App for jailbroken iPhone gives a great look and function for iOS app switcher

What started as a concept to create an environment which improves the app switching experience or multitasking view in iOS is now on the crux of becoming reality.

This app is called Auxo, and it completely redesigns the view when using the switcher. This app, which will require a jailbroken iPhone, really shows a great execution of what would be a welcome improvement to a future “official” version of iOS (maybe iOS 7).

Swiping to the reveal the audio controls provides neat functionality of volume and viewing the album art. Swipe further and you are presented with toggle controls for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and more, plus there is a brightness slider. The latter of which is only accessible by digging into settings. The toggles allow direct access to the settings by simply selecting and holding that toggle. Plus, the toggles can be rearranged.

In the app preview, or multi-tasking tray, in lieu of app logos, you have a card view showing the state of each app. It is a feature that is obviously borrowed from webOS, but nicely executed. The gestures are multi-touch enabled too.

If you have a jailbroken iPhone, this app will be available in Cydia soon. It will only work on iOS 6 devices for now. Pricing for the feature is not known either. With this kind of talent working in the “shadows” of the jailbreak environment, one can see what can be accomplished with the iOS platform. Given that, by showing what can be done, great looking features like this do play against the age of the overall user experience of iOS.

sources: iDownloadBlog via The Verge

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How mobile readers digest: What’s the key to a great mobile site design?

You’re building a website and it’s all going swimmingly. Oh, bollocks: mobile. People need to read it on mobile devices. You’ve gone about this all wrong. You need to start at the bottom and work your way up. But you also need to remember that mobile users absorb content differently. But what do they want? Read on to find out…

Poynter’s carried out eye-tracking tests to see what setups and ways of doing things readers prefer on mobile devices. The results aren’t exactly a complete guide to building a mobile site, but there are some decent insights.

For one, a huge 70 per cent of readers in the research prefer to read with their phone or tablet in the landscape orientation. But that’s for actual article reading. What about article choosing?

Circa: How to feed news to the TL;DR generation

Poynter’s research says that the majority of people much prefer a carousel of content to swipe through, because it lets them choose which is the most important piece to them. That’s opposed to a traditional layout with a hierarchy chosen by the editor.

For the rest of Poynter’s findings, all laid out in a lovely infographic, head over to AdWeek.

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