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Prototypes for Mac lets you use images to prototype iPhone interfaces – interaction and all.

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Prototypes is a Mac application that helps you test your interfaces early in the design process, helping designers find problems with their user experiences before major coding for their websites and iPhone apps takes place.

It’s a common problem: you’ve got a Photoshop mockup that looks great, but thanks to the static nature of such apps, you can’t take that interface for a test-drive. Once coding begins and problems are found, it’s back to the drawing board — with significant time wasted for all involved.

Prototypes allows you to turn those designs into prototypes that you can interact with through the mouse on your Mac or by tapping on your iPhone. You simply draw and link hotspots and set animations, share your interface with other stakeholders, and get testing.

To get a feel for the output Prototypes creates before spending the cash, head over to ptyp.es on your iPhone, follow the instructions presented to you for installation, and enter the PIN 1234 5678. You’ll be able to try out a Prototypes-generated interface yourself.

The app costs US$39.99 and was developed by iOS developer Duncan Wilcox and user interface expert and Skitch creator Keith Lang.Mac Stories

Reminder: the real smartphone war is against dumbphones

Will Android kill the iPhone? Or is it the other way around? It’s tempting to stick with the market share battle mindset when it comes to smartphones, but as Asymco’s Horace Dediu points out, the real question may be, who can tempt away users of dumbphones, or traditional cellphones?

Dediu compiled second quarter smartphone market figures for the past four years (see chart at right), which makes it easy to see just how much potential is left untapped among dumbphone users. His data shows that smartphones now account for 27 percent of phones shipped to retailers.

“What the chart shows is that Android (and phone versions of iOS) have taken share from direct competitors but have taken more from non-consumption,” Dediu writes. “Rather than focusing on rivalry between platforms, minds should be focused on the shape of the smartphone adoption curve.”

Looking at the smartphone market in that light, there definitely seems to be room for entrants aside from Google and Apple to make their mark. For example, even though Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 devices may not be selling like hotcakes yet, there’s potential for the platform to explode if it can properly tap dumbphone users (that definitely seems to be the angle with its Windows Phone ad campaign). Microsoft’s upcoming partnership with Nokia to create flagship Windows Phone devices could help in this respect.

But it’s definitely not going to be easy for Microsoft, or any other modern smartphone newcomer, to entice dumbphone users. In addition to powering high-end smartphones, Android is well positioned for dumbphone consumers, since it’s versatile enough to run on low- and mid-range hardware.

Research firm Gartner also released its latest mobile device numbers today, which gives us a more granular look at the state of the industry. Smartphones accounted for 23.6 percent of phones sold in the second quarter (compared to last year), according to Gartner, which falls in line with Dediu’s smartphone shipment statistics. Gartner’s numbers show that over 100 million smartphones were sold in the last quarter out of a total of 428 million mobile devices.

Additionally, the firm says that only 1.6 million Windows Phone 7 devices were sold last quarter. That’s a tepid response, for sure, but it’s definitely not enough to scare Microsoft off of smartphones. As I’ve previously argued, Microsoft is in the smartphone market for the long haul with Windows Phone, and I suspect it will work even harder to target dumbphone users over the next year.

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Avoid Data Caps and Compress Your iPhone Data with Onavo

onavo150.jpgIf you have to keep an eye on your iPhone data usage – whether it’s due to data caps or roaming fees – then you might like Onavo, a new app that will monitor and compress your data so you can use (and pay for) less data.

Once you download the Onavo app and register your device, your data is routed through Ovaco’s services, which compress your data and help you track your usage, identifying for example which apps are data-download-intensive.

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Once installed the app runs in the background of your iPhone and automatically compresses your download data (not your streaming data, it’s worth pointing out). The app can be toggled on and off and will pause itself when you’re using a WiFi connection. You can also opt to turn off email compression so that data is ignored.

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The trade-off of saving money on data here is, of course, running your data through a third-party service. Onavo does say “we take our users’ privacy very seriously,” storing the minimum amount of data – all aggregated and anonymized. Some metadata is kept to be able to generate the reports. Onavo says it doesn’t story any data and can’t read HTTPS traffic, with the exception of Exchange Mail authentication info, something that users will have to explicitly approve in order to set up.

The app works on iPhones and iPads and is coming to Android soon. It’s currently free, but the startup indicates this is just a limited-time offer and it will eventually charge a fee to use the service. In the meantime, Onavo announced today that it has raised $3 million in funding from Sequora Capital and Magma Venture Partners.

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