Depending on how an app was designed and developed, updating for an iPad 3 Retina display could take days or weeks

Flash forward — After lining up for hours, or sitting at home all day waiting for a courier to arrive, you finally have your hands on an iPad 3 with its amazing Retina display. A display with over 3.1 million pixels. All of them difficult to distinguish, because they're so damn tiny. Text is crisp. Photos look are amazing. This thing is gorgeous.

You launch your favourite app and notice things aren't as amazing as they were a few seconds ago. The app in question doesn't contain Retina image assets -- the pictures that make up the user interface elements are at the iPad 2's screen resolution, so things look as blocky as they did on your previous iPad. What's going on?

Custom UI vs standard UI

A regular graphic (1x) will simply be rendered with four pixels per point on a Retina display, unless proper Retina (2x) resources are in place to take advantage of the higher density

When creating an iOS app, developers can choose to use Apple's supplied UI (user interface) elements, they can create their own, or they can use a mixture of the two.

If they choose to only use Apple's in-built elements, then the onus is on Apple to ensure everything is designed to take advantage of the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and iPad 3's Retina displays. No additional work needs to be done by the developer. Apps like this will look great on the iPad 3 on day one.

For designs using entirely custom elements, every single part of the user interface needs two images created — one for the previous, non-Retina size, and another at the new, double resolution Retina size (these contain "@2x" at the end of the filename). A simple app may only contain tens of images, but most of the prettier iOS apps also contain a large amount of individual images to construct their overall design. Some of the apps I've worked on have well over 300 images, so by the time we've finished creating the Retina assets, that's doubled to over 600 images.

Depending on the designer and developer involved, each image may take up to a few minutes to create. Multiply that by the images required and it can often be a daunting, awkward, repetitive task. This also assumes the artwork was created using vector layers and layer styles in Photoshop (or a similar, freely scalable method). If it hasn't, there's a good chance everything will need to be rebuilt from scratch, using vector layers and layer styles, turning a few solid days' worth of work into something that might span weeks.

Thankfully, the transition from iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4 has taught a lot of iOS designers to work in ways that make creating two sets of images easier. If you're a designer looking to learn ways to improve your workflow when building non-Retina and Retina images, I've written articles on Designing for Retina and automated exporting.

Preparation is the key

Some developers have made the assumption that a Retina iPad was on the horizon, and have already included Retina images in their apps. However, I suspect the vast majority haven't, even if they have the images on hand — being double the width and height also means the images are bigger in file size, which may push the total app size over the 20MB 3G download limit (apps bigger than 20MB can't be downloaded over 3G networks).

Why doesn't iOS just use vectors for everything?

From the app Consume, an example of a vector interface element set up in Photoshop

If the issue is that pixel based images look blocky when they're scaled, why aren't vector based image formats, like SVG and PDF, used for iOS? Sometimes SVGs and PDFs are used in iOS development, but only rarely -- they're not the method Apple recommends. Vector formats tend to be far more resource hungry, especially for photorealistic icons, due to the amount of layers that have to be drawn independently to create the final visual. Mobile devices just don't have the grunt or memory to draw everything on the fly.

That's ok though -- think of the bitmap images used in iOS apps as pre-rendered vectors. The tools developers use to create the initial design should be easily scalable, but the final assets used in the app should be bitmaps, because they offer better performance (everyone loves silky smooth scrolling).

Patience

Good developers will know what's required of them, but may not want to start the arduous task ahead until the iPad 3 is announced (keep in mind that until Apple announces, we don't really know anything for sure). So please be a little patient if your favourite app doesn't take full advantage of the iPad 3's Retina display on launch day.

Marc Edwards is the founder Bjango and co-host of the mobile design podcast, Iterate.

Consume 2 is a Bjango's big update to their excellent account and usage tracking app for iPhone, and this time around it adds universal binary support for iPad as well. Consume is designed to help you keep track of your usage for mobile phone, broadband, packages, toll and reward cards, and more. It features a gorgeous UI with graphs and bars as a way to visually explain your usage.

