My Dream App - Bogumil Giertler

MacBook drama.

2006-10-02T14:43:43Z

MacBook is a great piece of hardware.
As you all now, I moved to Italy, with my MacBook as only computer.

Now imagine…
For last two weeks it had a Random Shutdown issue. It’s getting more and more frequent - for last two days I couldn’t run my MacBook at all. Additionally, today, a hard drive failed - the MacBook was not running at all, it was loading and then showing a blue screen with a spinning circle. Fortunately, I was wise enough to run it from the Rescue CD and - while the HDD was working for a second (it still works, though) - copy all files on external HDD.
To make it more worse (and do not even give a word on a case that is getting more and more brownish), my roommate spilled a cup of hot soup on my desk. I won’t count my chemistry homework (and the chemistry book), but I’ll count not working right Shift key in MB’s keyboard (mostly furthest left block is not working properly).

I cannot rely on this machine anymore.
And I pray for your help, I need help in making mockups.
I’ve got guidelines (and fast mockups, sketches rather) ready, also I can send PSD files to any volunteer.

In case of winning, I’ll give person that made mockups twenty percent of mine royalties.

I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

Mockup. Arrived.

2006-09-28T19:19:08Z

Hello Folks,

First mockup just arrived.

It’s preview of full screen mode.

It’s still missing clipper (scrapbook actually, it’ll resemble notebook filled with fragments sticked with scotch tape) and crayons (for scribbles). I thought also about “widget like” radio/iTunes controller for this desk.
I think, that desk interface will be quite pleasant way of showing you newspaper in fullscreen mode. Always, you’ll be able to get it by hotkey (or place Newspaper straight on Dashboard-like layer - or even Dashboard).
Weather is not filled as well. But I hope that it gives you at least idea of newspaper (this part was almost completely created by myself; tomorrow I’ll upload part with interface - if I’ll have enough time), and it’s functionality :-)
As you can see, you’ll be able to rate articles. There will be also tagging feature, but it’ll be more hidden. Thanks to this and sharing network, you’ll able to get the best news and essays in town, straight to your newspaper.

Unfortunately I’m not Bogumil Almighty, my free time is very limited, and I had to resign from studying Italian for tommorow’s test to create this mockup (and it’s quater past one a.m. here) :(

And to cheer you up - it’s not yet Table, new RSS interface. It’ll arrive soon, preferably tommorow.

Enjoy.

New judges comments...

2006-09-28T10:25:41Z

…too bad, that in this round only bloggers were commenting on me.
And too bad, that they are group of users, that certainly urge to use classical RSS readers - as they are fetching literally tens of dozens of feeds… They also weren’t reading my blog entries close enough - or maybe I used too much of technobabble. And high-profile bloggers are NOT average users (e.g. typical users of iLife and iWork). They usually know what Terminal is (and that it’s not hidden in cupboard).

Herald, in its idea, is not only newspaper-like reader with printing ability - it’s of course important part of Herald, but it’s not it’s heart.
Heart of Herald is social experience - unique ability of sharing your newspapers, feeds, fancy comments for them, no matter how you’ll name. Tearing pages or columns and hiding them in your scrapbook. Sharing scrapbook. Everything in beautiful layout.
If I’ll be lucky enough, I even hope for DRMed feeds for big titles like NYT or Macworld. Thanks to this, Herald can become new Zinio - but not as bad as it’s predecessor.
Additionally, you can export your newspapers to PDFs and send them to your friends, export as HTML to Herald’s (or your LAN’s) servers for archive and sharing, print and hang as daily bulletin in your school - there is really no limits for this functionality.

Second most important feature is ability to create feeds for sites that do not possess such functionality (or only available feeds are shorts), based e.g. on HTML-diffing. Too many websites do not “mirror” themselves in RSS feeds - because of this, Herald will be helpful.

As most of people are used to use newspaper, as for now it’s most convenient way of serving news - but Herald will also feature new interface for serving ONLY news, not in newspaper form, in news form. Everything for everyone.
I made suggestion about this in previous news (do you remember sledgehammer?) , and I hoped, that I’ll be able to use it as secret weapon near to finals, but I see, that I’ll have to show it soon, with it’s mockup on which I was working independently for past days.

Busy businessman or commuting student? Export to PDA or print and read in underground.
Geek or blogger, feel new way of getting news in front of you.
What is more important, both interfaces will be switchable (immediately from newspaper to feeder) - you won’t loose time for setting (except initial setting), especially when Herald will be able to import feeds from another readers.

But this can come true only with your help. Your votes.
Because it will be really hard to get Herald done without help of MDA crew - and as for me, it’s the app that is really missing - on every platform - Windows, Mac OS X, Linux.

