Seems like everyone’s disappointed with the iTunes 10 user interface. It’s neither radically different to be appreciative of new concepts, nor does it maintain its previous aesthetics. Instead of rethinking the user interface to accomodate for the different services that iTunes provides, Apple has merely shoved them into nooks and crannies, completely detatched from each other. What I’m trying to say is, Ping could have been so much more.

Scott Jensen (@ScottTheRocker) has been doing some thinking, and designing, which has resulted in this fantastic user interface concept. I agree it’s not perfect, and in some respects a little WMP-like, but if Apple were to only put in some effort in pushing a new user interface, iTunes X 10 could have been a media management platform worth lusting after. Check out Scott’s redesign in full.

Hat tip to my buddy Zach Holmquist.

Whether the art of design comes from within or a skill acquired, it always helps to learn how the design greats create their stunning artwork. I hadn’t heard about 365psd until today, and I can’t understand why such an awesome resource slipped past me.

365psd is a project to give these designs a second chance. Jonno Riekwel felt it was time for a change. “Why not give these files a new life by giving them away, for free?” So he started on a journey to release an unused .psd design everyday, for at least a year. Others have already joined to also give their files a new life.

Every day, they offer up a PSD of some UI element or concept, that you can download, play around with, and use in your own works. It includes contributions from unknowns as well as design aces like Louis Harboe and Jeff Broderick. Well, it’s more of a looking thing than a telling thing, so head over there and see for yourself.

“Are you really featuring this app on BP?”, asked a friend who was peeking as I was preparing the screenshots for this post. Plex, the beautiful media center application for the Mac, has just announced their iOS extender app that…

Plex mobile integrates seamlessly with the desktop version. Stop watching a movie in your living room, and continue right where you left off on your iPhone or iPad. All of your ratings, viewed status and more is kept perfectly in sync.

I’m not sure about the design as a whole (it’s by no means ugly), nor am I vouching for its functionality. All I wanted was to highlight that icon. It’s just… yum. Screenshots follow…

It all started with a Dribble shot. “What do you think of this?”, asked Preshit, though it obviously wasn’t a question. An instant nerdgasm followed. It was but a few pixels of the fantastic site statistics application, called Observer.

We’ve been using Mint stats for our sites, which is a fairly pretty app by itself. But never before have I seen stats so gorgeous, that numbers are the last thing you’re looking at. The following might be a little hard for you to swallow, since Observer is still in private beta. But if you can control your urges, this is not an app you’d want to miss out on.

I feel bad publishing this article; the screenshots just don’t do justice. Sidenote: Stats have been obscured.

Observer starts with a stunning dashboard of your daily stats. Hover over any part of the line chart, and it’ll bring up the specifics of that section, be it a month, day, or week view. Of course, you’re going to want to play around with the dates, since the calendar pop up is that beautiful cluster of pixels you see above. Everything about this app is so fluid, you forget you’re using a web app. Subtle animations guide the user interface, and little things like the custom scrollbar (which sadly makes the app unusable on iOS Safari), which fades out when not in use. None of it affects its speed, which is fast, even on the iPad.

Every view of the application is detailed but clean, and live. Hover over the map, and it’ll show you the percentage of users from each country. The countries themselves are tinted according to percentage of traffic, so you’re always looking at the most important ones.

I should also throw this in: Observer shows you real time stats. It was amusing as I visited my blog on the iPad only to see the count increase a second later. This might be an issue as the userbase grows, but as of right now it’s a treat to see those numbers trickle in.

Observer is not just beauty however. Click the Share button, and you can then select blocks of UI you want to share with people, and Observer will automatically create a page including shots those stats.

It’s not often you come across an app of such caliber, yet know that it’s still not out of its developmental phases (there are some incomplete sections). Kudos to designer and developer Ludwig Pettersson, who has outdone practically every web stats application out there. Pettersson has been accepting new users via invites, so I’d highly recommend you head over and leave your email address.

Full resolution PNG.

I’m used to seeing podcasts being presented either as a download link, or a crude playback controller on a wordpress/tumblr blog. Sometimes the design might be tastefully done, but it’s still basic stuff. So when I heard about The Box, a new podcast by designer Tim Van Damme, I knew what to expect.

Or did I? Tim surprised the living daylights out of me with the slickest podcast page I’ve ever seen. It’s currently got just one episode in its catalog — an interview with Neven Mrgan — but by god is the site a treat to look at. Looking at the audio controller interface, which can be popped out into its own little window, would have been enough. Fluid ajax effects, perfect shadows, and excellent typography. The only thing I could complain about, is rather basic logo.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, it’s also a great podcast for design nerds.

