Gadgetory

I'm Ellis with the verge here at the Soho gallery for digital art at the art of apps event what we're going to see here is some apps like path tweet bot paper the designers and makers of the apps are going to be showing how these things function as art in the 21st century on touchscreen devices so let's go check it out what exactly are we doing here and what threads do you see between the seven apps that you pick to display here we really try to gather some of the most interesting user interface designs going on on iphone and on ipad and I think the common thread is that everybody's still figuring it out it's really young platform you can go back to the beginning of the iphone it's five years with the ipad is certainly only about two years old or so so people are really trying to figure out what makes sense for all the really different kinds of creative uses that are putting these multi touch devices to why do you think a lot of these apps are using this kind of bottom navigation bar is that functionally the best way to organize things you think yeah I don't know if that's you know the necessarily the best argument I think people are always trying to push the boundary but it's a visual metaphor that everybody's familiar with you know that's the design template that Apple came out with and I think that people became accustomed to it and it's hard hard to remember what phones were like before the iphone yeah and I mean they were not very capable of showing really really beautiful user interface design and now all of a sudden you've got this beautiful screen that in many cases is got more resolution than we had on our desktops five years ago and you're carrying it around with you all the time on top of that Apple did this terrific thing the terrific favor for designers in fixing the resolution so you don't have to design you know umpteen number of monthly number of screen sizes and so forth that's huge but I like with all of these apps and obsessive focus on the user experience and in all of the all of these cases the engineering fades into the background and that's when you know an engineering standpoint the standpoint that you've done a fantastic job the key for us was taking this very complex concept and making it so it just was stupid simple and so I think when people use it though we'll stay this is a really simple it's a very elegant app but behind the scenes are so much going on I do think things are going to move in that direction where apps are going to become a lot smarter with a lot less buttons a lot more intuitive a lot more easy to consume I think more photos less words I think we're still going to have this this variety of interfaces out there but you know I think things are definitely moving more towards new types of interaction models gestural base and you know how can we make things more natural it's really constantly an effort of trying to do the least that that can have the biggest impact what are you seeing that kind of inspires you and like a art gallery for apps I think the first thing that inspires us just from the crew here is that everything is very creation based it's part of that whole shift that I think we're sort of on the cusp of like moving from this consumption experience more into like how do we actually create the world that we're in this is the future and do anything for the web doing anything even just for the computer anymore doesn't feel like the kind of focus we want to have these apps are more integrated in our lives than desktop apps ever were and it's a great opportunity to do really focus design but also to have a great impact on people's lives and to sort of meld with their their you know their usage patterns and to the way they think about the world I think mobile is all about taking everyday experiences and making them look incredible do you think there's time in our lives for all these apps or do you think over time let's say in 10 years things are going to be distilled down to the point where you know or is it really just like you know what everybody likes different books that really likes different video games there's not enough time for all of the books that will be published this year or all the movies that will be released this year but having that variety and especially with digital media with the web creating these apps for people who have passions that otherwise would be unmet can go and meet other people and engage in and get and get sort encouraged to indulge his passions I think that's incredibly valuable you know when you look at like the 19th century it was all about you know literature and novels and that's how you told stories and then 20th century was all about filmmaking I think the next thing the next way that will tell stories is really through interaction after this point or like like you guess hit songs and hit music so you're just really getting influenced them influenced by them week after week except this is paying around I'll also be really excited to start seeing more and more artwork that was generated with apps in galleries that would be very cool a whole generation of people are focusing their energy on apps and they're doing amazing work and I think it it really deserves this kind of showcase it really deserves people looking at it more closely and having a dialogue you