Herald Social Experience

2006-09-27T15:05:08Z

Herald will be not only app, that will let you to read news in exact way you want (as newspaper, modern RSS reader, translucent layer of your desktop) but will be first RSS reader with social experience.
Kiosk will certainly become new digg (or even will be merged with digg) - ability to exchange newspapers, scrolls and even Scribbles.
Thanks to Scribbles, you can exchange virtually every comment to article (even with drawings of flowers, sun and birds). Friendly Scrolls help in publishing your own articles.
Herald will also feature voting and rankings - your own voting for every article will be submitted to main database, and then - according to your preferences, your next articles will be chosen with basis in users voting database or built-in contextual analysis system. Or even both.
Thanks to this, your news won’t be dry anymore, they will be exactly as you want them.

This time entry is short, as I’m running out of time.

I promised you mock-ups. Unfortunately, Darrell (man behind PassIt! mockups and idea) who was working with me on it, had horrible accident in family - and he couldn’t finish his job for exact date.
Because of this, today you’ll see only part of first mockup (there are four in pipeline).
But I hope, that it’ll be enjoyable for you :-)

If anyone is willing to help with finishing it, please drop me a line (I’ve got main guidelines ready, so it’s matter of one e-mail).

Second round - I'm in!

2006-09-24T20:21:38Z

Whoa! It was a big surprise for me - I was expecting popularity, but this overcame me - 6th place (until last twenty four hours, I was even in tie with three other apps for second place!) is big success - especially, with not-so-optimistic judges reviews and very detailed - and a bit confusing for reader - blog entries from my side. Thanks for your voices!

So, now came time for explaining, arguing with judges and making things simple ;-)

First thing. Expected user market.
I’m not expecting Herald as app for computer geeks.
Of course, it’ll be very elastic - and if you’ll want to, you’ll be able to use only built-in RSS reader (which will be manager for manual choosing posts from RSS too - if you want to do it manually of course)
But it’s an app like an iLife suite - for everyone, for people that do not even want to know what the RSS syndication is. They just want drag-and-drop. And eye-candies. They do not really care if hamsters are choosing their articles, they want them GOOD (and it’s the reason of proposed article-rating function ;-)).

Second thing. Usefulness.
I consider myself as computer geek. But I’m also a college student with VERY FILLED schedule (150% of usual workload, I almost forgot how to sleep ;-)).
Today, I got a few spare hours. So I finally opened my RSS Reader (no advertising here ;-)) and got hammered by over 3000 of news. I found my favorite Polish newspaper (over 400 unread news) and started reading, clicking through every single article.
And guess what? I found it quite unpleasant experience. Not only because of actual political horror in my country, but because of user experience: clicking, chaos in articles and feeds, simple because of everything that is now defining RSS reader.
It was a place for Herald. If an app like this would exist, I could read news between classes (with my cellphone) or at least read it eating breakfast in nice form.
If Herald will be ever created, the basis of this app will be ability of creation your dream newspaper within 30 seconds from double-clicking icon - so time-consumption will be hard to notice.

Third thing. Paper use.
It was rather a metaphor.
Of course, you can print it, why not?
But you can export it to PDF and read it in your Tablet PC, Tablet Mac or PDA With Really Big Screen.
Or to iPod. Or cellphone.
And, to be honest, could anyone tell me if (s)he’s reading all pages in New York Times?
Really?
Me neither.
You read a front page, maybe a few more… And then your underground just arrived to destination station. Or there is no more toasts with jam left on your plate (hint: you finished breakfast).
And most of you just throw whole 100-pages to wastebasket. Or use it in cat’s toilet at home.
This is why personalized newspaper is so important - you’re choosing all things you want, you fill a few pages with it - and then you export it to PDA or print.

It’s sure that there is also “translation problem”. But until we’ll find better way of getting news straight in front of you, newspapers will be a lot better than any tech-savvy app. Especially for busy people. And average users.

That’s all actually.
No mock-ups today. Fortunately, thanks to cooperation with Darrell (known for PassIt! idea), beautiful mockups will arrive soon to please your eye and give you better idea of Herald.
Do not really care so much about Friendly, lost, found scrolls things. It’s only temporary, untidy naming, just to categorize things. Features are unchanged, but certain naming may be changed (and surely in many cases - it’ll be changed).
Thanks once more time for your votes! :-)

Cleaning!

