Designer details how Apple’s iAd Producer can be used to prototype iOS & Mac apps
Linda Dong, a former Prototyping Team member at Apple, shared a fascinating blog post this week that highlights an interesting use case for developers and designers using Apple’s iAd Producer app.
Think of it as “advanced Keynote”, or “actually accessible Interface Builder”. Alas the app is meant for not-so-popular content like iAds and iBooks widgets, but it can easily be repurposed to prototype iOS and Mac apps. It handles UI elements, screen flow, and animation really well.
Writing that iAd Producer is targeted toward creating iAds and iBook widgets, which makes it a rather underrated app considering the utility it offers, she notes that iAd Producer bases projects in “HTML5, CSS3, and javascript which a lot of designers are already familiar with.”
She goes on to explain how you can remove the default iAd UI overlays when using iAd Producer for iOS and Mac app prototyping, while explaining how the drag-and-drop nature of the app makes it easy to use.
Her write-up continues by detailing how iAd Producer incorporates animations that will be familiar to Keynote users, event triggers on objects within apps, supports CSS filters, and even previewing app designs and interactions on real devices for testing.
You can read her full blog post and see some of her work here, and grab iAd Producer from Apple’s developer center if you’re a member. Have you used iAd Producer for any interesting app prototyping or other ways that vary from iAd and iBook widget creation?
