockups. As it turns out, I prefer using Fireworks for this kind of work over Photoshop, because it’s easier to manipulate objects on the screen. After doing some Google searching, it appeared there weren’t any good templates for doing iPhone mockups, so we built our own.

The toolkit is fairly complete now, so we’re sharing it with the world. You can use it to create your own mockups of iPhone apps.

iphone_mockup_toolkit_small

All items in the file have been redrawn as vectors for easy editing. You can read more about it and download it at the post on Blogspark.

7
Feb
2009

Notespark v1.1 now available at the iTunes Store

After a lot of hassle with the iTunes Store, we are proud to announce that Notespark v1.1 is now available!

Screenshots and a long, rambling discussion about the design of one of the features can be found at Blog*spark.

28
Jan
2009

iTunes store usability FAIL!

Earlier today, we submitted v1.1 of Notespark to the iTunes store, using iTunes Connect, which is the web UI that application authors use to access the App Store.

Apple is the design expert, right? So this UI has got to be, like, awesome, right?

Now take a look at this screen.

iTunes store UI

What do you think happens when you follow these steps:

* click on “edit information” underneath the 1.1 version of Notespark
* set the “availability date” to 1/29/2009

Possible answers:
A) It sets the availability date of version 1.1 to 1/29/2009
B) It sets the availability date of BOTH version 1.0 and 1.1 to 1/29/2009

If you guessed (B), you are way smarter than I am. And because 1/29/2009 is in the future, it immediately removed version 1.0 from the iTunes App Store. ARRGGHHHH!!!! Setting the date back didn’t seem to help any.

Let’s just hope the app comes back tomorrow.

[Late update] Yes, the app is back. Whew!

13
Jan
2009

Need beta users for Notespark v1.1

Hi folks. We need beta testers for v1.1 of Notespark. This is a quick update with just a few highly requested features (landscape mode, search, and a few more) so the testing period will be short.

Please email us at feedback [at] notespark.com if you are interested.

8
Jan
2009

Desparately seeking Mac Palm Desktop user

We’ve implemented CSV import/export on Notespark, but we need to test it with Palm Desktop on Mac. If there are any Mac Palm Desktop users out there, we need your help!

In other news, we are putting the finishing touches on Notespark 1.1, and we’re also working on other stuff. Woo!