2006-09-16T20:25:18Z

As I’m not English native-speaker (and I’m usually writting my entries in very late night) my thoughts can sometimes be very, er… difficult to decipher. Because of this, as I promised, I’m posting better and explanation of Lost Scrolls.
And, starting today, we’ll introduce new idea to Herald ;-)

Yesterday (when I was in International Institute of Theoretical Physics actually ;-)) Matt J tried to find out what Lost Scrolls are in his post. He done very good job in fact, with one exception - he was faster than me in posting my own ideas, I don’t know how he get them ;-)

Name “Scroll” is strictly connected with “Herald”, as heralds used scrolls to announce their information (scrolls were “sources of information” to Heralds). Therefore, Scroll is more like column, source of information than whole page - but of course, one Scroll can take whole page providing only one essay or ten news - it’s up to you.
“Lost Scrolls” are Scrolls from sites that simply don’t use RSS extensively. They work like well-trained hounds - if website has RSS that contains only parts of news, you’re marking it in “Scroll Finder” (preference pane for Scrolls) and than you’re training app to find where news ends (on three-four news from RSS feed). Almost the same applies to finding “Lost Scrolls” on websites without RSS feeds - it’s a bit harder, but it’s based mostly on marking text on webpages (and yes, it’s based on diffing too).
If you need only graphics (for example Sudoku puzzle, like you can do with Web Clip), it’ll be just case of finding place you want to copy from website.
“Friendly Scrolls” are in fact scrolls published by your friends and they are available in two flavours. In first, there is “Friendly Lost Scroll” - which is simply “Lost Scroll” available to others (by Internet, Bonjour, whatever). In second, we’ve got just “Friendly Scrolls” - Scrolls that are done by you. You can build them by putting your own news, essays, posts there.
“Friendly Scroll” can be also your weblog without weblog - daily bulletin, journal, whatever - but either you’ll use Herald (eventually your own) server to keep it, or you’ll announce it through Bonjour.
“Lost Scrolls” will be available straight from app interface (they are really needed by almost everyone), as “Friendly Scrolls” will be incorporated mostly to new ideas.
However, management will be done FULLY by “Scroll Finder” - in pane on left, you’ll have sorted list of feeds you can drop, continuusly updated with main Herald server (and Bonjour network). So do not worry about dozens of windows. For most of the time you’ll see one windows, without any pane. Sometimes, there will be pane and preference windows. Rarely, there will be more than two.

Now, time for two new ideas - Kiosk and Scribble.
Kiosk, as you can safely assume from name, is kiosk. You can find your newspaper there. And edition about Macs. And this one about politics. And this one made completely with Friendly Scrolls and Scribbles. And newspapers from your friends, either Bonjour ones or downloaded from Herald website. Newspapers in Kiosk can be done by you (with your own articles), by your friends, or you can even set random one. You can also create your newspaper just by tearing pages from other Kiosk newspapers (especially those with “Friendly Scrolls”) and adding them to your own. So, if you teared page with “Friendly Scroll” and “Macworld Scroll”, they will be updated with this exact sources of information.
I haven’t decided about look of Kiosk yet, but I think that look of machine selling newspapers (and sweets) would be really great. And there is place for a LOTS of Core Animation :-)

Scribbles.
Lets assume, that you’ve got great essay from NYT, but you do not agree completely with it. Take pen (or cursor), scribble on it, write your own thoughts on margins, colour whole areas, draw suns and flowers and submit it - as a part of newspaper (in case your subscriber has got the same article in newspaper, Scribble can be merged as addition to it) or as independent, “Friendly Scroll”.

In perfect world, in Kiosk would have additional feature. Stay tuned! ;-)

I know it’s kind of complicated without mock-ups - but I promise, they’re coming very soon!
First window you’ll see after starting app will be kiosk (or your default newspaper). Than, you can choose your newspaper or just start to read it. In case you want to tear page, you are litteraly tearing it and dropping to clipper - and there it waits until you’ll be able to add it to newspaper. That’s all.
In this way creation of newspaper has been “teared” to two stages - at first you’re dragging and dropping your favourite Scrolls. And you may stop here, and use newspaper only in this way.
But, you can socialize yourself.
You can tear pages out from friends’ newspapers, add scribbles, just play.
And yes, there will be counter for every user (about usage of his published scrolls/newspapers).

Keep in mind, that those names are like iTV - only codenames (I even think that at the end, there will be no difference between certain kinds of scrolls than icons).

Technobabble time!

2006-09-14T11:25:43Z

Week passed since last post. Week full of running from building to building, from lecture to lecture. I already don’t remember when I slept for over 6 hours ;-)
I also found, that Herald topic was one of the most popular finalist app topics. I hope, that it’s good sign! :)

So, a few words on technology that (in case of success) will be used to make Herald works as advertised.

Interface will be mostly based on dragging and dropping. Scrolls - the sources of information - will be either RSS feeds (and all their siblings, like ATOM or XML), independent files (like RTFs or JPGs) or Lost Scrolls.
Last one looks quite mysteriously, so let’s have a closer look.

