In the last 8-9 years, Profartis worked with a huge number of developers, all had one thing in common: they never planned their work in advance. This is a big gap, they wasted time (3 months), because there was one function or item not planned into the program, that would have been very important.

Nowadays its only worth to start a new iPhone development, if you know the functions, you work out the structure, and ideas on a piece of paper. Practically you can plan and optimize your duties in advance, for example: the graphic is not ready yet, but you can prepare the draft of the program. But the most important is  that this way you can save up to 40-50% of the real work (design planning, program, marketing), all the functions and ideas are known already.

I’m pleased to suggest two programs to you: Xmind is a free (of charge) application, Mindjet is a cost related solution, but both are independent from platform, you can download them through Linux, Macintosh (Mindjet is perfect to Mindjet collab work). We use them on a daily basis. You can see the above picture with the plan and idea of our previous pmg PassCode password and personal info manager application.

Detailed plan could be useful to:

• webdesigners
• project and layout planners
• online and offline marketing experts (a proper marketing campaign can be planned)
• sales field
• iPhone and other mobile application planners
• strategy planners
• HR field (HR future and vision plan)
• proper business plan of an enterprise

By the way there is a mindmap to iPhone too, I use SimpleMind, its windows live is just available, if I have a good idea or conception to a new program or website, I have to prepare only the draft, and the rest comes later.

You can open these files by using Adobe Photoshop program, and I think the program is available in 30 days test version as well.

If you are familiar with Adobe Photoshop please note that everything is made in Path format (vector format), this way you can easily and quickly size, realign and cut details. More important: it will keep its colour and feature during the sizing, so you do not have to use different effects. Colours as well as the features can be freely modified and reorganised.

The following fields can be found in the 2 pcs Adobe Photoshop PSD file:

• Vertical and horizontal keyboard types
• Navibar and TabBar elements
• Alert panels
• Button types
• Select lists
• Media player
• SMS panels
• Safari panels- and many others…

Click here to download the iPhone GUI 3.0 PSD, and find an Interface Template PSD. We use these programs on a daily basis for planning and creating new ideas, that is why I suggest it to you.

Have fun in your work!

If you want more info on Theen-Lax site, please click here, and 320480.com.

They must have done something wrong, but what?

In my opinion, the success of an application is based upon four factors:

1. Idea
2. Usability
3. Execution
4. Look (design)

First of all, to make a program, you need a good idea. Well not quite. Why do I state something and then question it immediately? The answer is simple: To make a successful application you don’t necessarily need a completely new idea. By rethinking an existing albeit not perfectly accomplished idea and taking it further you can achieve the same result.

Having an idea is necessary but not enough. Just think of how many great ideas, products, and services have failed in the world. From the user’s point of view, it’s the application’s usefulness and clean usability that matters when making a decision. How a program does or does not serve its purpose is mainly determined by thorough planning, or the lack of it. Important rule: before you start developing an application, make a plan that covers every tiny detail, from the wording and look of the start-up screen to the last menu item. You can save a lot of time and effort by that and your product will reflect the care and attention you had paid to it.

I’ve seen countless iPhone applications in the Apple AppStore (non-game apps mainly) that are well planned, well thought-out and are based on a good idea, but when it comes to execution and design, they fail. When looking at the product, it just doesn’t give the impression of a well written program, instead I feel it could have been a lot better and nicer with just a little more effort.

Since it’s the graphical interface that the user can see of the program primarily, you may well say that design is what sells the application. With an eye-catching interface, your application is almost sold, provided the user is happy with execution and usability, too. The iPhone makes this easy for us. Even developers with less advanced design skills are able to create nice looking applications thanks to the huge variety of pre-defined elements and effects available in the SDK.

A recurring problem is that developers can’t see through the eye of the user, but if they manage to, they’ll find the path to users and to success.

Adobe Illustrator is a vector based program that enables you to draw even TabBar icons perfectly (in real size).  It is important for the program icon to look good at different sizes, that is why we use vector graphics to design icons. This way, if you enlarge or reduce the size, you will always get the same smooth and sharp image. If you try this in Photoshop: 1.) the images will fall apart due to the conversion of  raster points. 2.) You need to redraw your graphics for each different size version.

Since the program icon is 57×57 pixels in size, and you need to provide a 512×512 pixel size version of the image, it is recommended to draw the icons and illustrations in vector from the beginning so you don’t have to work twice… Just a little bit perhaps Bear in mind that rounded corners and 3D reflections are rendered automatically over the icons by iPhone, so you don’t need to do that unles you want to preview the final look on your monitor. (If you click the image, you can see samples of our icons which will appear in pmg PassCode.)

Each of the more than fifty icons of our password manager pmg PassCode were created like that. The the basic illustrations are vector based, lighting and backgrounds were added in Photoshop.

The iPhone’s interface is 320×480 pixels, RGB color. All six themes in the pmg PassCode were originally designed, so it will be easy for us to create new themes for you for later upgrades, provided there’s a need for them of course The application is currently in beta testing phase, several bugs and small glitches were repaired yesterday, however, the basic functions, category handling, settings are completed and fully operational.