May 28, 2010 — According to AdMob, the iPhone operating system makes up 50% of the worldwide smartphone market, with the next-highest OS being Android at 24%. Read more…

November 15, 2009 — The iPhone will always be part of a much bigger picture. How well you address human and environmental factors will greatly determine the success of your product. All too often, iPhone developers create products in isolation from their customers. In order to create really appealing applications, developers must stop focusing only on the mechanisms of the apps. Zoom out: understand the person using the application, as well as the complex environmental factors surrounding that person. Read more…

October 12, 2009 — Most people who have designed websites or apps in Photoshop will, at one point or another, have had issues trying to match colors in images to colors generated by HTML, CSS or code. This article aims to solve those problems once and for all. So how can we achieve color management that matches colors across multiple devices? [Updated February/28/2017] In the print world, color management typically involves calibrating your entire workflow, from scanner or digital camera to computer display to hard proofs to the final press output. This can be quite a tall order, especially when the devices use different color spaces — matching RGB and CMYK devices is notoriously hard. When designing or editing for TV, calibrating the main editing display and using a broadcast monitor are common; these show real-time proof of how the image will look on a typical TV in a viewer’s home. In such a scenario, color management offers many benefits and is highly recommended. When building Web and application interfaces, the situation is a little different. The final output is the same device that you’re using to create the artwork: a computer display (putting aside for now differences in gamma between Windows, OS X prior to 10.6 and the iPhone, which we’ll cover later.) Read more…

October 9, 2009 — For the past two years, the elegant iPhone has housed some of the most poorly designed applications you could imagine. The hype surrounding iPhone has prompted many designers across the globe to try their skills with the new mobile medium. The result are literally thousands of various iPhone-applications that are often hardly usable and counter-intuitive. Read more…

September 27, 2009 — Over the last couple of years, mobile devices have managed to gain mainstream popularity. With iPhone, making mobile Web applications finally usable by broad masses, web design can now be applied to mobile applications as well. In this post we are focusing on designs that are specifically optimized for mobile devices, in particular iPhone. Though iPhone’s Safari browser is able to render any website just like you would see it on a desktop browser, the available screen area is much smaller than in common “classic” displays. This poses a new challenge for designers and developers who now can reach millions of users that use mobile Web. Websites that are specifically optimized for the iPhone utilize the screen to the fullest extent, and use less bandwidth (which is necessary, because the connectivity is not always optimal). The iPhone browsing experience is quite different than the regular browsing experience. The buttons and hyperlinks have to be bigger because our fingers are not as sharp as the mouse pointer. Optimizing a website for iPhone is not rocket science. It’s the same HTML, CSS and JavaScript that you already know. The only major difference is the screen size. In the showcase below we present some of the interesting, interactive and beautiful designs that are optimized for the iPhone. You will also learn about some handy iPhone development tools and resources that will help you optimize your website for the iPhone. Also consider our previous articles: * How to Create Your First iPhone Application * iPhone Apps Design Mistakes: Over-Blown Visuals * 100 (Really) Beautiful iPhone Wallpapers Beautiful iPhone Wallpapers”) [](https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/01/06/100-really-beautiful-iphone-wallpapers/ “100 (Really) Beautiful iPhone Wallpapers”) Read more…

August 11, 2009 — Update: 01/10/2012: The original version of this article by Jen Gordon was published in August 2009. It was thoroughly revised and updated by the author and published in September 2012. Read more…

July 21, 2009 — The development of iPhone applications has recently become a hot topic in the design community; everybody tries to come up with some creative idea, port it into a stylish iPhone-alike application and sell it to thousands of users through the iPhone app store. However, many of these applications are poorly designed and therefore miss the chance of providing users with a truly useful product that users would find worth recommending to friends and colleagues. Read more…

January 6, 2009 — Few products have generated the kind of hype that the iPhone has. Its beautiful design and large multi-touch screen are irresistible. Although its interface is beautifully designed, some of us want to put a little something extra in it to suit our style, personality and profession and to further beautify this magical masterpiece. Read more…

November 26, 2008 — In this post we release the iPhone Starter Kit, a set that comes with several button elements as well as six different interface options for iPhone. This pack may be useful for mobile developers and front-end designers who need a professional way to show mock-ups to clients or to work out ideas. This set was designed by Renee Rist especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers. Read more…