parislemon

A "Holy Shit" Website

Speaking of Path, hopefully you’ve visited their new website by now. If not, click the link above. It’s amazing.

It’s the kind of thing you used to need Flash for. And it was one of the few decent arguments for why it perhaps should stick around. With it, you could make a website that felt alive — more like art and less utilitarian. Path’s Danny Trinh replicated that using only HTML5.

It’s a tad bit blurry and it doesn’t work on the iPad, but we’ll let those slide.

Watching the reaction to Path 2 that past few hours has been fascinating. It’s a testament to the idea that design matters. And I don’t just mean how the app looks. To quote Steve Jobs, “It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

The Path team has nailed so many little things with their app that the first impression users are coming away with is sheer delight. That alone won’t get them to their full potential, but it’s a hell of a start.

Little things matter. Not compromising matters. Attention to detail matters.

I bet there are at least a half dozen things in this app that become standard design practice in most iOS apps. And they’re things Facebook and Google won’t be able to copy anytime soon with their UIWebView wrappers.

Update: Path engineer Rafik Salama explains that the HTML5 video isn’t the problem on the iPad, it’s the auto-play functionality — which makes sense.