How many times have you been reprimanded for sending out a tweet using Twitlonger? If I’m following you, probably every time you do so. I hope there’s someone like me following you, or Twitter would just turn into a series of tweet longer messages. *shudders, even thinking about it*

Turns out there are at least some people in this world who care about good design, or care to eradicate bad design, rather. Westin Lohne and company created a brand new service, ‘twtmore‘, for sharing longer than 140 character twitter messages — one that doesn’t suck. Not only does it not suck, it’s quite beautiful. And not only is it beautiful, it’s even functional. When Lohne initially talked about twtmore, I figured it would be a Twitlonger that’s better looking — not a difficult task given the turd in question. But today they sent out their first public tweet, and we have something that incorporates some really useful features to go with it. For instance, if you share a ‘twitter photo’ from a service like Img.ly or Twitpic (hopefully the former is supported), it’ll automatically show up in the media box below. You can even embed code, which would be awesome for those crowd-sourced troubleshooting sessions.

Just one thing: It’s not public yet. They’re still working with developers to integrate this into twitter apps (I hope all of them do), so that might take a while to materialise. It’s also not feature complete, say the developers.

Long tweet etiquette

Does twtmore existence mean it’s okay to send out tweets longer than 140 characters? I hope not. If anything close to that happens, Lohne has assured me they’ll pull the plug on twtmore (okay he didn’t, but they should). I mean, how do you explain using long-tweet service for a 150 character tweet that’s written that way out of pure laziness? I believe that partly it’s these twitter clients who encourage it, making it so easy to just tweet a longer message than going back to edit it. But only partly, because the imbecile would have probably found a way anyway.

But there are times when a long tweet makes sense. Those rare occasions when you just need to get a point across that’s just not possible with 140 characters. You know, say you bitched about someone, and they found out and took it to heart, then you want to write a long explanantion stating it was just a joke? Or maybe you want to give a detailed explanation on why Twitlonger sucks? Or perhaps you need to explain why there exists a YouTube video of you in a dress? You can’t explain that in 140 characters, you need more (although that YouTube video will probably be unexplainable).

And when that day comes, and the service is in full swing, I pray you will use twtmore. May twtmore be the death of Twitlonger. Please.

UPDATE: I’ve got a couple of folks asking me why I’m recommending the use of twtmore. I don’t. Don’t use either of these services. They’re both evil, and I’d rather not see any of these in my timeline. Just that if I had to choose between the two evils, it’d be twtmore.

iOS 4 has been around for a while now, and the iPhone 4 makes iOS 4 look perfect to throw a wallpaper on. Still, wallpapers have been spread out far and wide, that a lot of people stick to the default wallpapers. So we’ve gone through the trouble of scrounging for some good ones, especially since we can see all the beautiful homescreens uploaded on homescreen.me. Rounded up are but a few stunning iPhone 4 backgrounds (and background packs) that fit perfectly behind your app icons without distracting your vision. All these wallpapers are retina display optimised, so iPhone 4 owners, go nuts.

“Bookworm” by itnsltwn

A lot of the times you don’t want to rush things, and just take it simple. Black is boring, so here’s something that will add some texture, without taking away anything.

“Ground Effect” by Cole Rise

Beautiful photography awaits you at Cole Rise’s blog. Even if you’re not interested in homescreens, it’s a sight worth seeing. He has graciously converted one of his shots into an iPhone and iPad wallpaper. Check it out being used on Kyle Rose’s homescreen.

“Pirate” by itnsltwn

What would the world do without a wood shelf wallpaper? Huh? Thanks to itnsltwn for fulfilling the world’s needs.

“Non-Busy iPhone wallpapers” by Zachery Bir

For those who feel like they’re being distracted by their wallpaper, here’s something that will add colour to that otherwise boring black.

Daniel Waldron’s collection

Waldron seems to have a knack for designing slick homescreen walls. His two walls, CandyStripes and GrungyWalls are so creatively designed, it would almost be foolish not to try em on. Check out Ryan Sears’ homescreen profile for an example of grungy in action.

4×4 Grid by Jimsy

Inspired by the wallpaper on the homepage of hs.me, Jimsy went ahead and created a brand new grid wallpaper, that’s more refined than the original, and included the PSD should you want to customise it for your homescreen. Check out his homescreen profile for this wallpaper in action. The original comes in a white flavour, which would go especially well with your white 3GS and future possible white iPhone 4.

