That’s the new ‘Light Content Appearance’ style in Mavericks. I like it, but blue glowing buttons have a purpose and even those are missed by many people. In this case I really hope, I’m wrong and it will work for everyone … because – did {...}]]>

That’s the new ‘Light Content Appearance’ style in Mavericks. I like it, but blue glowing buttons have a purpose and even those are missed by many people. In this case I really hope, I’m wrong and it will work for everyone … because – did I already mentioned that I like it?

Let’s also hope, they’ll fix the corners of the NSTextFields soon …

It’s done!

Bill 1.0 is finally available. Thanks for all the help and feedback.

What is Bill?

Bill is an invoicing App! And an invoicing App only! Because the others ones with built-in client management, time tracker, and coffee maker are available by the dozen. If {...}]]>

It’s done!

Bill 1.0 is finally available. Thanks for all the help and feedback.

What is Bill?

Bill is an invoicing App! And an invoicing App only! Because the others ones with built-in client management, time tracker, and coffee maker are available by the dozen. If you’re looking for a versatile and simple application to easily create awesome looking invoices in a blink – Bill is your App! And it works for any business, for any language, and for you as well!

Who can use Bill?

Everyone with the need for a simple (in the positive meaning of the word), fast, uncluttered, easy to use and highly customizable invoicing application.

For which languages does Bill work?

For every one possible! Even though the GUI is currently in English (German is already in the works), Bill will work for every language. Yes, even for right to left languages. It even comes out of the box with a RTL template . You don’t have to customize a template in order to write/send/print invoices in your language. All you need to do is to provide words like ‘Invoice’ or ‘Due Date’ in your own language should Bill not support it right out of the box. That is done in less than a minute.

For which tax systems does Bill work?

For every one possible! Bill supports up to three taxes, two of them can even be compounded and it comes out of the box with templates for all tax systems. Since you can customize every little detail of such templates to your needs very easily, Bill works around the globe.

Bill Website
Purchase Bill
Download Bill

So, why own your iOS Apps when you don’t even own your Mac or Windows Apps anymore…

Office Mobile for Office 365 subscribers on the App Store

You are a terrorist!

Or at least you could be one. Just by reading this site. You may not know it yet/yourself. But you have to trust your government. They actually don’t know what trust is – but hey. You don’t count anyway.

It’s not their {...}]]>

You are a terrorist!

Or at least you could be one. Just by reading this site. You may not know it yet/yourself. But you have to trust your government. They actually don’t know what trust is – but hey. You don’t count anyway.

It’s not their fault. It’s not your fault. It’s a self-runner. And it’s too late.

But never, never, ever dare to say that no one could have known!

There’s a reason why you will never find anything on the internet, in a database, in a cloud, or wherever from me that I wouldn’t have written onto a postcard. Not a single thing.

We traded our privacy for porn, cat pictures, cheap flights, and games a long time ago. And there is no turning back. You know it and your government knows it. That war was lost with the rise of fast internet, cheap storage and online recipes.

There’s a much more important war going on. One you can actually see. Currently on the Gezi Yazısı in Istanbul. Or recently in Frankfurt or Dublin. Occupy is just one word, one movement. Different country, different name, different visibility. But those actions have one thing in common:

They exist, they happen in the real world. And hopefully they are just the tip of the iceberg. Because there is only one thing your government fears even more than your Tweets:

The moment you finally get up und move your lazy ass onto the streets.

PRISM and Vorratsdatenspeicherung and all the other things are cheap, invisible, and no suit has to get his/her hands dirty.

Tear-gas is not only visible – it’s expensive. During the ‘deployment’, and most importantly, afterwards. All those pictures on TV. There’s a reason why almost every government uses that much brutal force to put down mostly peaceful protests.

They are scared shitless!

And being frightened makes everyone paranoid and irrational. In order to keep our lazy asses in front of our computers and tablets, they should just stop PRISM and Co right now.

He who is allowed to tweet in peace does not feel the urge to leave the house.

Against this background there is only one logical next step for us to take:

Put your Mac to sleep, put on your Docs and start to communicate in the way it once was intended:

Communicate with real people. Communicate with real people on the streets!

It doesn’t hurt do this in groups within beautifully painted signs and lots of megaphones. The more the better.

Here’s the thing: They are so scared that it doesn’t need a million, it doesn’t even need a hundred thousand people. What it needs are real people without stupid masks and plastic swords.

Imagine what would happen if you showed up in a suit. If everyone showed up in a suit, a pants-suit or even just regular clothes. You can wear anything but black. And bring your own camera and leave your smartphone at home.

Remember the ‘Montagsdemonstrationen’ in Leipzig? The first demonstration had about 1,000 participants. One month later, there were 10,000 and only two months later 500,000. Four months later the GDR was no more.

Yes, this is over-simplified. But it is unbelievable how little is needed to make a change. But it takes more than 140 characters on the internet. Your government knows that.

Do you?

Bill 0.9.4 is available!

I really wanted to tell you that Bill is iCloud-ready – but I had to undo it. This f•••••• iCloud is still too unreliable. As soon as Apple gets their shit together, I’ll try it again, which will probably be for the {...}]]>

Bill 0.9.4 is available!

I really wanted to tell you that Bill is iCloud-ready – but I had to undo it. This f•••••• iCloud is still too unreliable. As soon as Apple gets their shit together, I’ll try it again, which will probably be for the 123rd time.

So, the biggest news for this update is the fact that Bill can now send Notifications on demand and that I’ve improved the performance and search for large libraries…

Bill Website
Download Bill

Mac Wallpaper Retina

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSDocumentSaveNewDocumentsToCloud -bool false

I’ve used iOS since the very first version. I’ve installed every single developer preview and even though I can’t dance, repair my Saab on my own, and I’m too stupid for the remaining 99 percent that is around me – I wouldn’t call myself a {...}]]>

I’ve used iOS since the very first version. I’ve installed every single developer preview and even though I can’t dance, repair my Saab on my own, and I’m too stupid for the remaining 99 percent that is around me – I wouldn’t call myself a moron regarding everything computer/mobile.

