Reworking on a simplified UI for iNim8 Lite

The user interface design for iNim8 Lite is probably too complex for someone who has little animation experience. After observing some of my friends using iNim8, I realized that either a better tutorial should be in place or a simplified UI is needed to replace the current one. 

More features doesn't necessarily mean better. This is particularly true on iPhone.  An app's design should be pretty much self-explaining, or without requiring much user's time exploring. 

When I first started to design this app, I was pretty confident that it will be a simple app. But later on I decided to add in more and more features, which I still believe that most of them are pretty useful by the way. As a result, the app's UI now are clustered with buttons. Although I tried my best to make it looks not by hiding them most of the time. 

Hence now I am really starting to ask myself a simple question which is if I ever want do it again for the sake of gaining more interests from a broader range of audience, how would I design the user interface? 

The real challenge is to not having more but having less. One way of doing this is perhaps a toggling between "Pro Mode" and "Beginner Mode", which many software does. In "Beginner Mode", hide most of the features which are not necessary or less frequently used by most of users. Sounds like a plan to me.

iNim8 Will Be On iPad

I think I am probably a little bit side-tracked these few days after reading the book "The Business of Iphone App Development" by Dave Wooldridge. It is an excellent book though. It talks so much about how to market your iPhone app. It makes me look back and realize that how many mistakes I have made while trying to market the app and how ignorant I was. I highly recommend it to any iPhone developers.  It has offered so much details and tips in iPhone Apps Marketing. A must have reference.

I also realize the reason of the majority of iOS developers not being able to make any profit on the AppStore. Short of marketing expertise or power.

iNim8 has been in store for about 2 months. The sales record is not so good. No, not impressive at all. As many other iOS developer has experienced with, I got some pretty negative review about the free version from some customer who has obviously not taken any time reading instructions and help or watching the built-in video tutorial.  Nevertheless, a shining 5-Star review for the paid version in the British store is quite encouraging. I also received some emails from interested customers requesting new features and improvements.

Hence despite the fact that my app is not making much money, I will continue to support and improve this app. In addition to that, I am also planning on an iPad version of "iNim8". And it is not going to be just "an iPad version". It is going to have more features for sure. I think I will add in more tools for template creation, make the selection much easier, give it a completely different user interface design and allow user to add sound or music into the animation clip.

How iNim8 was created

I am an animation hobbyist. When I started to learn animation, I was a bit frustrated about the fact that even 3D animation requires some basic stick figure drawing skills for your planning. It isn't hard to draw a stick figure for everybody and I did enjoy drawing stick figures using tools like flipbook. Meanwhile, I did some research on internet about software and found some tools to create pivot animations on PC.  When I started using my iPod Touch, I quickly searched on iTunes for similar apps. Unfortunately, all the animation apps on the app store are drawing based. It is so hard for me to use my finger to draw on such a small device. Then I started to think maybe I can port those stick animation tools from PC platform to iPhone. That's how my journey started as an iOS developer. iNim8 is a bit like Flash but much simpler and easy for people who have little experience with animation to get start with. I am also hoping that it could trigger some interest in the art education community especially for kids to learn animations.

An animation clip created using iNim8

I am very happy to see someone starting to iNim8 something. This is created by Reed Arneson, an animator from 11secondClub (http://www.wheretheheck.net)

Nice work, Reed. Smooth and fluid. 

I have just made a promo video for iNim8.

Getting ready to submit iNim8 to the AppStore

After months of hardworking, I am finally reaching the stage to submit the app.  It is going to be exciting to see my first app selling on the AppStore.  Success or not aside, I would like to dedicate this effort for all those who love animation as much or more than I do.