Here are some early concept designs for an Apple Watch fitness app. My chums at Sensoria asked me to photoshop some concepts to show how the Apple Watch could work with the Sensoria fitness wearable device. The Sensoria smart socks have sensors woven into the fabric which can detect strike points on your feet as you run to help you improve your running technique. Sensoria are one of the leading developers of truly wearable technology and the “internet of things”.

Designing an app for the Apple Watch

Designing for the small screen and “quick glance” use case of the Apple Watch is a largely reductive process, editing the parent app down to the most essential features, then refining the graphics so they are legible on the small screen and the context of a quick glance.

Of course, all this is academic for me right now… I need an Apple Watch! Which means I also need a new iPhone 6. I’m not someone who likes to upgrade for the sake of getting the latest thing.  I’m convinced Apple have been sending “slow-down-self-desctruct” messages to my trusty iPhone 4s – it use to be lightning fast

I’m trying not to listen to that inner voice that says:

You are a Freelance Apple Watch App Designer… you need this for your freelance designer business

Embossed business card and a paper design I found online

Die-cut print folder

Rubber stamp to add a hallmark to prints

USB box

Altermate business card embossed on white

Wax seal

Alt font

Since I transition from an office-based UX designer to a freelance UX designer many moons ago I have experienced all of the stages of freelance life. Now theses stages pass in a cyclical fashion and I’m trying to find a way to smooth out the roller coaster ride.

Compared to Android, designing screens and creating assets for iPhone use to be easy. For a ling time we’ve only had to deal with two densities, and only 2 screen dimensions. The iPhone 6 Plus introduces a new screen dimension and a new HD screen. It’s a fairly typical 1920 x 1080 format, once popular with LCD TVs. This post is a place for me to log all the new sizes, and also to compare the require assets against Android’s require set of densities. The strange this is, for the iPhone 6 Plus, the graphics have to be provided much larger than the 1920 x 1080px screen resolution, as they are set at x3 standard resolution and then scaled down to fit the hardware.

iPhone 6 Plus screen size / dimensions

• iPhone 3 – 480 x 320px
• iPhone 4(s) – 960 x 640px
• iPhone 5(s) – 1136 x 640px
• iPhone 6 – 1334 x 750px
• iPhone 6+ – 1920 x 1080px (scaled down from 2208 x 1242px)

iPhone 6 plus launch image resolution dimensions

• iPhone 4 launch images: 640 x 960px
• iPhone 5 launch images: 640 x 1136px
• iPhone 6+ launch images: 1242 x 2208px and 2208 x 1242px (the iPhone scales this down)

iPhone 6 plus Retina HD image resolution densities Vs Android density pixels

• iPhone 3 / Android MDPI | 100% | 1x
• iPhone 4, 5, 6 Retina / Android XHDPI | 200% | @2x
• iPhone 6+ Retina HD / Android XXHDPI | 300% | @3x

Some devices scale as well

Android and iOS makes it easy to create different resolutions by requiring graphics at easy scales x2, x3, x4, but manufacturers make screens to fit the design of their devices and x2, and x3 does always fit what they want. Therefore, some devices artificially scale the resolution up or down, for instance the new iPhone 6 Plus requires x3 graphics, but only has a 1080 x 1920. However, the graphics you supply to the developer still need to be x3 size for Android.

This is fine for icons, but is an issue if you’re providing full screen images as the aspect ratio may be different.

See my guide for How to start designing Android apps in Photoshop & what is a dp?

Fitness dashboard

Run summary

Run mapping

User on boarding process

Sensoria Store and product page

Got out of the office today to work on the IA of the universal iOS music app. I’ve done the iPad, now thinking of iPhone scaling.

I found Chambers restaurant in Victoria Park offered a more inspiring view than the office, where I face two guys called David and Steve. Had eggs for brain food.

Here’s my normal day-to-day view. Hmm

The client liked the last two ideas, a combination of the clean J shape with a bit of movement.

After some thought, the client decided they actually quite like the rotated “J” logo, an wanted to see some development on that version with colour option. Nearly there. Replaced the funky Chalet “S” with a customised “S” from Lucida.

I was pleased to get a surprise present from my work-fellow @baseonmars… It’s the Last.fm “Best of 2011” infographic as an A2 poster, with a gorgeous matt finish. Thank you! He wanted a framed one for his wall at home and got me a copy… because he is awesome.

To get this to work in two columns on A2 format I had to add an extra scrobble graph not seen on the original Year in Music freature: Rebecca Black goes viral: 11 Mar – “Friday” goes viral and is dubed “the worst song ever”.