From the desk of Mr. Monk

I admit I have a soft spot for Helvetica. So when I saw the iPhone app “Calvetica” (a calendar app) I thought I’d give it a spin. The calendar app provided by Apple needs attention. Adding an event is not quick nor is it intuitive. Does Calvetica improve the data entry experience? Yes.

However, the UI is terrible. It shows complete disregard for Apple’s Human User Interface Guidelines by gracing the screen with large expanses of block colours. The icon sticks out like a sore thumb which is a real pet hate of mine. Instantly relegated to any home screen but the first - let alone the dock!

But what really annoyed me was the fact that Helvetica seemed like it had been used as a gimmick. It feels like the message is: “because this calendar is set in Helvetica, it is a more refined experience”. Using Helvetica has no bearing on the functionality of the app. Helvetica is not a metaphor for making things better. And it grieves me that it makes the title. The reality is that it doesn’t actually look all that good.

Calvetica is not brilliant because it uses helvetica; it’s the functionality. The UI leaves a lot of room for improvement and I hope the designers drop the Swiss pretence and flat UI and appreciate the fact that they’ve made advances in calendar app functionality.

For the past week I’ve been trying out a few different ways to keep on top of my work email. So far, nothing has worked out. Mail is too big. Sparrow is too buggy. 

When I found out that I could integrate Google Apps for your Domain with Zoho CRM - but only in the web version - I knew that perhaps switching to the browser may be the best option. I’ll try it for a week but I need a notifier: that’s where the official Google Mail/Calendar notifier comes in.

Now this is a great set up - I can even choose to hide the unread count*, but the default icons are incredibly ugly. I decided to redesign a set, to make them more Mac-like.

I’ve put all of my replacements into one handy .zip so that you can change the icons too. I’d love some feedback, so if you find use for them please write a comment below.

Download Nathan’s replacement Google Notifier icons

To install:
Download the icons. Quit Google Notifier Locate the Google Notifier icon in your Applications/ directory. Control-click on Google Notifier and select Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu. Navigate into Contents » Resources. Place the icons of your favorite color there. You’ll be asked to overwrite the existing ones, click Yes.

*They really scare me.

P.S. I’d love to get a brief for something like this at work ;-)