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Comment by nanijoe | Hacker News Reader

One of those icons was designed for an app of mine : http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bill-organizer-manage-track/i...

We (the designer and I) ultimately rejected it, because it just did not stand out at 57x57. As good as some of those icons look, you have to discipline yourself to view and evaluate them at 57x57, cos thats how the user is going to see them. Also bear in mind that the user will see them among a multitude of icons, so they have to stand out for more than just being pretty..

I am tempted to conclude that these pretty icons just don't matter as much as we think they do, and the most effective ones may well be those with a solid bloc of color (like the path icon), cos they are easier to make out on a crowded screen .

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Are you talking about this?

http://xkcd.com/993/

xkcd never fails to amaze me

Actually, here in good 'ol socialist Sweden all of our groceries, with a few exceptions, used to look like that up until the end of the 90s. I remember as a kid eating cereals from a big white box with the word "CORNFLAKES" on it in big blue bold letters.

In Germany, one of the grocery store's own products are called "ja!" and sold in white packages with just the logo and the content printed on them.

Example: http://polpix.sueddeutsche.com/polopoly_fs/1.992181.12827258...

Umm, no they didn't. What you're talking about was a particular brand, Blåvitt[1], owned by the Konsum chain of stores. It was a very concious (and successful) marketing strategy, and not some generic non-brand.

[1] http://emmaskok.blogg.se/images/2011/blvitt2_149458969.jpg)

It's a lovely idea, apart from two things.

1. I suspect's impossible to trade mark or or register the design - so let's assume you raise your brand profile and get a reputation for good quality food at reasonable price - your competitor simply (almost) clones your line of packaging and piggy-backs off all your hard work - since they're a big conglomerate they'll under-cut you by a couple of pence too.

2. In certain countries such packaging tends to be associated with low-cost 'basics' brands - so if you're offering a premium product, you're likely to struggle.

Euroshopper is a "low-cost 'basics' brand" so i guess they're fine.

An European brand called Euroshopper did something very similar:

http://www.thedieline.com/blog/2011/3/7/before-after-euro-sh...

This is basically what Asda Smart Price and Sainsbury's Basics do in the UK.

My first iOS app's icon was a single bold white letter on a green background with the default Apple gloss. It's still my best-seller and not once has anyone complained about the cheapness of the icon. It stands out better than icons I spent much more time on. I did eventually go back and rework the gloss so I like it better and added some texture for the big 512px versions, but it's still essentially a white letter on green background.

Unfortunately this approach is losing appeal now that there are so many icons designed like that (Facebook, Tumblr, Google and many others).

A lot of stuff on dribbble looks great on dribbble.

Doesn't always translate to real life where context is king.

You can see many of the icons in their 57x57 size on this site, and even toggle between the different sizes

http://iicns.com/

that app of yours is getting some serious bashing... is the app new, or are they unfair reviews?

The app is new..the biggest complaint, is that there is no way to delete stuff. There is.. ie , swipe from left to right on an item, and a delete button appears, something I thought was pretty familiar to most iPhone users (turns out I was wrong).

Right before I submitted the app (a second time) for review, I decided to ask the user if they wanted to upgrade to the full version every time they saved a bill...I forgot to also remove the buy button on the main menu, when a purchase was made in that particular instance. The user still got the full version, but as you can imagine, the presence of the buy button made it look as if the features were still unlocked.

I'm of course working on an update to fix those..and add a few new features.

The swipe left to right to me is counter-intiutive, most of the apps I've come across it is swipe from right to left, and the button to delete appears on the right.

Although, testing with some apps right now it appears both ways works, but I have noticed that apps also generally include an edit button that then lets me select multiple items and do a particular action on them.

I have a similar problem... an android app where users complain about a missing feature which is available when tapping Menu. Amazing how many android users don't know about that key!

I haven't done any serious iOS programming yet (might do in the summer), but if I ever anted to release an app, you know what's the first thing I'd do?

    MAKE SURE APP RINGS HOME EVERY TIME IT OPENS TO SEE IF THERE IS 
    ANY URGENT MESSAGES I'D LIKE TO TELL ALL MY USERS.

I don't care the slightest if it's something Apple doesn't want you to do, or wants you to do over notification center, just do yourself a favor and create a direct channel between yourself and the customers (so that you can send them a message whenever you felt like).

If you had such channel, you could've told them (after an apology for the inconvenience it's caused) how to remove bills, and that you're working on the next version, and the buy button was a bug, and avoid 1-2 star reviews, and sell much much more (no one buys/download a 1.5 star app).

> I don't care the slightest if it's something Apple doesn't want you to do

Just to be clear, did you want this app to appear in the AppStore?

:) Well, there are rules, (official and unofficial) guidelines and "best practices". The first two, you can't break them, but you can break the third and still be in the App Store. I think an annoying direct channel falls in the third category. I've seen many apps/games do it. Two of them (of top of my head) are blockbusters and have sold tens of millions of copies combined: Doodle Jump & Jetpack Joyride. So, yes, you can do it and still be in the App Store.

Assuming they aren't annoyed by it and close it without reading so they can do what they wanted to do with the app.

Yes, we must be careful to use it sparingly and only in the extreme cases that could result in many negative reviews.

A real world example of how this can ruin your rating:

I use a text editor on OS X called 'Mellel'[1], which is available both in Mac App Store and as a direct purchase. It's excellent and supports RTL languages (Persian, in my case) better than any other text editor. There was a bug on OS X 10.7.4 that caused the cursor to disappear. It was a simple bug and the developers issued a notification to all non-App Store customers (they obviously have their emails) on how to remedy this issue, but it took them like 10 days to update the app on MAS, causing a few negative reviews.

[1]: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mellel/id415467848?mt=12

You hired Umar to work on your app design? I'm currently in talks with him to work on one of our apps. How is he as a designer. Would love to hear from someone who has worked with him

I think this should be a private conversation.

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