Lost Scrolls are in it’s idea a bit similair to Web Clips, and they will be available in three flavours.
Lost Scrolls for Graphics are almost equal to original Web Clip - just look for the place on website you want to have in your newspaper - like Sudoku puzzles, weather (if you really don’t want Hearld formatting of weather), Peanuts or Garfield. Check it and Scroll Finder will do the rest.
Lost Scrolls for Text are mostly based on app training.
If website publishes in RSS only parts of information (rest is available on website), just check necessary box in Scroll Finder (preference pane for Scrolls) and Herald will be trained by you on a first few news. If website doesn’t have even RSS feed, you’ll be asked to show where top news are placed, then during training Herald will learn how to download news from this site.
Friendly Lost Scrolls will be Scrolls made by you or your friends, available thorugh Herald website or Bonjour networks - it can be your school’s daily bulletin or your weblog (without whole weblog structure).
Surprisingly, you’ll find most of necessary Lost Scrolls already built in to Herald ;-)

After all, Hearald will feature a few eyecandy and useful features, using new Apple techniques. So, here we go.
- microfilms library of newspaper past issues, based mostly on Leopard’s Core Animation (however, available in normal flavour for Tiger too)
- news converted to speech by Alex’s voice, iPod time! (of course, news can be also mixed with iTunes music, even with today’s Top 3 from Store)
- if you want to use Herald as bulletin board in your school, company, family, download friend’s issues, whatever - Bonjour networks will be very helpful
- for looking through past issues Spotlight will do as well
- do not forget about Dashboard, iCal and To-Dos service (your To-Dos as Very Big Headlines)

Herald will be fully automatable and usable as system service. It’s worth to add, that Herald will be very elastic program.
For first, after creating your newspaper, and running Herald in standard mode, you’ll not see anything more than… newspaper (and a few icons built into newspaper of course - it’s e-paper ;-)).
As every feed will be placed in certain place on page, you’ll be able to choose news to print from built in RSS reader, that will look just like additional page in your newspaper. Thanks to this, it’ll be the nicest looking RSS reader at once.

Issues of newspaper will be readable on screen (if you really want to), printable on normal paper, exportable to iPod (with photos, comic stripes, at as chapter images), cellphone/PDA (most important is being compatibile with XHTML). If you have your own server (or you’re willing to pay small fee), you can autmatize uploading HTML version of your newspaper, so it can be always fresh in your cellphone or PDA.

I hope, that in case of winning we will be able to make agreements with at least a few newspaper for fully working (or even exclusive) paid feeds (I’m yet thinking if it should be subscription to free reader or just included as fee for app), with first page big photos and essays.

You’ll be always available to change newspaper layout, download other users layout, simply - do magic with layout and news. Thanks to Cocoa, programmers and Apple - it’ll be easy as 1-2-3.

That’s all of technobabble.
Next ideas and mockups will be posted soon.
So - see you then!

Yay! I've got really loud Herald! ;-)

2006-09-06T01:10:51Z

I’ve just arrived to my new college in Italy, there was just enough time to unpack, clear my teeth, get my MacBook out of Brenthaven’s case and than it was like a light lighting from clear sky - “You’re in the finals of My Dream App!”.

Whoa! I wasn’t even supposing that Herald’s idea will be so liked by judges!

So, what is Herald?

If you’re reading forums carefully (or you were lucky enough to read about it when it was posted and forgotten by forum users) you should already know. But if you are not familiar with Herald idea for some reason, it’s simply the last news reader you’ll ever need.

It’ll create world’s best newspaper using carefully selected Scrolls (mainly RSS feeds) of world’s best newspapers, websites, comics and its own intelligence.

Because it’ll be using interface similar to Pages and Stationery, creating newspaper will be just simple dragging and dropping Scrolls on right places on beautifully designed pages.

Don’t be afraid, you’ll be able to drop your own articles, PDFs and e-books. And than you’ll go to bed, and in the very morning, your newspaper will be already updated and printed or uploaded to your iPod (or PDA, even cell phone - it’s all about using XHTML!), so you’ll be able to read it eating this sweet croissant, sipping cappuccino or just commuting to school by bus. In case your underground is in Tokyo (so it’s very crowded), you’ll have spoken version of your news, mixed with the music you choose (or top three from iTMS for example!).

Imagine a newspaper with articles from Guardian and NYT, chapter from 1984, just headlines from MacRumors, strips from Garfield, Peanuts and Calvin, weather for Trieste, Warsaw and Singapore on the bottom of first side, your appointments from iCal as a Cultural News and your name in footer.

You will be editor-in-chief, main designer, corrector, censor and selector. And you will do your work in less than five minutes. Between coffee and yogurt.

Herald will be totally new way of using news services. It’ll give you information to your fingertips, real ones.

In this way, it’ll be last news reader you’ll ever need.

And it won’t be a news reader after all.