Thanks for pointing it out, I didn't see that article.
After having read that article, I'll concede the fundamental argument is the same. I don't have a smartphone, however. The only place I will ever read something is on my desktop computer, and that's what I want. Media queries or "mobile-first design" can be used to solve the issue from both sides of that complaint.
Your site is barely readable and unzoomable on my phone where I would normally read a short blog post from an unknown but potentially interesting site. It's a very real glass house situation.
Perhaps it's a failing of your browser? I've set nothing to prevent you from zooming.
Also, what makes it unreadable? I'm aware that I still have some work to do on the stylesheet. I don't have a mobile device, a small-ish screen, or a retina display so my testing of devices is limited. Constructive feedback welcome :)
Hana Barbara has an iconic style. It's kind of offensive to use that as an example of "crappy" animation. That's like saying Jackson Pollock's "crappy," slapdash paintings could never compare to the intricate detail of the Mona Lisa.
HB does have a very iconic style, but that style was deliberately chosen to make it easier to get away with low-quality animation techniques [1][2]. The HB shop needed to run on a shoe-string budget, and they had to cut corners wherever they could.
Now, it works because of the HB cartoons' light-hearted style and premises, but would seem tacky and ridiculous for a film or episode attempting something grander (i.e. a feature film like The Little Mermaid or Toy Story).
[1] For example, many HB characters don't have necks, or have extremely thick necklaces or collars where a neck would normally be. This allows you to swap out head and face animations with much greater freedom, and makes it harder to detect camera errors when the head and the body don't quite line up correctly. Is that bad? Not necessarily, but if you rely on too many of these tricks you end up painting yourself into a corner.
[2] Also, some HB characters don't even walk correctly. Their torsos and upper bodies stay perfectly motionless while their legs flail about beneath them. It looks cute and storybook-like in certain applications, but completely ridiculous in most others.
Our previous announcement was for Windows 8 support. This adds support for Windows Phone 8 (whose SDK came out after we launched the Windows 8 version) as well ;)
I get Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 confused all the time (I'm not being sarcastic here, even though it might sound it - I genuinely do! The names are too similar).
As a developer, it also doesn't help that Microsoft made a lot of noise about them being on the same kernel, even though there's hardly any API overlap between them.
Whether or not "design" is important to the business is irrelevant. What we're talking about it the designer's time. If a company who didn't really need an app for their business, but just wanted one for good measure, and hired an app developer, do you think $5 is fair payment? Can't developers accept that there are a plurality of opinions on the value of apps?
