Show HN: Make your iPhone app look beautiful

http://www.uipsd.co/circles

by niico • 13 years ago

119 60 13 years ago

uipsd.co

niico6• 13 years ago

Use the 'hackernews' promo code to get a 29$ off on the Full UI + xCode project pack.

tehwebguy• 13 years ago

Looks awesome! Just bought the Full UI + xCode and started to play with it.

It seems to be missing a "Sharing" folder in "xCode Project/"

niico6• 13 years ago

Thanks for the heads up! I will email you that right away!

davidkatz• 13 years ago

detailed screenshots needed. can you email me at hi at davidkatz dot me?

thedangler• 13 years ago

I too would like more screen shots before I make a purchase. Thanks

niico6• 13 years ago

Updated! Check out all the screens now here: www.uipsd.co/circles Thanks guys!

Kudos• 13 years ago

How easy is it to change aspects like the colour in the Xcode project?

I'm interested in seeing the source, do you offer a refund if I don't find it satisfactory?

Bill_Dimm• 13 years ago

promo code to get a 29$ off

I find it weird to offer $29 off, rather than $30 off. The whole point of having a price end in 9 like $29 is to take advantage of people thinking "It's like $20" (cheap!) rather than "It's like $30" (expensive). But, since this is a discount you want to make it look as high as possible, not as low as possible.

marknutter• 13 years ago

Kind of like Twitter Bootstrap but you have to pay for it.

cpursley4• 13 years ago

This is much nicer than bootstrap.

antoinec• 13 years ago

Actually it's not, it's just different and less common (for now).

bennyg• 13 years ago

Makes me want to create an open source, but free version of nice Xcode UI templates with documentation.

megablast• 13 years ago

There is nothing wrong with someone charging for work that took them time and skills to do.

And there is nothing wrong with you doing the same and open sourcing it.

BaconJuice• 13 years ago

How about an Android version?

niico6• 13 years ago

Sure, I wanted to "test the waters" before releasing other versions. But definitely will release an android version!

raphaelcaixeta• 13 years ago

When I buy the Xcode project and you release the new templates, will I have to buy the new templates again? iPad, etc?

wlindner• 13 years ago

Have you considered creating this as a Xamarin theme component? http://components.xamarin.com/ It could be an easy way to get the theme in front of more buyers.

kybernetyk• 13 years ago

> beautiful

For some values of beautiful that is.

danielhughes• 13 years ago

Looks great. I'm quite tempted to buy this. But I have a few questions:

1) Is a tab bar included?

2) What other iOS controls have you styled and included in the kit?

3) I see some icons depicted in the screenshots. Are those included? If so, what other icons are available?

4) Any plans to target iPad?

cpursley4• 13 years ago

+1 on all 4 points.

ryandetzel• 13 years ago

So now the app store is going to be flooded with apps with all the same design. :-P

andrewroycarter2• 13 years ago

This is really cool- I'd love to see a lot of different templates to choose from!

niico6• 13 years ago

As this first test was quite successful, I will be releasing new UI templates soon. Also will be working on different platforms such as Android and iPad.

andrewroycarter2• 13 years ago

That sounds awesome! Looking forward to it

binaryorganic• 13 years ago

"No design skills required!" is not something you should read when making design decisions for your app. Period.

mootothemax2• 13 years ago

"No design skills required!" is not something you should read when making design decisions for your app. Period.

So what's your alternative? Either investing a load of time in learning, or a load of money in hiring a designer?

If you don't have the time/money/talent, this solves a very real problem.

kcbanner• 13 years ago

Until more than one person uses this template, and you have many apps that look identical.

pc862• 13 years ago

Given the choices

(A) Learn the obviously important skill (because if it was unimportant, there would be zero market for things like this)

(B) Hire a designer (which isn't always a "load of money")

I'd pretty much do them in that order. If this was a free product, I'd be all for it. It would be awesome to see more free iOS native app templates.

But it's not free and that's an issue. Assuming this becomes successful, this will be the Bootstrap of iOS themes and half the apps out there will look identical. The brave ones will be a different color. I think Bootstrap is okay because it can be used as a stepping stone (or the basis for a more comprehensive (custom) design). I use it on a project when I have every intention of redesigning or having it redesigned later after the proof of concept is fleshed out.

People are not going to spend $130 on a theme and redesign it 6 months later. There will be no iteration or redesign because the fact that there is a price associated with this means it's "good enough."

You can get a skilled art student or brand new contractor to design a custom interface for 10x this or less. Hell, you can crowd source this on a site like 99designs for $600.

