1. From a marketing perspective, it incorporates your branding: It has to be easy to decipher, easy to recognize, and it should employ the main strengths of your brand.
   From a usability perspective, it needs to give the users hints about your apps main functionality. But it is strongly advised not to overstimulate this: If the actual app fails to fulfill the expectations that the icon sets, you will burn your users.
2. From a graphic design perspective, the icon has to look beautiful, strong, and not out of place when it is composed into its actual environment (i.e. the iPod Screen, or the Mac OS X Dock).
3. From a semiotic perspective, the signs and symbols that you use should have a shared and distinct meaning in your audience. If you intend to use symbols (like a note, a truck, a cup, a newspaper, or a book) you should make sure that they fit the attribution you are trying to apply in general.
4. Finally, the icon is the entry point into your app experience. And in most App Stores (iPod / iPhone, Ovi, Android …) the icon also represents your advertising in the store. It is the first thing people see, and the icon quality can influence the decision whether people like to request more information or not.

Now, that does not mean that only perfect icons will lead to success (as Google has shown time and time again), but if you have limited other advertising resources at hand, then it is certainly advisable to optimize the hell out of your icon.

Read the rest of this entry »

So. After several months of not having enough time to write any code, I finally managed to fix the remaining bugs and publish my first application on the iTunes App Store. If it wouldn’t be for work and university, the app would probably have been online months ago. But one has to set priorities, and thus it took me a tad longer than expected.

A dedicated website for the application is here, and the direct link to the iTunes Store Page can be found here.

Happiness is build around the concepts of Dolf Zillmann’s Mood Management Theory and further research in the area of mood modification through media. The basic and empirical verified (in many many studies) idea is that the exposure to funny, sad, frightening or suspenseful media can modify our mood in specific ways (that is, funny or sad, f.e.).
Build around this idea, Happiness aim is to enhance one’s mood in a very positive way through the exposure to nice imagery and the sound of laughing people. There’re different options which allow to optimize the usage behaviour.
While this is certainly not a complex application, it taught me nontheless a lot about the whole iTunes Application Store experience.
The App is really cheap (almost a bargain!), and I’d love if those of you, who own an iPhone or iPod touch, could try it and give some feedback, so I can enhance the app.

As you can see, I just got my iPhone today. Software version is, due to Carrier-Reasons still at 1.0.2, and I plan to keep it that way for some time.
First impression is: Awesome. Absolutely awesome and amazing.
Although it lacks some of the features which I would take for granted in modern Mobile Phones, it shines on many other feature-comparisons.
I’ll write more soon.

Read the rest of this entry »

Blender is a neat OpenSource (read: free) 3D modelling and rendering
tool which has gotten a lot of interesting features as of late.
The
absence of a 3DSMax Version for Mac OS X led me to discover this
software which I had already tried and dismissed years ago (Version
1.66 I think) again. Much time has passed since; Blender got
Open-Sourced and a really strong army of developers helped add new and
exciting features to it. Now, this is of course in no way a clear
winner or even a real contender to giants like 3DSMax or the (just
swallowed) Maya. But that’s not really necessary for the little 3D-Work
I need to do from time to time – I ain’t driving a Ferrari either
although I need to use a car from time to time.  I’m really happy
with
what I can achieve with Blender, and the actual modelling process
(which is way different to the 3dsmax way) is quite fast too, after one
gets used to it.

So: Over the past days I’ve been experimenting with it from time to
time, and here are my first results; they’re not in any way special but
I’m still quite proud that I got this far

Clicking on the images reveals a big version.

I took these pictures several months ago to learn more about macro
photography. They’re not special at all, but still, I wanted to share
them.

(Click the pictures for a bigger version)

This is our dog, Corrie. She’s a hottie, isn’t she.

I recently started to enhance that little knowledge I have about
photography and the like as there was a thread about spring
pictures in that forum I visit from time to time, and thus I decided that
I’d try to take some (nice) pictures too. Here comes the first one: Later on, more pictures should follow.
(Livejournal Users visit http://www.terhech.de)