37signals

The best app ideas don’t necessarily come from the ranks of iOS developers. Anyone can have a good idea for a new app. The challenge is in getting that new idea down in a way that makes it easy to share and visualize. For both developers and non-developers alike, the App Store has a selection of design tools for the iPad that each play a unique role in the process of evolving a good idea into a great one. — In the “better than a bar napkin but still sort of a bar napkin” category, there’s UI Sketcher. In this app, all you get is virtual graph paper and a selection of five different pens.  If you want to pass around an iPad for a rapid session of brainstorming, then a free form based designer like UI Sketcher is the best choice. I would recommend investing in a stylus like the Pogo Sketch or the upcoming Cosmonaut to help your inner artist become more of a professional draftsman than a kindergarden finger painter. — Mocking Pad represents a step up from free form design.  There is a lot to be said about keeping the initial design as loose as possible, meaning you probably don’t want to spend a lot of time on color choices, pixel perfect button placement, or even the exact implementation of which widget to use.  This designer is that you have a pallet of roughed out widgets to choose from.  You drag and drop each widget onto a sketched outline of an iPhone or iPad screen.  The number of controls at you disposal is not limitless, but more than adequate to get the idea across.  This is a very good design tool to use early in the design process to work out user interaction scenarios and screen level functionality without getting too caught up in the overall look and feel of the final product. — This is the Rolls-Royce of designers. As with Mocking Pad, you’re presented with a pallet based drag and drop design interaction.  Where this differs from Mocking Pad is that the controls are almost an exact replica of the final product.  It can therefore provide pixel-perfect alignment of each element in your application.  This tool is most useful in the development of a high-level storyboard of the app.  You can see the entire navigation of the app you’re creating from one comprehensive view.  If Read More

Campfire developers 37signals acquires Ember, changes its name and makes it free. Available now on the iTunes App Store. Campfire, the project collaboration application with real time chat designed for private groups where members can share files, text, code and more (think of it as a more powerful IRC client), can now be found on the App Store as an official application by 37signals due to a takeover of Ember, the third-party application developer of Campfire. Ember, as it was then known, was originally priced at $9.99, but developers 37signals saw an opportunity which allowed them to “work out a deal [with Ember and make] a few changes to the app” according to the official blog. As of July 26th, the application has rebranded and re-released with a new price tag: rather, no price tag at all. It’s free to download from the iTunes App Store. Although the application itself is free, a Campfire account is not. The basic package allows up to 12 chatters and 1GB of storage for $12 a month, and for $24 a month you can upgrade that to 25 chatters, 3GB of storage as well as 500 conference call minutes and enhanced security over the Basic package. A free 30-day trial is available on all accounts. 37signals continues to become a prominent player in the business network, having released other popular applications and clients that allow more professional social networking to take place. Basecamp, Highrise and Backpack all have one thing in common: their developer is Campfire creator 37signals. You can download the free Campfire application by clicking the link below, which will redirect you to iTunes. [Thanks to IntoMobile for reporting this.] FREE! iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad Released: 2010-07-23 :: Category: Productivity Read More

37signals has purchased the Apple iPhone app Ember and the company has retooled the Campfire-chatting app and made it free. If you’ve never used Campfire, it’s a private chat room that can be used by businesses for collaboration and coordination. We use it here at IntoMobile, as do many other tech blogs, and our chats are often filled with deep, philosophical tech talk and filthy name calling. It has also become an essential tool for lining up coverage and a stellar mobile app would be of great use to many of us. In its 37signals blog, the company explained the move: Earlier this year we started talking to them about buying Ember. They were into the idea. We worked out a deal, made a few changes to the app, submitted to the App Store. Yesterday Ember officially became 37signals Campfire for iPhone. As an added bonus, we’ve dropped the price from $9.99 to $0.00. Campfire for iPhone is free (Ember was priced at $9.99). I downloaded the program on my iPod Touch and found it quite easy to use to access multiple chat rooms, as well as for searching for content. You’ll also be able to upload photos, there’s support for SSL accounts and you can get inline view of multiple file formats. At the price, it’s worth checking out if you use that chatting program for work. – Download 37signals Campfire for iPhone (free) [iTunes Link] Marin Perez has torture tested cell phones and smartphones for industry leaders like CNET and InformationWeek. He remembers when 4G was just a screen on PowerPoint presentations and is fascinated with the amount of innovation out there. Marin has spent a lot of time with BlackBerry and Android but he finally broke down a bought an iPhone to see what all the hype's about. He also has too many tablets. Read More

Campfire, from 37signals, is a web-based group chat tool that uses secure chat rooms to allow groups to collaborate from wherever they are. A little over a year ago, the developers at Overcommitted came out with an iPhone client for Campfire. That app, Ember, cost $9.99, and was an excellent tool for remotely joining a Campfire group and getting work done on the road. Well, the app was so good that 37signals announced today that they've purchased the app from Overcommitted, renamed it to Campfire for iPhone, and they're giving it away for free in the App Store. According to the 37signals blog, the company was so impressed with Ember that they approached Overcommitted about purchasing it, and the developer was happy with the idea. A deal was cut, a few changes were made to the app, the app made it through the Apple vetting process, and as of yesterday, Ember is known as Campfire for iPhone. If your team uses Campfire for collaboration and file sharing, be sure to grab Campfire for iPhone as soon as possible. The app works on devices running iOS 3.1.3 or later, although it is not optimized for iPad. [via Mashable] Read More

by 37signals has just released Campfire for iPhone [iTunes link], a free native iOS app that lets you connect to your Campfire network on the go. If the app looks familiar, it’s because 37signals purchased the app from Overcommitted, who released it under its old name, Ember. Ember has long been one of my favorite apps for the iPhone (earning a place on my home screen) and it’s great that it is now an official part of the 37signals family. If you were an Ember user, you won’t notice any interface variations (other than the initial login and the new icon, which we must say we don’t like as much as Ember’s), but that’s not a bad thing at all. In fact, what made Ember worth its former $10 asking price was that the app was easy to use, and that adding links, files or images has always been a snap. Our hope is that under 37signals’s tutelage, Campfire for iPhone will be expanded to support iOS 4, push notifications and maybe even a native iPad update. If you use Campfire to connect with your team and you have an iPhone, this app is a must-have. Read More

37signals which you may know for their web-based products and services such as Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack and Campfire is out with its first iPad application called Draft. As you can figure out from the app’s name, it’s a tool that helps you “get an idea out of your head and into a drawing” so you can share it with the entire team. If you’re familiar with 37signals’ philosophy of doing business, you know what to expect – a simple app that does what it says, nothing less and definitely nothing more. It lacks features, but that’s the point – not to overwhelm you with its complexity, but to be a useful tool that you will actually frequently use. You can sketch diagrams in white, red, or a combination of both on Draft’s black canvas. Each drawing will be automatically saved in a library from where you can send it to your co-workers via email or to Campfire, which is 37signals’ popular chat service… And that’s about it. You decide whether Draft is worth 10 bucks. I think it is. Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis. Read More