I'm all for making money and I hope the OP is successful. This looks well designed and I'm sure there is a market for it. That doesn't mean that it's the best option, or even a particularly good one, if you have the slightest bit of talent or money. And if you're really so broke that you're considering a $130 theme, I don't see why $600 for a custom theme that much worse. Wait two more months and save the extra money. We have plenty of apps in the meantime.

potatolicious• 13 years ago

> "Either investing a load of time in learning, or a load of money in hiring a designer?"

Yes.

The app store era has significantly raised the stakes - it's no longer enough to ship something functional, people demand that it also be beautiful and usable.

For every product niche worth tackling, there is a competing app that has had the proper love of a designer. And it will win.

The success of a modern iOS app hinges heavily on ranking and featuring - go to the App Store right now and look at any of the featured lists. Are there any lazily-designed apps there?

So in short, there is no alternative. Proper design is not optional for success in the app store. The only exception here is if your app has some functionality that is so powerful, so utterly necessary for your users, and so exclusive no one else can meaningfully copy it, that your users will live with your crappy out-of-box UI.

wmeredith• 13 years ago

Yes, that should throw all the same flags that, "No programming skills required" would if you were looking at something that promised you could build an amazing iOS app. It's marketing bullshit. Either the skills are required or it's not amazing.

pretz• 13 years ago

If you can't get the capitalization of Xcode's name right, can I trust your code?

danielgrieve• 13 years ago

You're right, that is definitely an indicator that his code is absolutely horrible. He should have spent more time obsessing over which letter to capitalize.

CanSpice• 13 years ago

An important part about design is the attention to detail. Missing a fairly easily-caught detail that will be glaringly obvious to his target audience that he missed it isn't showing the proper attention to detail, and it makes it less likely that his target audience is going to use his product.

epaga• 13 years ago

Love the look of the site. A few remarks/questions:

* Is there a possibility to get PNGs in addition to PSDs?

* It's Xcode, not xCode.

* What exactly is in the Xcode project already? A storyboard? Any functionality?

eddieroger• 13 years ago

I don't know the answer to number 1, since I haven't purchased, but expecting that everything is properly layered and labeled, Slicy [0] would be a good thing to have around. It really makes communicating with Photoshop a ton easier for both designers and developers. (Not affiliated with MacRabbit, but I love Slicy)

[0] http://macrabbit.com/slicy/

cpursley4• 13 years ago

This is actually pretty nice. Considering buying xcode version. Would be better with a video overview of working xcode project.

yoda_sl• 13 years ago

Kind of remind me of App Design Vault: http://www.appdesignvault.com/

Not associated to that site, simply got a few existing templates a few months back when there was a super promo discount.

thomaslutz• 13 years ago

A followup on the marketing effect of this post regarding visitors, sales, etc. would be useful.

alexgaribay• 13 years ago

This looks great. I love the flat design of the site. And I love the UI design. It looks very clean and minimal to me.

holgersindbaek• 13 years ago

Looks cool. What exactly does the Xcode project consists of though?

S_A_P• 13 years ago

This looks very much like the capital one mobile app...

Evenjos• 13 years ago

I'd like to see a site that matches designers and artists up with mobile developers.

sandofsky• 13 years ago

The hamburger menu is a pretty bad anti-pattern in iOS design.

Worse, in the screen shot, there are only five items. They could fit in a conventional iOS tab bar, which is significantly less clunky to navigate.

BHSPitMonkey• 13 years ago

I'm not quite understanding this. How does getting handed a .psd template help me make the app? Is this simply one possible alternative to the stock UIKit skin that's been packaged up as an idea to reuse? (Like Bootstrap, if Bootstrap was just a Photoshop document instead of usable CSS/HTML?)

mcabral• 13 years ago

I'm using Chrome on Windows and I'm noticing that when I have my Chrome window on one half of the screen, the responsive design breaks a bit. Basically, if I try to scroll to the right, about 1/4th of the "Ready-to-Code XCode" is cut off.

See: http://imgur.com/JnOp2CE

avijeets• 13 years ago

Xcode. Not xCode.

scosman2• 13 years ago

anyone who has purchased: care to comment on code quality?

scosman2• 13 years ago

Buyer beware. I bought the PSD and the font is Gotham Bold. Gotham isn't on iOS and doesn't have an interactive/UI licence so it's not even an option to buy it.

The developer's response: use Helvetica.

Show HN: Make your iPhone app look beautiful

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