Featured Articles
Article in App of the Week category.
Cone Is A Well-Designed Color Picker for Designers
Oddly enough, I have a high bar for color pickers. Color pickers are typically employed by graphic designers as well as web developers/designers. Being that…
Oddly enough, I have a high bar for color pickers. Color pickers are typically employed by graphic designers as well as web developers/designers. Being that they are tools for creatives, it needs to be full-featured and equally as well designed. Cone ticks all of my boxes for a color picker, and even more.
Out of the gate, this is not only one of the best-looking color pickers but iOS apps in general that I’ve tried out. The layout, the colors, the UI, and the custom icons are all so well chosen that it just makes me want to use it. I haven’t designed web or print graphics in a few years now but this immediately makes me want to get back to it.
As soon as you load the app with an image, it immediately starts analyzing the color and presenting and converts the most dominant Pantone color — or at least the closest Pantone color available. You’re able to move the color pick around the image on-screen to get the exact color you’re looking for.
The app has several custom icons for all basic functions such as loading new background images or adjusting the color temperature. That’s right, you can set a manual color temperature. Your phone has features like Night Shift and True Tone that make it easier on your eyes but can be a royal pain when trying to figure out an exact color. By setting a manual neutral point you’ll be sure to get the right color.
Once you’ve picked your color, you can add it to your curated buckets of colors for future use. A color palette will be generated as well to help foster inspiration. You can also get the RGB, Hex, CMYK, and HSB color codes aside from the Pantone name. By the way, Cone is an official Pantone licensee with offline support and support for new colors as they’re added.
With iOS apps, accessibility is becoming increasingly important. Apple has put a lot of tools out there for developers and these third-party devs are picking up missing pieces. Developer Kushagra Agarwal has built-in a colorblind mode. Instead of presenting the Pantone colors, it will show basic colors. Instead of Dusty Rose, it will just say red. Basically a real-life color identifier for those who struggle with it. I love that this is a feature.
Seriously, there’s even more to love in this app. Like the full-featured Apple Watch companion app. It will show all your color buckets, color palettes, and all the relevant information for each. color. This app is gorgeous, functional, and helps out colorblind users. If you have a need for a color picker, Cone has good reason to top your list.
But enough about other people's apps.
