#43 There’s An App For That, A Very Well Designed One Too

Again, this post is about something which I found online. I should really stop doing this as, well, it probably isn’t the best of things to be doing when I could be getting on with some sort of work.

How many of you out there have an iPod Touch or an iPhone? Well this post is probably most relevant to you then. A while ago, someone posted a link to this site on Twitter, can’t remember who it was so I am unable to give them credit for it, but nonetheless, it is a site dedicated to showcasing all of the, or what are considered to be the best produced and designed applications in the iTunes App Store.

app.itize.us has a mission statement which is as follows:

app.itize.us is a painstakingly curated presentation of the best produced and designed iPhone applications that are available for download via the App Store.

I agree with every word in that sentence, figuratively speaking of course.

A few weeks ago whilst on this site, browsing, I stumbled across what has to be my favourite game I have ever played on my iPhone or iPod Touch. Colorbind. Essentially, the aim of the game is to connect all the dots on the screen with the coloured strips of paper. It is an utterly gorgeous game which probably wouldn’t work very well on any other platform. It is a good way to let the time slip by. In a lecture, before going to bed, if you have nothing else constructive to do, or even if you should be doing something else.

There are 80 levels in total, ranging from simple one colour puzzles to more complicated 4 colour conundrums. Included is a tutorial, but the game seems very intuitive from the very start. I highly recommend this game, it is without a doubt the one of the best 59p’s I have ever spent. Slight update, I seem to have got the game when it was at its discounted price, it is currently £1.19, but it is still worth the little extra money.

The website for Colorbind is nonverbal.ch

Link directly to application in iTunes: Colorbind

If you own an iPod Touch or an iPhone, or if by the time you are reading this, an iPad, then I couldn’t urge you more to go to app.itize.us and find something which is considered to be wonderfully designed. On top of that I am going to say definitely buy Colorbind, well worth the money, even if you aren’t sure about buying it, there is also a lite version, but why waste time and install that when you could have the full one instead?

Deferring Volume I: Oak, Pine & a Handful of Norsemen

Before I go any further, I would like to say that in all honesty, I had lined up another post to publish today, but frankly, it’s been a long day and I didn’t really want to upload something which was causing quite a bit of strife at the moment, possibly at the end of the week or next week then.

Now, because I decided not to post the thing which I was going to post, I can’t think of anything else to write about, so I guess I’ll have a ramble about the first thing which comes to mind… or that I see if I close my eyes and turn my head away from my computer.

A glass. Not just any glass though. An IKEA glass, from probably one of the most iconic global brands there is. People hate it, people love it. Whichever side of the fence you are on in regards to the Swedish furniture maker and general place of plywood awesomeness, they won’t go away very easily, and as it turns out, you probably use something of theirs almost every day.

Now you might be thinking that I have gone off my nut here, writing about a company which seems to infuriate many people, but take a minute to think, or try to think about what it really is that annoys you about them. Chances are that it is because whenever you go there, the the warehouse of steam bent meatballs, everyone else in the area has decided to go too, whether it because the weather is awful and people suddenly have an urge to update their homes, or just because it is a Thursday night and you want to get away from the dog who seems to have taken a liking to your sofa when you have been out for the day.

Either way, their general philosophy is one which changed the way in which people bought furniture. Great designs and low prices is something which other companies should try and do. But for some reason, design seems to mean that they can bump up the prices. Now I’m not saying that everything should be at rock bottom prices, there are certain designery things which deserve to be the price they are because you are clearly able to see the amount of work put in by the designer and the company as a whole to make the product the best that they can make it.

Count the number of things bought in IKEA in the room you are in just now (not really doable if you are at work, preferably done at home), and of those things, for which reasons did you buy them? Because they were cheap? or because they looked good?

And whilst you are pondering that, and I am aware that some people will manage to answer that quicker than others, I’ll leave you with an epic song which I came about whilst listening to The Bitterest Pill podcast a few years ago, a song created by Jonathan Coulton, a song all about IKEA.

Link to song on iTunes

Note: tiredness may have played a part in the randomness of this post.