Apple Tips App
Apple Tips is an app that helps you make the most of your Apple devices by providing device information, topic-specific tips, user guides, a search feature, and regular updates with new suggestions.
I oversee the design and development of graphics for Apple Instructional Products. Our work incorporates UI animation and 3D graphics, primarily developed through an animation production pipeline that supports Tips for 14 devices and two UI modes. Over the past eight years, we have boosted our productivity by approximately 40 times, growing from 64 Tips and 704 unique assets in our first year to 157 Tips and 8,856 unique assets last year. This increase has allowed us to deliver personalized and meaningful content to our users.
To achieve high output from a small team, we have needed generalists who could collaborate and innovate within the Tips program. As a senior team member, I have emphasized a broad and flexible working model, similar to our pipeline's combining nature. For our team of nine, this approach ensures we can consistently deliver despite challenges like unstable early UI, changing hardware, global disruptions, and team attrition.
Timeline
Annual
Services
Design, Motion Identity & Motion Systems
Year
2017 - Present
Apple Tips App
Apple Instructional Products
Make the work stand out.
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"On a regular basis the team turns to Morgan for knowledge on a large number of topics from design to technical questions. He has a strong ability to process a problem with several constraints and quickly work to find a solution that will prevent the team from being blocked."
Colleague
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“When Morgan shares his expertise, it is impactful to the team and you can feel how highly respected he is by his peers”
Colleague
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“One way he respects others and a quality I admire is that he'll articulately express his opinions (very diplomatically), often-times with a sense of humor, but never demeaning or overriding someone else's dissenting opinion.”
Colleague
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“He fosters a harmonious work environment, promoting effective teamwork and communication. Morgan's presence is an invaluable asset to our team and any project he is a part of.”
Colleague
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“Morgan is a great glue guy: he is unselfish (always doles out credit and compliments where due), he is a great teammate, and communicates extremely well.”
Colleague
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“He makes me feel like my input is valuable, while helping me better understand how an animation is structured.”
Colleague
Partnership
Creating the Apple Tips app involves a strong team collaboration, where everyone has the freedom to share their best ideas. The team continually refines things based on user feedback and changing needs, ensuring the Tips app remains helpful and easy to use for Apple device users. The Tips app partnerships possible by working in parallel across strategy, messaging, design, motion and development to build a truly dynamic user experience.
Identity
For the Tips app, we took charge of designing the motion elements, initially using hand-animated UI images to mimic the device's interface. Realizing this process was inefficient, we collaborated with engineers to develop an internal tool. This tool could programmatically control devices and capture video output, replacing the need for manual animations. I played a crucial role in conceiving, defining, designing, and implementing this tool, ensuring it smoothly integrated into our workflow. The outcome is an identity that feels interconnected and intentional.
Guidelines
Tips are organized into fundamental modular pieces and then reassembled using a combination tree in After Effects, along with scripted logic. This method significantly minimized errors and enabled one animator's work to apply to numerous assets, supporting our entire range of devices and UI. I constructed the After Effects template and established a pipeline, allowing the creation of thousands of deliverables annually. With guidelines and size constraints, the team can effortlessly generate a vast array of animations.