I’m excited to present you guys what I’ve been working on over the last couple of months. I guess most of you still know the My Dream App competition - an experiment to see what happens when you combine the expertise of some of the best talents in the software and tech world with great ideas and feedback from everyone else…
…and guess what? The experiment succeeded - at least from my point of view. In the end they ended up with three thrilling ideas for applications. One of them was Cookbook, which is all about managing and sharing your favorite recipes.
Michael Yuan already did an amazing job in creating the first mockups for the app - however we (Austin Sarner - godfather of AppZapper and Disco, John Casasanta - mastermind behind iClip) wanted to go a step further. We wanted to create something really Mac like, yet individual looking thing. So to make a long story short - here is a screenshot of the latest mockup.
Of course this is not gonna be the final look and feel - we still need to put a lot of effort into creating themes for the different cuisines. But as for the main UI, I think we’re almost there. Austin also posted a bunch of screenshots of previous iterations on his Flickr stream. So check it out and don’t hesitate to throw in your two cents worth - this would be a tremendous help for us. Thanks!
52 comments so far
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Luke April 04, 2007 at 09:46 AM
That is a gorgeous interface mate, can’t wait to see the finished article!
Dmitry Baranovskiy April 04, 2007 at 09:53 AM
This is SO sweet. I love your work so much and this is yet another example.
Manuela April 04, 2007 at 09:54 AM
Yummy! I can’t wait to try the final application.
macx April 04, 2007 at 09:58 AM
I am waiting for all three apps from this contest.
Alexander Graf April 04, 2007 at 09:58 AM
Wow, gorgeous. I love the little spotlights. It’s really the best interface so far. Will you guys keep the menu planner at the top? It looked great too…
MacGeek Pro April 04, 2007 at 10:02 AM
I think Austin and John made a wise choice in bringing you into this project, Wolfgang. I’ve always admired your touch for design, and I am looking forward to using Cookbook when it is released.
Paul D. April 04, 2007 at 10:33 AM
Don’t forget about resolution independence! :)
Julian Schrader April 04, 2007 at 10:38 AM
Wow, looks great! Keep up the good work!
—
Haha, didn’t notice the grass on the bottom of your site before—nice ;-)
Saioa April 04, 2007 at 11:17 AM
I love it, so so so much. Congratulations for the work!
José Carlos April 04, 2007 at 11:34 AM
Looks fantastic! Nice work!
Can’t wait to see them finished.
gpessia April 04, 2007 at 11:55 AM
Wow! Fantastic
Visay April 04, 2007 at 12:26 PM
What i can say is Gorgeous. It’s finished!!!
Fran6 April 04, 2007 at 12:39 PM
Amazing job !! Can’t wait for the app !!!
Kuswanto April 04, 2007 at 12:55 PM
super!!! I like the wood interface, but the icons are still useable.
alej744 April 04, 2007 at 01:05 PM
I can’t wait for this application!
I could totally imagine my parents (mom) using it :)
Selcuk Sinan April 04, 2007 at 01:13 PM
The UI looks very very nice. Great job!
ZicklePop April 04, 2007 at 01:38 PM
You should make ShapeShifter themes. Seriously. Your themes would easily be better then anything out there now!
Steve Williams April 04, 2007 at 01:51 PM
Ref. ZicklePop’s comment, I was thinking that wood effect has the makings of a fine looking theme too.
I’ve been feeling lately that it’s about time we saw natural textures appearing more often in new designs and that’s a great example.
Look forward to seeing it in action!
Anshul Jain April 04, 2007 at 02:37 PM
Hmm looks nice as all your apps/designs but the utility of the app is a little questionable. Its a niche app.
Chris Wible April 04, 2007 at 02:41 PM
That’s great! I can’t wait to get a chance to play with it. I wonder if there are quality recipe feeds out there you could subscribe to… or is the idea that it’s for sharing and sharing only? Either way, rockin’ UI.
James David April 04, 2007 at 04:30 PM
Amazing idea since i love to cook and find it very hard to keep my recipes in order, but will this only be for Mac?
Make a Windows Version!! ;)
Brian Delicata April 04, 2007 at 07:57 PM
Excellent job on the UI!
Ricardo April 04, 2007 at 08:56 PM
wow, tasty ! looks like a huge chocolate bar
Pat April 04, 2007 at 10:17 PM
I love the styling; however it isn’t very usable. It’s way to contrasting from the default aqua theme that most people are using, and looking at it too long causes some eye strain… This is why most apps aren’t glaring bright wood and orange.
I suggest there be an option somewhere to deactivate the theme. :)
Jacob Rus April 04, 2007 at 11:37 PM
I gotta say: it looks amazingly beautiful… and thoroughly unusable.
Oh well, it will fit in perfectly with the rest of the Sarner/Casasanta style over substance apps, which is I guess the idea.
Guilhermy April 04, 2007 at 11:46 PM
Perfect!!!
Jacob Rus April 05, 2007 at 12:17 AM
John Casasanta just emailed me about my comment, saying “If so, what’s the deal with throwing public insults around like this?”… and he’s right: my comment comes across rather more harshly than I intended.
