Awakenings: An Android Design Process ⇥ dewith.com

Sebastiaan de With has an extensive essay on the creation and design of DoubleTwist’s Alarm app, answering questions like “why?”:

The answer is simple: because this is extremely essential tool we use every day. We wake up with it every morning — and it simply hasn’t been done right. It’s kind of terrible: you can compare it to waking up every morning to find you’ve been sleeping on a small pebble. To start your day off frustrated and displeased doesn’t just throw your mood into a funk, it can actually be quite unhealthy. Now there’s a problem that’s simply begging for a solution.