Book Image

iPhone User Interface Cookbook

By : Cameron Banga
Book Image

iPhone User Interface Cookbook

By: Cameron Banga

Overview of this book

The incredible growth rates for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad have pushed consumers to a new “App” economy, with developers racing to the platform. Mobile touch-centric interfaces vary greatly from traditional computing platforms, and programmers as well as designers must learn to adapt to the new form-factor.The iPhone User Interface Cookbook offers a complete breakdown of standard interface design on the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. You will learn the tools behind the trade, how to properly utilize standard interface elements, and custom UI tricks that will help your work stand out on the App Store.The book is designed to be a complete overview of interface design on all iOS platforms, offering insight and an inside look into app design. A variety of topics are covered, starting with an overview of tools for the app interface designer, touching upon popular interface components such as the Tab Bar, and offering suggestions for complex game interfaces. Whether you’re new to the platform or a seasoned developer with numerous applications in the App Store, this book strives to teach everyone simple and easy to implement tips for iOS interface design. Regardless of skill level, the iPhone User Interface Cookbook offers a detailed breakdown of all things interface design.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
iPhone User Interface Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
PacktLib.PacktPub.com
Preface
The Importance of Direct Manipulation
If you need a stylus, you blew it

Designing HUDs with limited real estate


The Heads Up Display (HUD) is an integral aspect of any game, offering graphical overlay information on the user's score, the number of lives remaining, information on current user attributes or power ups, progress through a level, and more.

If we're designing a game, we're probably going to need a HUD. However, since our touch capacitive screen also contains our control mechanism, we need to be a bit creative with how we lay out our HUD.

In this recipe, we'll give examples of several applications that offer exceptional HUDs that we can use for inspiration in our games.

Getting ready

We don't really need any concrete hardware or software for this recipe, but we should have a good grasp of what overlay elements we'll require in our application before we begin.

We don't need to have their final shape or size set, but we should have an idea of what we'll need screen real estate for.

How to do it...

The HUD plays an important role in a game, offering...