MacStories‘ John Voorhees has watched a lot of Apple’s WWDC20 sessions this week. He’s been impressed with the production quality and the shorter, more condensed format of many of the videos. While he’s still working his way through everything that has been released, his favorite sessions by far have been the ones presented by Apple’s design team.
Through a combination of under-the-hood peeks at how various design elements work and practical tips for implementing new UI controls, the sessions are terrific resources and provide fascinating insight into where design is heading across all of Apple’s products.
Probably my favorite session of the bunch has been Design for the iPadOS pointer. The session explains not only how the pointer works on iPadOS, but why it works that way through a technique called adaptive precision that accounts for the context in which the pointer is being used to define its level of precision.
One of the big picture themes that I came away with from the design sessions I’ve watched so far is the emphasis on designing for the unique qualities of each platform’s hardware. As Design for iPad explains, this doesn’t just mean designing something in between a Mac and an iPhone for the iPad, it also requires developers to consider what makes using an iPad different from either of those platforms.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s “Design for the iPadOS pointer” video will show developers how Apple’s design team approached designing the iPadOS pointer to complement touch input, and how they can customize and refine pointer interactions in their apps to make workflows more efficient and gratifying for the user. Discover how the pointer’s adaptive precision enables people to quickly and confidently target interface elements regardless of their size. Apple’s design team will also share some best practices on adapting the pointer to complement an app’s unique needs including how to select pointer effects and design pointer shapes, integrate trackpad gestures, and keyboard modifiers. Watch it here.