• $2.99 - App Store link

Keep track of your usage for your mobile phone, broadband, packages, toll cards, rewards cards and more with the best usage app on the app store. Consume features a stunning interface plus more than 250 providers from 18 countries, Including AT&T, Orange, O2, Fido, Rogers, Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, Virgin, 3 and many more.

For those in the US, here's what you can track:

• Mobile Phone — GoPhone (Pick Your Plan), GoPhone (Pay As You Go), T-Mobile (Prepaid)
• Broadband — Comcast (Portland only), Transport, American Airlines, Amtrak Guest Rewards, Delta, ORCA Card, Sunpass
• Clubs — Hilton HHonors, Scooter’s Coffeehouse
• Package Tracking — DHL (USA), FedEx, UPS, USPS
• Gaming — Club Nintendo

Consume is available on the iPhone and iPad for $2.99.

Have an app you'd love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we'll take a look.

Marc Edwards of Bjango, and co-host of our Iterate podcast, has put up some pro tips and tricks on exporting iPhone, iPad, and other UI elements from Photoshop.

It’s probably the least interesting part of designing software, usually entailing hours of grinding. Saving images to multiple scales — as required by iOS and other platforms — adds complication to the process. However, there are ways to streamline or automate exporting.

Check out Marc's article, linked below, so you can get your pixel perfect apps and web sites out of Photoshop and into the hands of users.

[Bjango]

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It's boys night as Rene, Seth, and Marc talk Apple Store 2.0, web apps vs. native apps, #dickauth, Playboy for iPad, Sideways racing, and a bit of design. This is iPad Live!

• Show notes

Hosts

• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie)
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford)
• Marc Edwards (@marcedwards)

Credits

Thanks to the TiPb iPad Accessory Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Music Hear me Roar by iPad Live theme song contest winner, DieselJesus!

Bjango's new racing game for iPad, Sideways, is now available in the App Store. Harkening back to the top-view racers of classic arcades, it keeps the same great emphasis on gameplay but puts the pedal to the metal on gorgeous graphics, immersive sound, and multi-touch iPad controls.

• 9 full race tracks, plus training track and credits track.
• Up to 10 cars on track at once.
• 3 game modes: League, Knockout and Time Trial.
• Nitro boosts, destructive pick-ups and… well… lots of carnage.
• Silky smooth 60fps graphics on iPad 1 and iPad 2.
• Extra goodness and fully anti-aliased graphics on iPad 2.
• Game Center leaderboards and achievements.
• Use left and right buttons or swiping to steer.
• Left and right handed controls.

The controls in Sideways, both tap and swipe versions, can take a lap or two -- or in my case race or two -- to get used to but after that, every drift, dodge, and drive, never mind corner, collision, and crash you get into is loads of fun. I had the pleasure of beta testing Sideways for the last couple of weeks, and while I'm so bad at racing games I sometimes wonder how I'm allowed to drive a real car, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Bjango's Marc Edwards was kind enough to talk to us about Sideways on the iPad Live podcast last night, which is already available via iTunes and will be up here on the site later today. Go grab the game, then go listen to us talk about it!

UPDATE: Bjango was kind enough to give us some promo codes to give away. Want Sideways for free? Just head on over to Twitter and re-tweet this:

Want a Sideways promo code? Follow @Bjango @TiPb and RT to enter! http://t.co/0003YUF

We'll pick a bunch of you tomorrow and DM you codes.

Video and screenshots after the break!

[$1.99 on sale - iTunes link]

What can we call you? Marc Edwards.

What can we call your company? Bjango.

Where are you situated? Melbourne, Australia. Yes, that giant, mostly empty island at the end of the earth. It's a great place to live, provided you avoid the killer snakes, killer spiders, killer sharks and various other nasties.

On the web? Bjango.com

And on Twitter? @bjango and @marcedwards

What apps do you make? iStat Menus for Mac, iStat for iPhone, Consume for iPhone, Darkness for iPhone, Cities for iPhone, and a few others.

What apps, other than your own, do you currently use the most often? 1Password, Brushes, The Early Edition, Reeder (yes, two RSS readers) and Our Choice. There's some obvious and potentially boring choices in there, but those are the current apps I've been using daily or enjoying.

