Warning: the following short article can be concidered extremely geeky.

Most designers will agree that Apple has created some of the loveliest icons over the past years. By creating the first dock icons they really set a trend. Apple managed to bring this sweet style to the iPhone by creating the home screen filled with detailed touchable icons to start the apps we use daily. These lovely detailed icons sometimes distract me from the cute tiny icons that help so much giving the user the little bit of extra feedback needed to make the iPhone user experience worthwhile. That’s why I like to share my favorite iPhone OS 3.0 icon with you and tell you how to enjoy it on your own iPhone.

iPhone OS 3.0 added a couple useful but not that exciting new features like copy/ paste and undo. The icon I’m talking about is hidden in the new spotlight functionality. Rather it’s hidden beneath the keyboard when using spotlight. It’s the magnifying glass icon next to the home screen dots. To fully enjoy the simplicity and beauty of this magnifying glass icon you have to do the following interactions:

1. Press the home screem button. It is visible but hard to see knowing the icon is 26% white on a black background:

2. Slide towards spotlight:

3. Slide an inch back towards the app icons until the keyboard drops down. Keep your finger or thumb down on the iPhone and there it is!

To enjoy it even more (yes, it is possible) just make a screenshot (press home screen + sleep button at the same time) while you slide from the home screen towards spotlight. It is possible to take screenshots of in between views of different home screens, but it’s not possible to do this while you are between the home screen and spotlight. Instead you take a screenshot of a keyboardless spotlight screen. Thus now you can not only enjoy the cute icon, but you can also zoom in!

Now you know about my favorite iPhone icon, what about yours?

PURRRR!

We’re looking for little internship Monsters. Little Monsters that want to learn how to roar, learn how to find the best hiding places under a bed or behind the curtain and scare the hell out of normal people. Being a Monster means you’ll be wearing a fictional (we’re working on this) Monstersuit. This means you get to eat Monster food, drink Monster drinks, make Monster jokes and do what you like all day long. As a little Monster you’ll be working on Blackbox, our Monster flagship.

Currently we’ve got three ‘official’ internship descriptions:

• Flash Developer
• Interaction Designer
• Web Developer

Don’t feel sad if the description isn’t fully about what you can or want to do. De Monsters are always on the lookout for little Monsters with the following talents or interests: Flash, Flex, AIR, AS3, C++, iPhone, Interaction Design, data architecture, Visual Design (or graphic design), web frontend, web backend, usability, user research, design processes, data visualisation or software architecture.

Do you think you’ve got what it takes to become a Monster and work together with other Monsters on Blackbox? Leave us a message at Paul [at] deMonsters.com or call Paul at +31 6 1500 4448.

Don’t be afraid, we won’t bite.

GRAWH!

Started the day wearing my favorite t-shirt, try to see it as my little lifesaver.

Like most I can’t start a day without coffee.

Since @ferdikoomen and I live in the same house, we ate breakfast together: a nice banana, apple and orange smoothy.

Did some sketches in a new sketchbook. One of the few logos on it is from a friend’s F16 squadron.

We love bad movie posters, got this one in our dining room.

I still got the first printed Monsters logo pasted on cardboard from our first exhibition.

Our AIR boomerang.

We found out that Ferdi stayed in Austria without any legal papers during our brainstorms since his passport had expired.

Pre lunch snack. In the back the new version of our open source Flash, Flex and AIR debugger which we are launching this week.

My skeleton Jack wallet.

A paper bag filled with lunch.

My old phone (finally got an iPhone) with a picture of an exit sign taken in a tram in Amsterdam. I keep getting slammed by these exit gates.

This will most likely be our new MonsterHQ. We plan on moving early next month.

Green guy says it’s ok.

Diner and bar beneath our new MonsterHQ!

Since we came late we missed the first speaker, so here is the second speaker at the Dutch Adobe User Group. He was talking about interactive PDF forms… yawn!

No clear logo present but we did see one of the worst Flex GUI’s ever!

During the break we went upstairs (to our future collaborate workspace) to get some coffee. One of the most awesome startup companies sitting there at the moment is E.

Another startup called Haas. They make software to help children learn to read.

Alumni invitation, cool MA graduation projects while drinking beer.

Found this postcard in the elevator. Streetlab is a Dutch platform for streetfashion designers and artists.

Back at the Adobe User Group meeting listening to a Philips design talk.

Awesome presentation by Rick Williams (@rickwilliams) from AKQA about Fiat Ecodrive. Ecoville is their online community.

Back home, many Dutchies prefer Belgium beer, so do we!

Since we got back late and all Dutch grocery stores close at 8, we combined the Jupiler with pizzas.

In short, you have just seen a day of a Monster life!