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Show HN: Ink for iOS
- mcfrl 14y agoI'd love to hear your thoughts.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- slash-dot 14y agook, without your website I wouldn't have figured out how to clear the canvas and while trying I only found out how to save the picture. I actually went back to the website to figure it out. Another thing i couldn't find is an eraser. If you screw up a tiny detail you have to start over. But I like the concept of quick ideas scribbled on anything you can get your hands on.
- outside1234 14y agolooks nice. why double tap instead of a single press?
- mcfrl 14y agoIn use the single tap was too easy to fire when you inked near it, and got in the way of the pull a little. Tip: Shake opens the action sheet too. You might find that nicer.
- gdubs 14y agoShake is often used for undo, which may be a nice feature in keeping with the minimal feel -- you could even have an extra long shake prompt the user to see if they would like to clear all.
- anu_gupta 14y agoNice, really wish there was eraser, that's pretty much it.
- bennyg 14y agoThis and clear all.
- mcfrl 14y agoThere is a clear. Double tap the grabber.
- wmeredith 14y agoIt's called Ink, not graphite.
- anu_gupta 14y agoWas there a reason you left this comment, beyond some innate need to feel snarky?
- wmeredith 14y agoOne of their stated goals was to eliminate all things unnecessary. Maybe the Ink/no eraser thing is part fo their product. It's for quick and dirty sketches/notes, no second drafts or masterpieces.
- mvkel 14y agoOne of the few Show HNs that are actually pleasing to the eye. Nice little app!
- mcfrl 14y agoThank you.
- bennyg 14y agoTo be honest, I feel like in your minimalist efforts you have created an easy-to-draw-with app, but not necessarily one that's easy to use. The grabber should take you to something akin to an action sheet (no real minimalism inherent in that - design your own) and should have the save option inside there, instead of two different functions (one unintuitive without reading a description of the app, or you telling me on an internet forum). Beyond that, I like the ease of drawing and the clean look of the app.
- glhaynes 14y agoYeah, I cringe at seeing a share sheet shown by a double-tap on a grabber. For one, I strongly expect share sheets on iOS to be shown only by the normal "share" icon; for another, I don't expect double-tapping on a grabber to do anything. Inherent in a grabber is its "grabbiness": it's something tactile that you drag, not something you tap on. (Yes, Chrome uses a clickable grabber-looking-thing for displaying a menu; that's unfortunate IMO.) Additionally, having "Clear" as an option in a share sheet feels really wrong too. If something acts differently than another thing, generally it should look different, too. This thing isn't a grabber (at least not as far as I'm aware of from having seen the linked page) and the thing that it shows isn't a share sheet. I do definitely like the idea of a quick, minimal sketching app like this that ruthlessly eschews feature creep to do one job well. I think you're on the right track and am interested in getting this!
- dkroy 14y agoI cannot download it, if you can, please make it for the iOS 5 also.
- notak 14y agoI've been looking for an app like this, and it fits the bill. I'll admit that while I could sketch right away, it took me a second to learn how to clear the screen. I skimmed through the site, and didn't know to double tap the grabber, so I shook the phone, not expecting much. But I appreciate that that brought up the menu as well. Good job!
- mcfrl 14y agoThank you.
- khangtoh 14y agoI know being minimalistic in your design is good but your app icon doesn't really benefit from being minimal. It needs to tell the user what the app does. I suggest having "Ink" in your icon using the same sketch style in your first screenshot.
- mcfrl 14y agoI think about the icon in the context of something that could live on the homepage, rather than a device to sell the app or encourage downloads.
- yottabyte47 14y agoThe app looks nice but it has usability issues. I downloaded the app and used it for a bit but wasn't able to figure out how to do anything besides clear the page by swiping the grabber up and so I deleted it. I hadn't read the website nor the app description and there was nothing in the app itself to indicate that I should double-tap to bring up the action sheet. (Note that in iOS in general double-tapping is typically used to zoom.) Here are two possible solutions. (a) on first launch show a modal dialog that says something like "double-tap the grabber to access the menu" or maybe a better fix: (b) have the options "behind" the paper so when the user slides the grabber up the options become visible, then if the user continues to swipe all the way up the screen, the drawing is cleared. I'd love to chat with you about the app. Post a link to your twitter/email/smoke signal/etc if you're interested.
- ay 14y agoThe double-click menu is a bit non-intuitive, but I think the issue stems more from the perceptual "flakiness" in its detection. Also, rather than showing a modal dialog once/doing it "under the paper", I'd track an incomplete save to camera action (incomplete swipe/swipe in progress) (btw, awesome abstraction with the full swipe!) and showing the 100->0->100% alpha transition hint "doubleclick the = area for sharing options". Other than that little glitch this is an _awesome_ app with no extra bells and whistles. Totally keeping it for my napkin sketches!
- mcfrl 14y agoThanks a lot. I do consider pull to save the primary action. Double tap or shake gives you the menu, but I agree this can be simpler. It would pain me to put instructions in the app though...
- ay 14y ago++ on the pull. What could help though is to display something transient-ish while you are "flipping the page" (to not present the direct modal choice, but to give a hint there's more). I am a relative noob in iOS coding, so not sure how easy it is. The "real" problem that I perceived is the double-tap, and I have debugged my interaction a bit more. What it looks like is that the triple-equal sign is a bit too small for my fat fingers. OTOH you do not want to waste the drawing space too much... My thought would be: take a rectangle of 2x size the current triple-equal sign action area, then try to both use the drawing mechanism there, as well as to track the doubleclick-like events there - and if one happens, then undo the last drawing event (which was a part of the click, anyway). I think this should make it easier for fatfingered people to deal with it :) And the translucent advertisement upon the swipe should take care of education, I think.
- sturadnidge 14y agoNice. I used the original version of Adobe Ideas for exactly this kind of thing (back when it was free + in-app purchase if you wanted layers). I like the approach of a 'new napkin' rather than an eraser.
- mcfrl 14y agoI'm glad you find it useful. Thank you.
- btbuildem 14y agoiOS 6 required?! Not so minimalist after all..
- jayair 14y agoI like it. It does what it says. I can see myself using it for sketching out iPhone UI ideas because of it's size. And just quickly sketching something and sending it to friends. Thanks, keep up the good work!