How long have you been a developer? We started building Mac Dashboard Widgets in 2005, which quickly turned into Mac app development. Prior to that I'd designed some fairly basic websites. And prior to that, I spent most of my time designing for print and for TV advertising. Creating software is incredibly rewarding and challenging, so I think I'll be doing it for quite some time.

How long have you been an iOS developer? We've been building iOS apps since the day the SDK was publicly available. Amazingly, that was just 3 years ago. It feels like an eternity.

Do you develop for any other platform in addition to iOS? If so, which one(s)? We're a Mac and iOS only shop. We've dabbled on other platforms and will continue to keep an eye out for opportunities, but for now, Mac OS X and iOS are great places to be. A big part of that is the users—iOS and Mac users seem to appreciate high quality software.

What primary computer setup do you use for your iOS development? I use a 2010 Mac Pro with a 24" LED Cinema Display, a couple of Drobos and lots of backup drives inside the Mac. I bought a Magic Trackpad and have tried to use it, but I keep going back to the Magic Mouse. I also have a Razer Deathadder, but use the Magic Mouse for all design related tasks. All pretty stock, really. I'm not a fan of dual displays—I'd much rather have a single, huge display.

I also have a 13" MacBook Air for when I'm on the road. It replaces a 15" MacBook Pro. I'm an Air convert and hope that Apple will release a 15" MacBook Air with 3G modem (or 15" MacBook Pro with flash drive and no optical drive).

What iOS device(s) do you personally use most often? 16GB Black iPhone 4 and 32GB 3G Black iPad 2. I have an iPod touch and a variety of older iPhone and iPads, but they're just for testing.

What mobile devices, other than iOS, do you currently use? None. What else do you think I need? I've always loved the Pre, but sadly it wasn't ever available in Australia. I'm also keen to see the TouchPad. It's the only non-iPad tablet I'm excited about.

What's your favorite thing about developing for iOS? Seeing your app take over the entire screen and experience is quite amazing. While open, your app is the device. It makes the software seem more physical, and the possibilities more limitless.

What's your least favorite thing about developing for iOS? The app approval process. I can deal with time delays, but placing our entire business' future in Apple's hands makes me feel vulnerable. Today Apple are our partner, tomorrow they may decide we're their competition.

What feature would you most like Apple to add to the iOS 5 SDK? Better notifications. Not an original suggestion, but a good one. Alerts are probably my least favourite part of iOS and the thing I envy most about webOS and Android devices.

What feature would you most like Apple to add to the App Store? I'm glad you asked. Being able to support older app versions is absolutely critical, and horribly broken right now. For example, if a customer buys App version 1 and we release App version 2 as a new app (the only way to charge for it), we have no way to fix bugs in version 1, while stopping people from buying it. We're forced to choose between removing the app from sale and dealing with the consequences, or keeping it on the store and dealing with the consequences.

Removing the older version of an app stops accidental purchases, but means customers can't redownload the app if they need to. This is one area where the App Store is far worse than the good old web download days. I see this as by far the biggest issue with the App Store. I'm hopeful that Apple will need to fix this for their own software and will add the ability to the App Store in the process.

If we were to eavesdrop on you while you were coding, what curse word would we hear you use the most? F**k you. (To which Photoshop, Xcode or iTunes Connect usually reply "No, f**k you.")

What do you do when you're not buidling iOS apps? Spend time with my wife, family or friends. Write music with Luc Wiesman under the name Duosseudo. Play indoor soccer (badly, usually breaking or bruising fingers while goalkeeping). Drink coffee. Play games of the iOS, Wii or Mac variety (I'm intentionally avoiding buying an Xbox or PS3 for productivity reasons). Listen to music.

What should we look for from you next? We're busy putting the finishing touches on an iStat-related product and an iPad game we've been working on since 2009 (it was an iPhone game that was better suited to the iPad, so we switched as soon as the iPad was announced).

Thanks Marc!

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iPad origins, how big can the market get, Target, Amazon, and Walmart oh my, limera1n causes some pain, and Marc Edwards joins us from Bjango. It's 10/10/10 folks and this is iPad live!

Credits

Thanks to the the iPhone Blog Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Marc Edwards from Bjango talks about bringing Phases and Consume to the iPad (and their other apps like iStat in the future).