But guess what I tried after seeing this, and not only once?

And don’t you think, when there is no arrow for the ‘slide to unlock’, that it would work in both directions? So you have to know how it worked before. What a nice way to embrace new customers.

And the new UI is full of those things.

You can’t tell the difference between a text (field) and a button. What is the headline, what is the button. What is important information and what not? As said before – even for me it is hard to tell where the main, the important, view begins and where it ends. In almost every App.

When scrolling from bottom to top, you end up activating the Control Center all the time. In this Control Center you need to know (and guess) what the buttons are for. Many people don’t.

And with many I don’t mean you reading this here. I mean people like my wife or my parents and all the other 80 to 90 percent of iPhone users I know. They use the iPhone because it is simple; or at least used to be.

This new, really nice to look at UI is everything – but simple.

Yes, you get used to it – but c’mon? That’s what I used to say about Android! I don’t want to get used to something. I just want to use it. That’s a big difference. That’s the difference between buying everything Apple and something else.

Again. It’s nice to look at. But that can’t be all. And there’s also a bigger issue here. What happened to consistency?

iOS <> OS X?

The Calendar icon on the Mac is the one we know. Or the Notes or Contacts icon. A button on the Mac is still a button. A button on the iPhone is no more. I’m really trying hard to image me answering support emails with: Please push on the text in the top left corner. In the Notes App for example, you even can’t find a separation between any UI element anymore. Not between status bar, toolbar, button or content. Combined with light yellow on white and all I can ask myself is: Why?

There are so many people out there having problems with colors, their eye sight. Why are those people punished in this way? Add to it that many of them don’t deal with that stuff on a daily basis and simply don’t care enough.

Please press the little yellow text you probably can’t see to create a new note.

Here’s the thing: In the Settings App overview, that’s the one with the really ugly and non-fitting icon, the new UI works just fine. You can tell the difference between the toolbars and the ‘main’ view and even though the ‘back’ button is not a button, at least it has an arrow and most subviews leave enough room/space to get it right.

But the ‘delete’ buttons are still buttons. The old ugly ones. It’s Tiger all over again.

I like the colors. I like the airiness and the general direction. But I can’t wrap my head around the execution. For me it’s like the iPhone 5. Nice to look at. But without soul and heart. A heart for the people that have to use it.

Well, here’s another thing. People don’t have to use it. We may not always understand why or be able to put it into words – but we appreciate it if someone thinks of us; thinks of us people, not that ‘designy’ and not that UI savvy. Usually that was Apple.

I can’t see it here, and most importantly, I can’t feel it here. And usability has to do with just feeling it and not trying to get used to it. At least that’s my understanding of usability and creating products and interfaces people love to use.

It may very well be that I just don’t get it or that Apple (once again) was (is) just too bold and it turns out that they were right and I’m simply too old. I need things I can actually touch. A ‘real’ button at least gave me the illusion I’m doing that. Pushing texts and guessing where an element may begin or not is not my cup of tea…

Where is Waldo the Calendar?

Yes, iOS 7 is nice to look at, no doubt. One could even say it’s finally fun to look at. But it’s no fun at all to use! I never liked the old iOS GUI, its color scheme and overall style, {...}]]>

Where is Waldo the Calendar?

Yes, iOS 7 is nice to look at, no doubt. One could even say it’s finally fun to look at. But it’s no fun at all to use! I never liked the old iOS GUI, its color scheme and overall style, before – but it worked.

The iOS 7 UI doesn’t work. You can say whatever you want about shadows and buttons and glossy icons with ugly colors – but you’re able to find and to use them!

Typing on the iPhone never was fun for me – but now it’s hell! For many Apps you can’t tell the difference between the ‘main’ view and the toolbars anymore.

Just quickly selecting and setting an alarm is, well, you can’t do it in a quick way. You can’t separate them with just one fast look under bad conditions. Contrasts have a purpose!

Nice effect with all the animation in the Photo-App – but it’s hard to tell where an element begins and ends. And this is unfortunately true for all the elements in almost every App as well.

I call it the Windows 8 Syndrom. Nice to look at but torture to use.

I’m pretty sure the stats for how much more iPhone users use their device will change over the next months.

It feels like one of those hip brochures fancy agencies create that everyone admires from a distance but no one is able to tell what they are about because you have to search for the information.

If I want to jerk off to nicely designed things, I can go to the MoMA or buy a Dwell issue. If I want to get the job done, I use a hammer.

Currently all I want to do with the iPhone 5, iOS 7 and my hammer…

This way it’s the same old crap – {...}]]> It’s nice that they sherlocked yet another third-party App but why does no one, not even Apple, understand that tabs in the Finder only make sense if they are, or at least could be, permanent and restored? It’s called productivity, you know?

This way it’s the same old crap – meaning it’s useless!

Seriously, who will care about a new OS or a new Book in two weeks anymore? But Craig’s performance today will be remembered. Because that’s what keynotes really are about. It may sound completely stupid when talking about ones and zeros and flops and megaflops – but we {...}]]> Craig Federighi

Seriously, who will care about a new OS or a new Book in two weeks anymore? But Craig’s performance today will be remembered. Because that’s what keynotes really are about. It may sound completely stupid when talking about ones and zeros and flops and megaflops – but we need a face, we need a personality; a person, a person we like.

And I like Craig.

The new Mac Pro website

Can’t innovate anymore, my ass!

Philip W. Schiller