October 2010
1 post
Its a wrap!
DuckPad has been released into the wild and we were very proud to be speaking at C21 Media’s iPad Entertainment Summit last Friday. Cyber-Duck presented a talk on developing a web app for the iPad amongst major industry names like BBC, Channel 4, Sky, NBC and the fantastic Stephen Fry.
We discussed the benefits of creating an app in HTML5 vs building a native app, and the challenges we...
September 2010
8 posts
Watcha quick video showing DuckPad in action - with bonus eye tracking footage!
Going Native
As accredited Apple Developers, we have the option to build and make our application available as a native app. Apple currently recommends you create iOS games and apps using their Objective C language, however frameworks such as Phonegap allow us to essentially ‘package’ an app built in web technologies such as HTML5 into a native app.
But why?
Innate benefits include ridding...
CSS3, HTML5's sidekick
Often when people talk about HTML5 (ourselves included), what we really mean is CSS3. HTML5 and CSS3 are bedfellows through and through, and what CSS3 gives us is greater visual sophistication without resorting to graphics, and the opportunity to create front-end animation and effects usually the reserve of JavaScript.
Common visual elements in Web/UI design such as rounded corners, gradients...
DuckPad is featured in Mobile Industry Review →
Fonts on the iPad
Unlike conventional computers, the iPad doesn’t have user installed fonts, nor can it make use of TrueType fonts. This includes our own brand font - Century Gothic.
We solved this using the excellent - http://www.fontsquirrel.com, which allows you to create the custom SVG fonts that the iPad supports. Being able to use custom fonts on websites easily is a fantastic boon to web designers -...
Redirecting non-iPad users
Once the DuckPad project is completed, we’ll be making it publicly accessible online however as it is designed strictly with the iPad in mind it might not work so well on a desktop.
Clement and Khal set about creating a Javascript snippet to redirect non-iPad traffic back to our main website. By using the platform element in the navigator object in the DOM, rather than the UserAgent we...
August 2010
11 posts
Coding Begins!
The wireframes are complete and the designs are almost ready, so its time to get going with some HTML5/ CSS3!
We have been doing a lot of research into the latest techniques and tips, here are some of the resources we’ve found particularly useful.
HTML5
Designing for touchscreens isn’t new, but HTML5 is! These articles give a run on what issues to prime yourself for....
The Challenges of Developing for iPad
The iPad is, in many ways, a web developer’s dream.
You are designing for one screen resolution (a relatively high 1024x768) and browser in mind, compared to the countless combinations possible in traditional Web design.
The iPad’s Safari browser is standards compliant with support for most of the latest web technologies including HTML5 and CSS3. The much documented lack of support...
Wireframes and concepts
Today Paolo and Khal sat down and developed a sitemap, some initial wireframes and concepts for navigation and displaying the content we want to include in the app.
Initially we had envisioned a magazine-style look and feel; however we quickly realised that this was not suitable with the volume of content we are including.
We are currently exploring interfaces that are unlike traditional...
First Day!
The project is off to a great start as the team got together to share links and ideas.
We were all really impressed by the iPad version of nike.com and inspired by flipboard.com and read over Apple’s documentation.
Casting critical eyes over the Wired app, we discussed the shortcomings of the technology used and what has worked and not worked.
At the end of the session, we had a solid...
3 tags
The DuckPad Brief
We have put together this quick slideshare to explain a little more about the project, our aims and why we are doing it.