It really makes my job worth while to hear such positive feedback after building someones custom Showit website for them.

“Whether working in the industry of photography, business, or computers, it’s the professionals in those industries that make all the difference. I’m sure you’ve had instances of working along side an individual that didn’t have all the answers to your questions or concerns. I have had my fair share, yet, that wasn’t the case as I worked with Nick of Spilled Milk Designs in the redesign of my website. So to you, Nick, my sincerest thanks for a job well-done. I am very pleased with the final product I am able to share with my clients, current and future.”

Allen Johnson

http://photobyallen.com

We really dig the light and airy design of Micah and Cristie’s new custom Showit website. It also takes a unique approach in that they display Showit slideshows instead of a gallery of images. Just goes to show you the power that wedding slideshows still have. Their site features no bells or whistles, just good clean design and some beautiful slideshows that are worth watching.

http://bythegilmores.com

Your flash website can’t be viewed on the iPad. Your HTML website that requires a hover won’t work with a device that requires a touch.

Today marks a major milestone for not only Spilled Milk Designs, but for the entire web development community. OK so maybe we’re exaggerating just a bit, but truth be told we’ve done a heck of lot of research and have yet to find anything else like this on the planet. In fact we’re very comfortable in claiming this to be the first HTML5 touch website developed strictly for the iPad. But why build it? If you have a few minutes you can read our previous post which deals a lot with the “why.”

The most obvious is that flash isn’t available on the iPad. This isn’t a secret, and everybody is painfully aware of it. Naturally, when someone visits your flash website on their iPad, they leave because they can’t see your website. This is bad! Especially when you consider that tablets will account for 25% of the PC market by 2015. We won’t even go into the analysts predictions for iPad sales, as it has already “not acted like a natural consumer device.” We’ll just say 100 million people will be using the iPad to browse websites within the next 18 months. That’s a lot of stinking people hitting websites that aren’t designed to run on the iPad. How frustrating is it to visit a website that doesn’t serve a proper iPad version? How frustrating is to visit a website on an iPad that serves you the mobile version with BIG TEXT?

This got us thinking. If flash websites are for desktops, and mobile websites for for mobiles, obviously we need websites for the iPad and other tablets. Not just a “website that happens to work” with the iPad, or a “website that was modified to run” on an iPad,” we need a site “built FOR the iPad.” An alternative version with a proper interface built strictly for touch. More importantly it has to look and feel native to the iPad. Molding the site in this fashion leaves no question on how to navigate or utilize the features. So after a few long weeks months of research and development we’re finally ready to present the alpha version of our HTML5 iPad website.

When folks on an iPad hit our main flash website, they are automatically redirected to some alpha iPad flavored goodness. A 100% hand crafted HTML5 work of art. A finite amount of detail went into making the “web application” feel like a “native application” (an app that you get from iTunes is “native” while an app that runs on the web is a “web app”). When launched from the home screen you’re presented with a splash screen start up, and full screen goodness further solidifying the look and feel of a native app. All sections can be swiped, and recent blog posts can be viewed and shared (alpha) to Twitter or Facebook. A different layout is displayed depending on whether the iPad is turned vertically, or horizontally, while also boasting offline access that automatically updates the app when it senses an active Internet connection (alpha and still under development). Of course an HTML5 website for the iPad just wouldn’t be an HTML5 website for the iPad if it didn’t have HTML5 video, contact forms, swipe-able portfolio section, testimonials, and more.

Do you want one? We thought so, and of course we planned ahead and will soon be releasing an editable version. Not only that but we built others, and some really cool ones for photographers that we’ll be showing off later. Easily edit and publish your own iPad website, all before you finish your first cup of coffee. Easily implement into any website, you don’t have to know any coding, there’s nothing to install, and everything is already setup and waiting for you. Did we mention that you’d be able to edit and publish your iPad website from your iPhone, iPad, or Android device later this year? Excited? We are! Sign up to be notified when we release the biggest thing to hit the streets since sliced bread. Finger Sites, websites built for touch. http://fingersites.com

After a couple hundred hours of development, we’re finally wrapping up with the beta version our custom iPad web app. Built using pure HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript, it includes new technologies like SVG graphics, offline capabilities, splash screen start-up, and other HTML5 only goodies. We spent a lot of time crafting the web app to look as native to the iPad as possible, giving a familiar and friendly user interface from swiping to sharing. Well technically it was a team of code monkeys who did all the work. OK so not really monkeys, just one guy with mad skills, and myself who thinks big. So…why build it? A few reasons actually, and if you have a few minutes we’d like to enlighten you.

A tablet revolution is silently starting. 3 million iPads we’re sold in the first 90 days. 10 million will be sold by the end of this year. On Friday the iPad will be released in 9 more countries. In fact as of last month, more people are browsing the web on an iPad than on both Android-powered devices, and Blackberry devices combined. It took the iPad 2 weeks to pass Android in terms of web traffic. This doesn’t mean there are more iPads than Android-deices, it means that a greater percentage of iPad owners browse than web than Android  and Blackberry owners. These folks are surfing the Internet and running into websites that aren’t meant to run on an iPad. Visitors then leave frustrated.

This is a big problem, especially for photographers. Their website is their storefront, and these days we can’t afford to be skipped by the prospect who’s hitting our site from her iPad in Starbucks. This is only the beginning too, as analysts are predicting that tablets will account for 23% of the PC market by 2015. One out of four will be using tablets to shop. This isn’t about flash vs html, this is about giving your visitors the experience they deserve. Flash websites will always have a place on desktops, and will always be great for displaying feature rich websites. In fact SMD specializes in creating flash websites with Showit, and we don’t plan on stopping any time soon. It’s an amazing, versatile, feature rich design platform that after 7500 hours inside the cockpit, we still love it like the day we first started. Mobile websites will always have a place on mobile phones. Tablets deserve websites for tablets, and what we can do with the web and the iPad is amazing. Click is different than touch, and deserves a proper touch-to-toggle interface. Samsung, LG, HP, and Acer have all have publicly stated that they are working on getting tablets into the market, so it’s only a matter of time before your sites traffic explodes with tablet users hungry for tailored fit interfaces.

Is your website ready for visitors on tablets? If not, we can actually help, and it’ll only cost you $0.40 a day. We thought to ourselves, “hey why not make this thing editable for our clients to use?” So starting this fall you’ll be able to do just that. Create an account, log-in, choose a theme whether it be commercial or photography, customize, and publish your very own tablet web app. Just like that, and quicker than it will take you to finish your first cup of coffee. Your visitors hit your main flash website, and are redirected to your iPad web app. Visitors are encouraged to add your app to their home screen, and doing so they will be able to launch it full screen which starts with a custom splash start up image. With HTML5 comes neat things like local caching, so your visitors will be able to launch your web app even without Internet access. Easily swap out images, text, change colors, and turn that “visit” into an “experience.” It’s coming soon, and I hope you’ll join us. Ours isn’t quite ready to share just yet, but she will be soon…very soon.

It’s always a challenge to consistently create websites for photographers that feel different and unique. Luckily no one person is alike, so each “feels” different but the obstacle them becomes making them all “look” different. This often means trying new things and taking new approaches with common problems like “putting something more on the home page besides a boring slide-show.” We are blessed to have a creative team of individuals that can take a photographers established marketing materials and transform it into a completely custom website that’s tailored to fit.

Sarah Parent’s new custom site features “peeling” stickers as entrances into a dual portal website featuring a separate weddings and portraits section, unique home page layouts, and a simple but effective “about” page.

http://sarahparent.com