This is by far my favorite Apple commercial. It really encompasses what Steve Jobs is about and what Apple is. Honestly, it’s not about the products solely—they are just part of it. They are just tools to use to unleash creativity, passion, and to make a dent in the universe. As Steve says, “It is in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.”Even something as synthetic as creating software, applications, and hardware…the X-Factor is the human element. I still can’t believe it’s been a year since Steve has past. It is quite amazing to imagine how much impact someone you have never met has in your life, but they do. A dent in the universe is created by all the smallest movements. Imagine all the impact we are making right now. We are changing the way things are every second. Why wouldn’t we do more to change it in a positive way?It was this time last year that we decided to make Xhatch exclusively dedicated to iOS design and development. I’ve been blessed to work with some of the most dedicated people I know. Every second I work with them feels like fun. We love what we do, and not many people can say that.Last year we said we would set a goal of having one app in the app store in dedication to Steve.We have four.Yet, we feel like we haven’t done anything, because we can do so much more.Thank you, Steve. We hope to continue your work in the best way possible.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

I have talked to some of my friends about this and they think I am insane for even thinking this. It might make sense to just pick a city to call home and live there. However, I really love Brooklyn, New York and San Francisco, California. I don’t want to choose, I want to live in both.My dream is to live in San Francisco for a week or two each month and have most of my stuff in New York. When I want to stay longer in San Francisco, I can just bring my cat with me.Here is how I think I’ll make ends meet:

• I do not have a car so I don’t pay for gas, maintenance or car insurance. For what I was paying before is comprable to a plane ticket to NYC to the Bay and BART pass or Uber.
• When I am not at the other place I can have a friend help me out with house sitting or using AirBNB to rent it out to absorb some costs.
• Go on a spending freeze for new electronics and unnecessary products.
• Rent a small one-bedroom or studio in San Francisco.

How it would work:

Saturday night: I spend the day relaxing by having brunch with some friends and doing my thing. It’s a typical weekend like everyone else. The thought of flying five hours to San Francisco is not intimidating because it’s flying to another place, not planning a trip.

Sunday morning: I take an Uber or the A/C subway to JFK airport and jump on Virgin or JetBlue to catch my flight to SFO. Since I already have the other apartment, I do not need to pack any clothes or computers—just one simple small bag or even nothing.

Sunday afternoon: By the time I land it is probably the early afternoon or evening—still plenty of time to get to the apartment, take a nap and relax, or go see friends. I greet my girlfriend who lives in SF or call the one in New York City to see how it’s going. Please note that I mean one or the other (or neither) but not BOTH! 🙂

Sunday night: I go have a drink with my SF friends, check work emails or watch some sports. At this point my body is already adjusted to pacific time and I’m ready for the work day tomorrow.

Monday through Friday: Just another day of work. I get on my iMac at the apartment and field our typical Monday meetings. With Dropbox I have everything synced so I just pick up on the latest project seamlessly. Depending on the work load I can work a full 60-70 hours during the week. If it’s slower, I can go network with startups and companies in the Bay Area and find some new leads. I go have drinks with the prospect and really pitch to him and her about presence—the fact that we have a team physically bi-coastal. I can spend a week out of the month working on site.

Saturday and Sunday: I choose which day I want to take the flight back to New York, hop on a red eye flight. By the time I wake up, I have a full weekend or have a full day left to go back to my New York life.I’d love to hear what you think. Don’t tell me I am crazy because I know I am, but if you have some insights or advice I’d love to hear it.

I’ve been on the Path app since the startup launched the iPhone app about 10 months ago. All of the sudden, I received email notifications from my people requesting to be my friend. I was curious what happened.The mobile app released a new update with a redesigned User Interface. Could this be the reason Path was able to cultivate thousands of new users? The concensus seems to be “yes” that it did play a factor. Here is what Matt, an avid social networker and iPhone owner said about it.

“I initially signed up last year when they initially released the app. It was a poor user experience and had no incentive to use it on a regular basis, so I forgot about it quickly. After the update was released, I downloaded it and remembered that I had an account. I don’t use it as often as Twitter and Facebook, but the UI and UX in the new versi

on is incredible. It is a pleasure to use for the most part, my gripes are trivial. Just goes to show how critical user experience and design are.”

According to Tech Crunch, the user base of Path jumped from 10k to 300k users in the two and a half weeks of the update. Can usability and user experience increase your user base that much? The answer is yes. Criticism of the app prior to the UI refresh was that it seemed like a lesser version of Facebook or Instagram. With experiences shifting more to real time and timeline-based experiences, Path re-focused their product to personal stories (paths) shared with close friends.So what exactly did they change in the user experience and user interface? Let’s take a look at some of the new elements that were introduced.

