I’m a techie who hates cats and love dogs.
Fantastic. Hopefully this becomes the default and helps to keep your server costs manageable.
Agreed. I’m amazed by the number of developers and apps - it’s incredible! If things had been quieter, I could’ve seen Christian being more tempted to try recreating the magic here.
In a way I feel bad, I wonder if he feels people have ripped off his hard work? There are direct clones of his app.
On the other hand, I guess it prompts exploring something entirely new, which is (selfishly) an exciting prospect for me and hopefully ends up being more rewarding for him.
Having said that, when Tapbots waded into Mastadon with Ivory, it was so much better than everything else (as a fan of Tweetbot), so could see something similar here. There’s clearly a reason for these developers to have found success in the first place!
Thanks!
I just re-looked at aeharding's brief, and noticed the link to some illustrations by David Revoy... and there's one with animals on a rocket!
It's worth mentioning that the name Voyager was chosen because it was a NASA program closely related with Apollo (hence the astronaut character).
All of these apps build on Apollo's legacy.
I would like to see something original too, if lemmings and rockets are extremely overdone, do you have any ideas for something unique?
Weirdly, I hadn't noticed a lot of rockets testing on iOS... most of those seem to have the lemming, but apparently there are a few on Android with a rocket.
I agree with you and I'm not precious at all, I was hoping to inspire more creativity and uniqueness. I'd love to see/hear your ideas!
I completely agree, although not perfect, for me this app is the first time a PWA has felt close to a native app.
Like you say, without attention and development in this area, it will be ignored (or at least de-prioritised) and languish. If some of the rough edges can be smoothed by Apple, then an growing number of users and increased attention is more likely to influence them to prioritise improvements.
Apps like these are the best thing that could happen for the platform.
Optimistically, it could be a win-win: Apple are really against third-party app stores, so web apps have been their go-to example showing the "openness" of their platform. If we get a thriving web app ecosystem on iOS, then it should benefit both the users and Apple.
Completely agree! I love characters too. I think Christian was inspired by Tapbot's robot characters for their apps, particularly Tweetbot. His was like a mix between their robot and reddit's logo. Tapbots now have an elephant character for Ivory.
I actually almost drew a smile under the window port, as it'd look like a cyclops character à la Leela, Mike Wazowski, Minions etc.
Two other ideas:
The lemming character could be flying inside the rocket and be seen through the window port.
The lemming character could be flying with a rocket strapped to its back.
Something along these lines would be fun.
I'm not the greatest designer, but I think you get the idea: a cute rocket with a rainbow trail.
A few other musings:
the rainbow trail reminds me of nyan cat, an animated version in that style might make for a nice loading screen
I looked up "rocket nyan cat" and saw this hamster with a rocket attached: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/nyancat/images/5/58/RocketHamster.gif/revision/latest?cb=20210923233749
It would be cool if someone could do something similar with a lemming.
That reminds me of Buzz holding Woody with a rocket strapped to his back: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/bd893090-c6dc-4d2f-96a5-9ec62637242e
It's a similar feeling, with Voyager (and other apps) picking up Apollo and trying to keep it flying.
The word Voyager makes me think of the Daft Punk piece, there's a bit in the video with an anime style star, this could make for a simpler icon theme: https://youtube.com/watch?v=CqZgd6-xQl8&t=2m29s
I think the name "Rocket" would be a cool name for an Apollo inspired app - simple and effective.
The rocket idea could be anthropomorphised (smiley cyclops) and become a character in an of itself; there was an astronaut with Apollo, there could be a rocket character with Voyager.
I looked up Wallace and Gromit's rocket, because I remember really liking the look, but I don't think it translates: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Kb0ooQKbflM&t=2m38s
Orange and Blue is a popular contrasting colour scheme though.
I like the rainbow focus in the brief and I hope to see some cool creations. I'm not precious about the rocket idea, but I hope it inspires some more creative submissions, I definitely think something other than a slight variation on the lemming motif would set this app apart from the rest.
I posted this as an Issue on the GitHub, but I’m unable to reply without closing it: https://github.com/aeharding/wefwef/issues/44
In Light Mode (the default mode for iOS), the time, battery etc. is unreadable.
Perhaps there is a nerdy skew with early adopters, so does everyone testing have Dark Mode on all the time by default? I don’t understand how I seem to be the only one who has flagged this…
I prefer to have it auto switching, but I think the majority of people use Light Mode. Does anyone happen to know if there’s data to show which Mode is most popular?
For me, I find it very hard to use the app without being able to see the core UI of the phone.
This is also a big hit in regards to accessibility and I struggle to understand why fixing this wouldn’t be a priority.
Thanks tool.
From what I understand, Rocky and Alma are essentially the same and so I found it difficult to decide between the two when moving from CentOS. Whatever happens now, will apply to both.
The writing is on the wall and it’s similar to Twitter and Reddit: they wanted to kill CentOS as it was, weren’t expecting the community to come back with Rocky and Alma, so now they’re trying to kill those too. The above video posits a scenario where Oracle’s legal team help the little guys by going to battle with IBM, but I don’t see it.
At this point, I don’t think it’s smart to go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for this all to blow over, but then again I’d be very happy to see the little guys succeed.
I’m so annoyed with this. We were using CentOS, which was effectively killed, then I did a lot of research and spent time moving everything over the AlmaLinux.
Having to now do it all again another time is so frustrating; the only pragmatic long-term option is to bite the bullet and get things working on Debian.
Thank you. It looks like a lot of progress has been made.
It’s a real shame that David is no longer part of the project.