Consume presents an easy, drop-dead-gorgeous way to track everything from mobile accounts to broadband accounts to loyalty cards to deliveries. Consume pulls data from the cloud so they can update it with new "recipes" for various providers as it becomes available. Consume for iPad takes the same core functionality and paints it across the big screen, using Apple's conventions like popovers but redrawn in a distinctive Bjango way. Likewise, CoreAnimation is used give a unique visual flare to transitions.

In general, Edwards loves the iPad -- it's bigger and more powerful. Where the iPhone is deep (hierarchical layers of screens) the iPad is broad and allows for a lot more information to be show at once. A lot of what they learned making Consume is being used to bring iStat to the iPad, and what they learn from the iPad is being fed back into their iPhone development.

We're glad to hear that because we're eagerly waiting for all of them.

Phases for iPad is available now [iTunes], Consume for iPad is pending [teaser], and iStat is in development.

Bjango's full range of iPhone apps include iStat, Consume (currently free), Darkness, Phases, Beats, Cities, Kapowie, Jobs, and Matches [iTunes]

Video interview from WWDC 2010 after the break...

[Bjango]

Rene talks to Marc Edwards of Bjango about iStat [$0.99 on sale - iTunes link] for iPhone, iPod touch, and... iPad!

iStat lets you monitor the resources on your iPhone, including voice and data usage, RAM, storage, networking, up time, processes, and more, and remotely monitor resources for your Mac, Linux, or Solaris server. Additional tools include ping and traceroute. If you want to sit on the sofa and watch your octocore's CPU's to see when that big transcode or render is done, or if you want to try and narrow down a problem on your server floor from the coffee shop, give iStat a shot and let us know what you think.

Note: If you're a fan of iStat Menus on the Mac, they're running a poll [Google Spreadsheet link] on future versions so head on over and let them know what you think about price points and features.

Watch along after the break!

YouTube link

Rene talks to Marc Edwards of Bjango about Consume [$0.99 - iTunes link] for iPhone. Consume lets you track your cell phone and broadband usage, packages (like new Apple Store deliveries!), club cards, and more.

And Bjango's giving away ten (10) promo codes to TiPb readers! Just drop a comment below and tell us what you'd like to see in an iPad version of Consume. We'll pick 10 of you at random (so make sure you leave a valid email address so we can contact you).

Note: Promo Codes are only valid in the US App Store (Apple's rule, not ours), and they expire, so if you get one, use it asap!

YouTube link

Consume [$0.99 on sale - iTunes link] is the awesome little app for the those of us who don't have unlimited anything on our iPhones... or ISPs. Yes, tiered data is a reality in some parts of the world, and we have to watch our MBs/GBs as closely as we watch our voice minutes. While I've been using Consume to do that on Rogers for a while now, their latest update -- version 1.6 -- improves support for existing providers and adds support for:

• Comcast in the US
• T-Mobile (Vertrag) in Germany
• Vodafone (Pay Monthly), T-Mobile (Pas As You Go), Tesco Clubcard in the UK
• Airtel Mobile (Postpaid), Airtel Broadband, Airtel Landline in India
• Bell (Broadband) in Canada
• Simyo (Prepaid) in France
• XNet, Snap (Prepaid), Subway Subcard in New Zealand
• SJ in Sweden
• Easy Way Tea's in Australia

They've also added a new "Package Tracking" category for USPS, AAE (Australia), TNT Express (Australia), and Apple Order Status (now if Apple would just release those new MacBooks for us to track!)

And yes, it's made by Bjango who do the great iStat [$0.99 also on sale - iTunes link] app (among others) for iPhone, and widget and menu system for the Mac. If you give it a try, let us know what you think!

Developers Bjango posted an interesting -- and informed -- reply today to Newsweek's sensationalist scoop on the iPhone App Store goldrush, and how the "rushies" might not be finding them much gold any more.

Could it be, the era of the fart-app fortune is... over?

Um, yeah. Anyone (other than the few who first staked their claims) banking -- literally -- on an everlasting gold rush to make their app fortune, rather than a clear, calculated business plan, is playing the lottery. And we all know the odds of winning those. So what's the alternative model for the iTunes App Store? The same as it is anywhere, and with anything, else -- focused effort and luck, with those who have better focus and more effort finding themselves luckier on average.

