Michael Wolfe’s answer is a very apt analogy (with visual aids) as to why it’s always hard to get an accurate estimate of the time it takes to develop software.

For designers, makers, builders: Wilson Miner’s very thoughtful and insightful talk at Build is now up.

There’s a page with all the books, videos, music and images used in the talk

xScope 3 is out. If you’re designing or developing anything that’s meant for a display on a computing device, this will prove to be an invaluable tool to have. Making it more awesome is the addition of features like Mirror and Screens.

Get it on the Mac App Store (US$19.99 for a limited time).

There’s been a lot of discussion the past week about the iPhone’s Ring/Silent switch, sparked by a certain New York Times article. Below are some of them:

• John Gruber
• Andy Ihnatko
• Marco Arment
• Guy English

I have not heard any complaints from the iPhone toting people I know about how the Clock app ignores the Silent switch. And now that iOS 5 has Reminders, less people will try to use the Clock app to “remind” them of something. The way it works now suits the way I use the the Clock app so I’m not complaining.

So it’s a new year once again. I posted a grand total of 14 entries in 2011 for an average of about an entry a month. Here’s to hoping I can at least double that this year.

TextMate, still my favorite text editor on OS X, has publicly released 2.0 Alpha. Aside from the various improvements and features added since 1.5.10, it now also sports a new icon done by David Lanham of IconFactory.

One of the apps I regularly use on the iPad is now on the iPhone. Flipboard has recently added support for the iPhone.

Navigating within the app is mostly done through swiping or “flipping” gestures as Flipboard would like to call them. This makes it almost effortless to spend a lot of time getting immersed in the content. On the iPad, you reveal more content by flipping left. On the iPhone it’s done by flipping up so it was a little disorienting at first. However after spending more time flipping up, it does feel more natural when going through content on an iPhone. When you’re on top of a section, flipping down triggers a refresh. Although there is a back button to bring you back to the previous screen, flipping left does the same thing with less effort since you don’t have to target a specific place on the screen.

They’ve also made the flipping animation very smooth and responsive making the experience delightful. I’m really glad they’ve been able to successfully translate the very enjoyable Flipboard experience from the iPad to the iPhone.

Why I like the new Path:

• It’s just so much fun to use.

During the weekend, I tried out a new Twitter client (yes another one), Twittelator Neue. I really love the overall look and feel of it: the typeface, the subtly textured background, the image previews, the parallax effect, Tweet Marker support. It’s such a joy to use until you see a native retweet in the timeline. It pretty much ruins the experience for me.

The way they are displayed is very confusing. It’s almost impossible for you to know who the retweeter is. Unless you’re into memorizing all the avatars of the people you follow and can discern what their avatars look like when it’s small and almost a quarter of it covered by another avatar (that you probably can’t recognize). Disregarding the avatars and just reading the text, you might even think the author is retweeting him/herself.

Compare it to how a native retweet is displayed in two other Twitter apps on the iPhone:

Tweetbot for iPhone:

Twitter for iPhone:

On both apps, with just a quick glance you’ll be able to know it is a retweet and who retweeted that specific tweet.

Nokia just announced the Nokia N9 and I’m really intrigued by it. The hardware looks great and is as unique as it gets for a touchscreen phone. The user experience they’ve developed feels very well thought out. Navigation buttons have been eliminated and they have instead instituted system wide gestures (swiping from the edges) for navigating the OS. The idea that the home screen, notifications (they call it Events) and open apps are just a swipe away is quite interesting. I’m very curious as to how well it will work with actual usage. Based on the hands-on video it does seem to be very responsive, but I can only judge when I get to experience it first-hand.

On another note, it has become confusing as to what platform Nokia really want developers to invest their time in. The N9 is a MeeGo device. However, earlier this year they have announced that Windows Phone is their primary smartphone platform. Maybe they’re pushing MeeGo for the European and Asia Pacific markets, Windows Phone for the U. S. market.