Why web designers should be interested in designing content-based native (and Web) mobile apps for people with big ideas. Because it's been happening for 500 years...

1. Designing and delivering
Life Content
for anyone who needs it
(wherever they need it)
Kristofer Layon
SXSW 2011

2. Moab, Utah
www.wikipedia.org
The graphic presentation of content started 12-15,000 years ago

3. Mesak Settafet, Libya
www.wikipedia.org

4. Why were they made?
• storytelling
• wayfinding
• life content
Why were petroglyphs made?

5. Printing Press
Johannes Gutenberg
1441
d.umn.edu
The world’s most popular tablet has been around for 500 years already.

6. Martin Luther
1483-1546
www.wikipedia.org
And here’s the world’s first mobile app developer. The app was the Bible, translated from
Latin to German.

7. www.wikipedia.org
The marriage of tech and content. This is not a new idea... and it’s always been about content
more than tech.

8. Martin Luther
• democratized content
★ through translation and
increased access
• made life content mobile

9. Photography
Joseph Niépce
1826
www.wikipedia.org

10. Film / Motion Pictures
Eadweard Muybridge
1878
www.wikipedia.org

11. Phonograph
Thomas Edison
1899
www.wikipedia.org

12. “Multimedia”
• 19th century innovations
• barely over 100 years old!
• foundation of our work today
(SXSW is about all of it, right?)

13. London Underground Map
Harry Beck
1931
www.uckfielddfas.org.uk
The 20th century brought us graphic design: making complex data and stories more simple
and elegant.

14. Apple I
Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs
1976
www.computerhistory.org

15. Apple II
Apple Computer, Inc.
1977
www.wikipedia.org

16. Macintosh
Apple Computer, Inc.
1984
www.wikipedia.org
Apple’s been doing mobile devices since 1984...

17. PowerBook
Apple Computer, Inc.
1991
www.wikipedia.org
...trying to get it right...

18. Macintosh
Apple Computer, Inc.
1993
www.wikipedia.org
Dudes... not quite there...

19. iTunes
Apple Computer, Inc.
2001
www.apple.com
*ding* It’s about content, isn’t it, Apple?

20. iPod
Apple Computer, Inc.
2001
www.wikipedia.org
So now we need a pocket computer for our life content.

21. January 9, 2007
• Apple Computer, Inc.
becomes
Apple, Inc.
• new focus on life content

22. iPhone
Apple, Inc.
2007
www.apple.com
This pocket computer just has a better screen. And a Phone app.

23. iPad
Apple, Inc.
2010
www.apple.com

24. www.apple.com

25. Mobile applications
• storytelling
• wayfinding
• life content

26. ArtAlphabet
Aesthete Software, LLC
2009
My first app was content I could design. It was my only app idea.

27. ArtAlphabet
Aesthete Software, LLC
2009

28. The opportunity to design native apps with Web Standards.

29. The only development framework featured on Apple.com. I was sold.

30. (Android version launched last fall)

31. Web Standards
• HTML
• CSS
• JavaScript

32. The pillars of today’s Web. But it’s now about more than the Web layer. Web
Standards can inform other layers of the Internet, too --- like native apps and app
store content.

33. OrthoAnatomy
Aesthete Software, LLC
2010

34. OrthoAnatomy
Aesthete Software, LLC
2010

35. Web Standards
• Aren’t just for the Web…
• …also for other layers of
the Internet
★ Email, Twitter, App Stores

36. My book’s goals
• Provide better documentation
for Xcode and NimbleKit
• Cover app design from A-Z
• Orient you to distribution
(iTunesConnect + App Store)

40. iosapps.tumblr.com
twitter.com/klayon
z.umn.edu/klayon