I suppose mainly I feel this design fits into the debate held a few months ago across the mac web about the “delicious generation” apps, such as Disco.
In general, I come down on the side of those who say that sticking to a regular (read:consistent) Mac-like UI benefits the user. Apps like Disco, by using a completely different appearance, do no service to their users, in my opinion, though they probably do help sales.
One of the reasons I use the Macintosh is because all the applications I use can share visual design, and as I user I benefit from the universality of these conventions. This extends from keyboard shortcuts, to list/outline view behaviors, to visual appearance.
I have been increasingly dismayed (along with many others) by Apple’s move towards visual inconsistency. I hate the brushed metal appearance with a passion, and Garage Band’s appearance is a huge disappointment for me.
It looks like Cookbook’s appearance will continue in this tradition.
So I repeat: The work here looks amazingly beautiful. Polished and lickable. I still personally vastly prefer the default Aqua (or perhaps “Unified Aqua”) appearance.
digitalsoft April 05, 2007 at 12:57 AM
Love the UI, cool idea for an app aswell.
chris April 05, 2007 at 02:00 AM
Very Nice! (in a Borat voice) I always wondered if you have to make those icons to look like Apple application icons or they something you have the rights to use when developing a Mac application.
Sadhana April 05, 2007 at 02:23 AM
Wow, the UI is fantastic!
Looks like I’ll have to get into the habit of collecting recipes just to use this app!
Gabriel April 05, 2007 at 02:46 AM
I looks fantastic. I so often thought about just write down recipes but it just makes no fun and it was so stupid to organize. I’m so much looking forward to this one.
By the way, this reminds me that people once thought that the PC would serve as a library for recipes in a kitchen. If I had the money, I would buy a Mac with your app on it just for that purpose
Maikel Neris April 05, 2007 at 06:00 AM
This is cool! Congratulations! The best UI that I see in last times!
Wolfgang April 05, 2007 at 10:01 PM
Thanks for your feedback.
Joost de Valk April 05, 2007 at 10:28 PM
Looks awesome! I really like the lighting, and the wood texture is great as well.
Jono April 06, 2007 at 10:12 PM
I always love eveything you create. As a screenshot/mockup I like it, but to be honest I don’t think I’d use an app looking like this. I’d just prefer a simple/standard Apple looking app.
(Please don’t don’t take it as an insult as I really do think it looks nice, but prefer a consistent look throughout :)
Wolf April 07, 2007 at 10:35 AM
Where do you get those wood textures? Self-created or modified from stock imagery?
Wolfgang April 07, 2007 at 12:06 PM
Well those wood textures are self made. It’s actually quite simple: I add some noise, apply the motion blur filter and finally I use the liquify filter. That’s it.
Webmaster April 07, 2007 at 01:03 PM
Really nice work.
Wolf April 07, 2007 at 02:01 PM
I’m kind of in between using a photo of wood or creating wood in photoshop… I can’t decide which one is better.
Joshua April 07, 2007 at 06:45 PM
It looks exactly what delicious library used to look like when they were throwing around the idea of using a wood GUI. They ultimately decided to scratch it and use the UI that apple recommends and I think it was a good choice. I’m more for consistency in my apps than flash, but I guess that’s just personal preference.
As well, it seems risky to spend this much time working on a custom UI solution with Leopard being so close, which could, and most likely will, change everything.
Sean Hayford O'Leary April 07, 2007 at 11:55 PM
It looks gorgeous, but one of my favorite things about OS X is the consistency; I’d really like to see the standard “stop light” buttons in the upper left and possibly the standard scrollbar.
But standardization aside, it’s breathtaking.
Scott April 08, 2007 at 02:05 PM
I think the UI is fantastic! It’s simply cool to look at and has me wanting to use it.
I expect nothing but fantastic work from you buddy and you certainly don’t disappoint! :)
Michael April 09, 2007 at 05:38 PM
Really cool UI. Can’t wait to see the final application.
Ewald April 10, 2007 at 12:43 PM
Seems that I’ll have to start cooking again.
kuyo April 12, 2007 at 04:20 PM
nice
Cooking Gal April 14, 2007 at 01:20 AM
Impressive! :)
Richard April 29, 2007 at 08:55 PM
That interface is the sex. Nice one! :p
MacTim April 30, 2007 at 03:30 PM
So schnell wie möglich fertig machen!!!! ;-)
Kann es kaum erwarten!!!
Tolle Idee und sehr hübsche Umsetzung!!!!!
MN Web Design May 03, 2007 at 05:12 AM
I think I’m going to the fridge! Looks awesome!
Tomek May 05, 2007 at 12:53 PM
Really nice work. Greetings
Scott Mackenzie May 10, 2007 at 03:41 AM
Woah. That skin is sexy. Seems like a similar idea to Connoisseur though.
Ben June 01, 2007 at 12:56 PM
Really great work Bartelme, its UI is really cool and is very suitable for the mood
I like it.. everybody likes it.. sure