Countering Newsweek's assertion that it takes six months, full time, and costs between $20K and $150K to make an iPhone app, Bjango and indie developers who shared their own stats averaged only a few months, a couple developers, and a mix of full and part time work. Moreover they point out that good ideas are a dime a dozen, and that people passionate about their projects, realistic about their potential, and smart about controlling the bottom line, may just fare better. The best advice, however, is at the end:

There is a mid-point between overnight hit and disastrous failure. However, if money is your primary motivator, then you’ve probably already lost the battle.

Users -- the people who buy the apps -- don't care a hoot about some pseudo-devs get-rich-quick crApps. They care about great apps, and developers who make great apps probably want great apps themselves, not lottery tickets. If a great developer gets hugely successful along the way, everyone benefits.

[Thanks Melwan for the tip!]

Marc Edwards is one of the well known team behind Mac Dashboard Widget aces iSlayer and iPhone development house bjango, whose apps include Jobs, Cities, Darkness, and Phases, and he was kind enough to sit down and talk App development and ecosystem with TiPb.

TiPb: Your team is famous for their Mac OS X Dashboard widgets, was developing for the iPhone really the easy transition some have suggested?

Marc: For us, yes. Our widgets have used Cocoa plugins for quite some time. A lot of widgets are straight HTML, Javascript and CSS though, which is very different to what's needed for iPhone apps.

Was there anything substantially different about developing for the iPhone? If so, did you learn anything that you will effect your future Mac development?

The biggest lesson seems to be quality. Apple have some great bundled apps, so if you want to fit in, you'd better make sure you spend as much time as they do on the small details. The effective hit area of a human finger also means you have can only have a small number of buttons on screen at once. That keeps you on your toes—almost everything has to be contextual, which is quite different to traditional Mac development.

With some of Apple's built in Apps, like Stocks, Weather, etc. seeming more like OS X widgets than real Apps, there was once speculation that Apple may open up a widget platform for the iPhone as well. With both WebApps and App Store apps, do you think there's still a place for a dedicated iPhone widget development system?

There probably isn't much point in a development platform between web apps and App Store apps... Apple can and will keep on extending WebKit, allowing for better web apps that look and behave more like App Store apps. That's probably enough for anyone who doesn't want to develop using Cocoa.

So the line between the two is close enough to not warrant another choice. But hey, who knows what Apple will do!

There been ongoing controversy about the App Store and how to both get exposure for apps and earn a fair living off their development. Do you think app developers are currently racing to the bottom, and pricing themselves out of business, or do you think volume and building user base will prove a viable model long term?

I don't think pricing is as much of an issue as others seem to. We're talking about a platform with millions of users (don't forget iPod touch users when adding up the total). A huge portion of those users seem to buy apps.

If anything, I think we will see some more expensive apps appear, as all the small ideas get done well enough that each app type has a clear winner. Once the low hanging fruit is gone, developers will probably head towards bigger projects.

Either way, I'm not sure less than $5 is a bad pricepoint for an app. Just make sure you have a very good, very small team developing it and you'll be fine.

Now that the numbers are approaching 10,000, what could Apple do to make iPhone apps more discoverable by end users?

Search results ordered by rankings. A "newly popular" section might work too. I think it's going to be fairly difficult to keep iTunes as it is for music while making it work for the App Store too. I'm sure they'll figure it out though. These kinds of things have been working well on web 2.0 sites for years.

What are your thoughts on the new "rate upon deletion" feature of iPhone OS 2.2? Is this unfair to developers who may get more negative reviews now? (fair disclosure, I've only give 4 and 5 star reviews to Apps I've deleted).

For Apple to build better search and ranking tools, they need all the good data they can get. Right now there's a lot of fairly average apps on the store, so I don't see how rate upon deletion should be something any decent developer should worry about.

I've also rated some apps well on deletion. Maybe a rate after 20th launch would be good too, although you don't want it to get in the way too much.

Thanks Marc, we really appreciate your taking the time!

bjango is the website, and the apps are all available via the iPhone App Store (iTunes Link)