Textures by lissi4ka

The much famous unknown wallpaper of Russian origins (Google Translate says the name is Textures), is but a series of colourful bricks — very large pixels if you will. If you’re the kind who likes to have the same wallpaper on all your devices, this is the one you should go with. Right from high resolution widescreen, to iPad, to the iPhone, it’s got you covered. Showcased on the homescreens of Goobi and Viticci.

Ego by Garett Murray

Practically the exact background of the iPhone app ‘ego’, there’s not much to say about it except… nope, not much to say about it. It’s just a bunch of dots on a grey background, and yet it makes perfect sense. There’s an iPhone version, iPhone 4 version, and an iPad version. Check it out in action on Ian Hilbert’s homescreen.

Blueprints by Alex Robert and Louie Mantia

If you’re one for lines and squares, blueprints might just be the right dish served. One by Alex Robert, and one by Louie Mantia. Check out how the complex hard lines of the former look on a real homescreen. UPDATE: Alex says he didn’t create that blueprint wallpaper, nor does he know the original author. If you do know who created it, let us know!

Dust by John Carrey

Photographer John Carrey of FiftyFootShadows grabbed this amazing shot, that will not just add a beautiful blend of bokeh on your screen, but also eliminate any dust from creating a scene on your glass [Dust on Vahe's homescreen]. Mind you, following the link above will reveal all of his photographic wallpapers, which will cause severe indecisiveness. Proceed with caution.

If you don’t have a homescreen.me invite yet, we’re gonna give out invites to the first fifteen who retweet this article. If you’ve found an awesome wallpaper, @’us on twitter so we can add them to this article.

I just saw it, but I already know this is it. Ever since the dribbble api opened up, we’ve heard of so many clients, it’s almost the new twitter client. Well here’s nibbble, an iPad web application based around the dribbble api, created by Nial Giacomelli (@nialgiacomelli). Nial is the same designer who created the “Showtime” web app for the iPhone some time back, so he’s obviously upgraded on this one.

nibbble is so fluid, you’d be wondering why you even need a dedicated native app on your iPad. Beautiful grids of ’shots’, tap to see the author, and tap to show the shot in a lightbox. It cuts out the comments and other dribbbely features, and is purely a way of browsing images. Best of all, it’s free.

UPDATE: I’m told it also works on the iPhone — one image at a time.

[thanks @nawong for sharing it with us]

Robocat Apps announced their new app Dunk for the iPhone two weeks ago. It is a client for the quite young but famous web service dribbble. dribbble, as you know, is a place where designers from all around the world can post whatever they are working on; a great resource for inspiration and to follow design processes.

And now, dribbble is native on the iPhone. The app is designed as gorgeous as you would expect it from Micheal Flarup. You do not necessarily need a dribbble account — if you are not yet invited to be a dribbble member, you can still watch the uploaded files in a really nice gallery, from which you can view the uploader’s profile and comment on images. What is quite strange is that Dunk just runs in landscape mode. It’s an obvious decision at the end, because dribbble users upload files with a size of 400X300 pixels or less — and for this size the landscape mode is suited perfectly. But though there are some missing features be sure to check it out, because it is really unique to use and provides stunning images integrated into a sleek UI. Get it for $1.99 on the App Store.

[Editor: I totally don't think this is a beautiful app. While the pixels might be alright, Flarup has messed with standard UI conventions. To bring up the menubar HUD, you have to tap the upper half of an image; to bring up the comments and info, tap in the lower half. What's the point of this? We've already established a single tap as a way to bring up the HUD, and push up to show comments and info. To add to that the HUD is not overlayed but a solid bar that slides down the image. I found it totally frustrating to browse Dribbble this way.]

Simulating real handcraft on digital devices have never been that sexy as with SwankoLab. It is a digital darkroom to edit your photos in the old-fashioned way — except you don’t need to be in a dark room. And it just looks stunning.

You can lay down your photo into the basic darkroom substances and ‘drop’ new chemicals, which effects on your photo are described on the bottle in your digital shelf. After you got the perfect formula mixed together just wait a few seconds and your new picture is finished. You can store favorite mixtures for multiple usage and buy additional chemical effects via In-App-Purchase. And because of the awesome UI and sound effects, SwankoLab may be even more fun to use than an original darkroom. We’d love to see something like this for the iPad, and perhaps more pressing is the need for upgraded artwork for the retina display. That’s $1.99 at the App Store.