Punchcut

We're Punchcut - a user interface design company specializing
in mobile and convergent experiences across devices.

Brand Damage: Don't Rush Your Mobile App
By Joe Pemberton, Aug 05, 2011

It’s quite easy — and therefore tempting — to repurpose a web site for mobile by simply building an iOS or Android native app “shell” that merely loads a web site. It's a recipe for instant app presence: publish this month, not next quarter.

But App Store reviews of a major travel brand's app show the folly in stark detail.

Actual App Store reviews of a major travel app.
Totally unusable. Crap. Lame. Absolutely useless. Waste of time. Beyond disappointed.
These reviews don't pull punches but the aggregated one star rating says it all.

The false a...

5
Responses /
Apps, Branding, Observations
Apple v. App Developers: Beware of Innovation
By Joe Pemberton, Jun 15, 2011

Good news for users means trouble for developers.

As Apple has demonstrated, one of the dangers of innovating in the smartphone app market is there are no guarantees Apple won't borrow your innovations and bake them into future iOS versions. (To state the obvious, there's nothing stopping Google either.)

We exchanged a few sideways glances here as we watched Apple show off the "read later" feature in iOS 5. It was obviously a direct answer to the Instapaper service. Then there was the camera feature that uses the volume keys as a shutter button, a duplicate of the third-party app Camera+ that Apple blocked from the App Store in 2010. The New York Times has gone deeper...

14
Responses /
Apps, iPhone
The Apps We Love
By Joe Pemberton, Feb 18, 2011

February calls for a roundup of the precious little apps we would not want to live without.


We end up trying a lot of mobile apps — an occupational hazard of sorts. However, these iOS, Android, Blackberry and WebOS gems are the apps we keep, use and recommend.

16
Responses /
Android, Apps, iPad, iPhone
Brands in the Mobile Space: Hyundai Gets It
By Joe Pemberton, Dec 20, 2010

Buy a Hyundai Equus and get an iPad preloaded with the owners manual app. But, this is more than a marketing gimmick…

26
Responses /
Apps, Automobile, mobile, Tablets
Books as Apps: What's the Big Idea?
By Ashwin Sodhi, Nov 15, 2010


Image courtesy of Doug Aghassi.

The New York Times has spent some time of late covering a new trend: books packaged as apps. Publishers are having trouble selling hardcovers, so they'll give anything a shot. Apps tap into a familiar marketplace and can do things "real" books and e-books cannot — or so the logic goes.

It'll chirp with the birds and blow steam alongside a passing train, and it'll banish characters from the room if readers don't like the way they smell. The question they should be asking: W...

9
Responses /
Apps, E-Books, E-Readers, Media, Publishing
Brands in the Mobile Space: Your Business Requirements Are Showing
By Joe Pemberton, Jul 08, 2010

Your business requirements are showing

Imagine having to swipe your credit card before you can walk into a retail location. Imagine giving an email address before picking up a catalog. That’s what Pottery Barn hopes you’ll do when you download their free iPad catalog app.

PixelMags may make a great catalog engine for iPad, or then again, they may not.

1
Response /
Apps, mobile, Observations, Tablets