mickrobk

Thanks for the feedback. I could see all of those features being useful and integrating well into the rest of the app, though setting up edges to work within might require a bit to much UI compared to the gain in typical usage.

I went back and forth on the number of taps required to open up the brush or tools menu - the current implementation will open the menu directly if you already have that tool selected, and switch to the tool otherwise. Ex if calligraphy is selected then you touch brushes -> menu opens. If calligraphy is selected and you touch tools, then the eraser (or the MRU tool) is selected and the menu does not open.

This flow works really well when you switch are switching between 2 types of anything, like between calligraphy and the pencil, or calligraphy and the eraser and (I like it because) it doesn't have popups flying in your face constantly. It works less well if you switch between 3 (ex calligraphy->eraser->pencil.) A second downside is that the logic behind when 1 or 2 clicks is required is somewhat less than obvious.

(You can delete drawings, press and hold on the thumbnail in the homescreen)

Glad you like it! Straight bold/thin lines really aren't possible with the default calligraphy brush. There's a marker tool if you open the brushes menu which just does unshaped, straight lines. It's locked to the full version of the app however.

The inkpen brush is also 'untextured' (for lack of a better word) and has a shape profile opposite to the calligraphy brush (slower=wider).

No it can't, more than it is already at least. I'd definitely put Paper by 53 in the top spot for drawing feel on the iPad though by a fairly wide margin - second to Sketchology :D - I might have a slight bias though.

The way Paper implemented their tools is pretty interesting. I'd put the #1 feeling difference as due to their automatic layering system. (The most recent line you draw in Paper is not always on top.) This goes a long ways to creating interesting effects but isn't a direction that Sketchology went in for a bunch of reasons.

There's also other tradeoffs ex: - I'd say Paper's watercolor tool is better than Sketchology's for intra-line interactions. (i.e. keep your finger down and draw for a while) However Sketchology's is better for building up layers of watercolor (lots of lines.) - Drawing responsiveness is one or two input frames faster on Sketchology than Paper, but Paper will do slightly more shaping in that time.

There's also different design requirements, as an example Sketchology needs line shaping algorithms that work across a wide variety of brush sizes, and the ability for them to look consistent across zoom sizes. A lot of my early work on shaping algorithms would look great at one size but not another.

I've a really high opinion of Paper, the drawing feel they achieved is bounds ahead of everyone else. (Except Sketchology, again in my biased opinion.) Ultimately though after getting used to the ability to just move drawing around in Sketchology though I couldn't go back. Then again I wrote Sketchology so there'd be a problem if that wasn't the case... :)

Having recently taught myself to draw (somewhat) I know where you're coming from. From a design perspective this is a super challenging problem though.

I actually spent a while trying to come up with an introduction to the app that would do a drawing tutorial of sorts. (Along the lines of http://www.drawastickman.com/episode1) - but the line between the app telling you what to do and guiding you is very thin, especially in content creation software. In the end I decided that it was best to try and build motivation and a personal connection through more subdued means, and that that method would be "truer" and deeper as well.

This is the same reasoning behind not having sample artwork within the program, not even as a tutorial. I didn't want people to open it up and see anything that they had not chosen to create.

I don't know what the proper solution to what you're asking would be - I want it to exist in theory, but I can't convince myself that it would be good in practice.

Well no, I could never say that there isn't tremendous benefit to being able to use multiple tools in a workflow and have control of your data.

Lack of SVG export isn't due to wanting lock in, or even a question of priorities. I spent considerable time working with all the leading vector drawing programs and investigating their performance. The simple fact was that it couldn't work well. Even trivial drawings (20 lines) done with the pencil tool in Sketchology would cause Illustrator to lock up for hours and consume all available memory. Larger drawings would fail to open altogether.

Ultimately I think offering the feature would have been extremely misleading and frustrating for people. I'd rather cut a feature than ship a bad experience.

Definitely - it's on the todo list!

Appreciate the feedback - at the very least though it's better than the development version:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/sketchologyapp/static/img/old-icon.p...

The first 6 months or so of development were on Windows/Linux, so cross platform compatibility is something I've always had my eye on. I can't say when though, in all honesty an iPhone version is far more likely to come before Android or Win8.

Thanks! I want to talk about it - I think it's probably the coolest part of the program. It's difficult though, I left my job about 2 years ago to work on this so commercial success is a definite goal. Hopefully sometime in the future I'll be able to give out algorithmic details without compromising that.

Definitely :) - Even getting this to run on the iPad 3 was a lengthy adventure in profiling. I wish I could have hit the 1, but it just wasn't meant to be.

It's fully vector but you cannot export to SVG or any other open formats due to the performance difference between Sketchology and other vector apps. (More than 100x even against x86 hardware.)

You can export to web[0], which creates a zoomable raster copy of the drawing, but this is obviously limited to getting an editable vector copy.

[0] For example: http://www.sketchologyapp.com/u/sketchology/18

No unfortunately. While it's fairly trivial for me to support, the performance difference (a factor of more than 100) between Sketchology and other vector drawing apps makes it impossible to actually load the exported file anywhere.