Unified Content

Perhaps following the way of the new Facebook timeline, Path’s new user interface introduces unified content: music, thoughts, photos, video, location-based checkin, and yes, even when you are going to bed. The shift seems to be going away from widgets/sections and unifying content. We see this in Sparrow, Gmail, Facebook and Twitter.

No Tab Interface

The first thing that jumps out of Path’s new UI is probably the red call to action, which is a red plus button on the bottom-left of the UI—always fixed there. When a user taps on it, the interface reveals the different type of media he or she can post. One reason for this is Path has multiple types of media to post. When you use the Twitter app, you tweet. When you use Instagram, it’s a photograph. When you use Foursquare, it’s a checkin.This is one of the first apps I’ve seen in a while where there is no tab interface.Horizonal SwipingThis interaction became famous with Facebook’s iPhone app as well as the Twitter iPad app, where horizonal swiping would reveal different views versus only utilizing the tab interface.ConsiderationsWe’ve highlighted on the elements that have been working well, but let’s cover some things that could be different. It’s not to say what was done is wrong, but raises questions on UI best practices—what works and what may be evolving:

• Is the experience potentially troublesome for left-handed users? Typical primary call to action (CTA) buttons are traditionally in the middle, but Path’s single CTA resides on the bottom-left. However, it is possible they may have considered that less than 10% of Americans are left-handed and they possibly could be accustomed to using right-handed products.
• When user is in the “home” view, the CTA appears, allowing him or her to post content. However, when the user visits his or her own path, the CTA is not accessible. Could this consideration be for “view purposes” only?

While I still use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and other content sharing social media sites, Path has become one of my favorites because of the user experience. I want to feel like I am sharing with my close friends and viewing their content, and that is what I am doing/receiving. The Path redesign is a great example of how user experience considerations can cultivate new users and really enable your products success.Path’s website

“I don’t get it. So it’s like a Facebook status update in less than 140 characters?”That was what I said to my friend Adam, when he showed me this website called Twitter. I signed up for Twitter April 9, 2008 and had three followers: My brother, Adam and Adam’s friend Jason (who is also my friend now).That was then. This is now.I seem to wake up to tweets from brands (or retweets for brands) and articles about social media. To me, this is like someone calling you on the phone and telling you the amazing power of the telephone.I use social media. It’s not my career, though.Today I sat and reflected about the old Twitter I used to remember, when a lot more people used it and there was a sense of transparency. Here are a few memories of the old days:

A Tweet Up?

It’s funny now, but back in the day, the concept of a tweetup was insane. The idea was proposed by (what I call) the iOS 1.14 crew (which I’ll explain a bit more later)—a few of us who had jailbroken iPhones and used an app called Twinkle to search for each other.The tweetup used to be a few people having some beers together—finally getting to meet each other in real life and talk about life. The new tweetup is full of sharpie pens and nametags with Twitter handles. It’s all about networking.

The 1.14 crew

Oh man, the iOS 1.14 crew. These were a group of friends in Seattle who had jailbroken iPhones and used the Twinkle iPhone application. At the time, Twinkle was douchebag-free. The idea of using a Twitter application on the iPhone was unheard of at the time, and I was following people I didn’t know! I remember thinking that it was amazing how a group of people could band together, get a glimpse of one another’s lives. We really cared for each other, providing support when things weren’t’ going well for one and being really happy when good things happened.This sort of thing happens on Twitter, still, but again, there’s noise around it.The conversation nowThe conversation turned into trending and branding. I can’t pinpoint the time, but for some reason I want to say around the time Shaq started using Twitter. It wasn’t his doing at all, but this is when brands started utilizing Twitter and saw its marketing potential.Here’s what changed:

• Somewhere along the way, it became a numbers game. Before, people followed who they thought were interesting (manually) but now it’s about how big your Klout is.
• There seems to be a lot more ambient noise around actual conversations. It’s like when everyone is talking about themselves and no one is actually listening to what each other are saying. There is a big difference between talking and conversing.

That’s what a lot of it is now…marketing.Instead of insightful thoughts and contemplations, it’s a lot of contests, updates on current products, etc. Again, I don’t mind it, it’s just different. Perhaps this is a sign of me getting older, when I wish things were how they used to be versus adapting to now.I love Twitter, but I want to join the conversation…