Clear Takes App Interface Design to New Territories

I certainly won't talk about the shampoo brand, Clear what I mean is the new app available on app store created by Impending and Realmac Software. This application can provide application interface design mobile devices which is very good. The way this app works is unlike any other app. This application only presents the latest usage gestures and is completely free from the interface box. This app has no buttons, toolbars, or icon. Clear consists of colorful lines, text, and sound. Just that.

This application brings usability to new territory. The arrival of the iPhone in 2007 has brought a one-button usage environment, which applications take advantage of because it can provide the freedom of not having too many input methods from the hardware. Clear takes this step further and offers use of the app with gestures and removes icons and buttons.

In developing applications mobile devices, it is very easy to rely on predictable input methods, commonly used, traditional navigation and operation devices, fundamentally trying to beat the existing path.

Speaking of paths, the Path 2.0 app introduces 'rotating discs' as their navigation instead of tab bar more commonly used, for example, by Instagram, Tweetbot, Twitter, Foursquare, and others.

There are concerns that other applications will quickly adapt Path's rotating disc effect and exploit it, but this concern does not seem to have arisen, at least its use is not yet common, because if so then many applications will be accused of copying Path's innovations.

The deceptively intuitive interface of the Clear app brings changes from the interaction design and expectations of the interface that would not exist without the iPhone. In an interview with TheNextWeb, Phil Ryu from Impending said, "Buttons are about the most unsatisfying interaction you can have in a touchscreen device. Just think about it. At least when you're using a mouse, you click a button, and you're clicking a button. When you're using a phone you are smudging glass, and there is absolutely zero feedback.”

What is presented by Clear is an evolution of interface design. This app may not be an app task or for the best list on iPhone, and not really the best app (it doesn't even sync with anything, at least not yet), but it's a really nice design, very 'direct', easy to use and has a 'clean' look when compared to similar applications.

Clear appears very distinctive. Consisting only of colored lines and text, works also this way tap, swipe, zoom in or slide. A video on how to use it will appear the first time you run the app, and the videos that have been around for the past few days are enough to make you understand the app. The Clear app is priced at US$0.99 during launch.

Speaking of apps, if you're in Bandung this weekend and are interested in attending an iOS development seminar, I'll talk about the app business mobile devices at the event ID-Objective Conference, on this Saturday.