I tested against Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, iDraw, and Inkpad and was unable to load a file equivalent to drawing for more than about 2 minutes in Sketchology. I'll have a more in depth technical analysis of this soon.

It's free to download and use, though to unlock all the tools (about 50% come standard) there's a one time IAP for $5

I'm sorry, I certainly didn't mean to say you were actively asking for app developers to collude on price. Rather, that is the conclusion I drew following your arguments about app store issues. To be specific: (note some quotes are abbreviated, but I certainly do not intent to alter their meaning)

Your points about the app store being a race to the bottom

"There’s a tremendously negative pressure on prices … self-inflicted by developers..."

* "Microsoft set the minimum price… to give developers a clean slate on app economics"

I understand you when you say that higher quality apps are needed to get higher prices. What I am missing how higher quality apps in proportion to lower quality apps will happen. The proportion to lower value apps is that part that made me think price control (or curation, but to my knowledge the MS store won't be substantially different than Apple there.) I get the proportion part from your arguments that the app store is a race to the bottom, and has too many apps to make an impact.

I guess I disagree with your premise that the app store is broken, a race to the bottom, or that developers are having trouble making money there. All of the (anecdotal) evidence I've seen points to the opposite of that. I also don't see why the Win8 store would be any less hit driven than iOS, as I argued in the parent post.

I do agree with your articles position that higher quality apps are the key to higher prices, and I think your points about some of the scenarios win8 supports are very interesting. I'd love to read more about what I can do in Win8 versus iOS; that's just not the main point I got from your article (but may have been your intent :)

I don't know - the underlying argument here, that developers need to avoid a race to the bottom isn't particularly new, new to Microsoft [0], or in my opinion convincing. This article seems like a strange mix of a Microsoft marketing piece, and a call for app developer collusion. In other industries it seems almost by definition that the worth of the product is what it's selling for -- .99 cents for most apps. Arguments along the lines of "surely apps are worth more because, c'mon look at the price of coffee," use only emotion based on how much work we see go into those as developers not the value provided to users. It's very easy to blame poor revenue as a marketplace problem rather than a product problem and it's this type of thinking that drives this conclusion rather than proper analysis.

A hit driven industry can be brutal but I'm not convinced that the app store is more of one than traditional software, social websites, marketplaces, and games all spring to mind as places where success is very hit driven. Even outside our industry: books, television, movies, music, fashion - these all all hit driven because that is what fits best with where the demand is.

* In the television industry most shows have both higher production costs and lower prices than software, does this mean this industry is broken?

* Increasingly for app store purchases with higher prices I hear about the apps from avenues other than the Apple featured list (ex drawing apps, higher priced games.) It seems that the marketing channel that is being provided for free is being mistaken for the only way to market.

Fundamentally as a developer if I want my app to sell for more money, I should make it bring more value to the customer, not hope for minimum pricing constraints on all apps. It's a great thing as a consumer that distribution and marketing channels like the app store have made it possible for me to use more software, and spend more money on software than I ever did on a pc.

[0] See minimum pricing of Xbox live games on both Xbox and Windows Phone

For me, the curation of the content, and quality of the item thumbnail previews really make this site for me, and I really hope both continue as you expand in content. Especially for the cheaper assets (< $10) I've never felt the envano sites were worth it in terms of how frustrating and time intensive it was to find quality items versus just building it myself. Compare this to CM, where I've already found a few things to buy...

It'll be really interesting to see how the business model is going to work and whether you'll be able to hand curate all new submissions or automate to an effective degree. Apple has been able to do curation but obviously your volumes will be much different, despite similar price points and margins.

A few bug reports --

I wasn't interested in the icon sets - I unchecked the Icons category but many still remained, ex [0]. It looks like you can disable all of the categories and still get 52 results.

Some of the items have contradictory license terms, ex [1]. The license at the bottom of this page seems to contradict the Simple license listed in the about table.

You cannot "Use a purchased icon set as artwork that enhances actual gameplay in your app, such as the birds in Angry Birds" in the simple license seems like it is an unnecessary grey area, and scares me because I don't understand the intent, where the line is drawn, and whether you had a lawyer look over the license.

[0] https://creativemarket.com/Picons/617-Picons-Ultimate-icons

[1] https://creativemarket.com/DottedDaisy/794-Blue-Argyle-Digit...

I love the idea, but it feels too much like a tech demo versus something I can actually use. The showstoppers that stood out to me are:

- "Try it now for free" is great for showing me the value prop but ultimately I want to see a pricing sheet. I'm not willing to invest a lot time into what I see as the quick/cheap solution (compared to a custom design) for my app's website without knowing A: how much it's going to cost and B: what the limitations are. I can see that smore is in beta so maybe you just don't want to scare people off with unfinalized pricing -- for me at least no price is much scarier.

- Building the page off of the app store content is a great idea. But I need a website before I launch my app. If you support that maybe you could do a better job showing me that as an option from the start. (I'd still like to use the same content as for iTunes connect)

I want to be able to focus on the app I'm working on and not the web landing page - but for me the stuff missing is too important for this to be an option yet. I do like the direction.