Google’s Envelope is a printable cover designed to promote your digital well-being!

It’s sad to say, but the truth is that we spend the majority of our time on our phones. We’re always connected to the internet, and the digital way of life is our only way of life. However, Google started a digital wellbeing initiative in an attempt to reduce the time we spend on our smart devices, and to be honest they’re pretty cool ideas! One of them is the Envelope cover. London-based design studio Special Projects came up with the Envelope cover, hoping we would break away from the digital world, and enter the real world…even for a while.

Though it only works for the Pixed 3A at the moment, the cover is easily accessible! You download the app called Envelope on your Play Store App, print out the template for the envelope and assemble it right at home! All you need is some glue to patch it up together. Once you slide your phone into the case, it transforms your phone into a much simpler one. One version allows you to only make and receive calls and tell the time, whereas another one only lets you click photos and record videos. The Envelope app helps light up the printed buttons, enabling you to actually use your phone while in the case.

In a world where everything is digital, and actually living in the moment has become a rarity, Google has come up with an extraordinary design that could really help reduce our screen time, and help us give ourselves the peace and me-time we truly deserve. I do hope this initiative extends to other phone models soon…I need it!

Designer: Special Projects for Google

‘Magic UX’ makes the most fascinating use of augmented reality I’ve seen

Take a second to appreciate what’s happening in the video above. It uses augmented reality for work in a way that intuitively plugs the gap between physical and digital workspaces. It requires no tutorials, and is so easy to understand, simply because our physical experiences of organizing our workspaces is brought into the digital world!

Meet the Magic UX, and experiment by the guys at Special Projects. The idea of the Magic UX is to take the way we multitask in the physical world, and bring it to the digital world. Multitasking or switching between tasks on your phone can involve a lot of unnecessary swiping and pressing of icons and buttons that waste time. Multitasking at your desk isn’t that complicated. If you want to write, you pick up your pen and write. if you want to type, you put the pen down and move your hands to the keyboard. The guys at Special Projects believe that Augmented Reality in phones can bring that physical ease into the digital world.

The Magic UX is a result of that belief. You use the phone’s spatial awareness to ‘pin’ applications in a certain point in space, much like placing your notebook in one corner of your desk, and your calendar at another, and your post-its at a third corner. Magic UX lets you pin your apps in dedicated spaces, and the minute you move your phone away, the app fades into the background. You can create a literal landscape of apps that you can switch between by simply switching the location of your phone. What’s even better is that you can even drag and drop items with incredible intuition, by quite literally dragging and dropping them in a virtual space! I can’t wait to see major mobile operating systems begin noticing the potential that AR has in revolutionizing the way we work!

Designer: Special Projects

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Apple SVP Bob Mansfield Removed from Executive Profiles Page


It could mean anything. Prior to the present, Bob Mansfield was SVP at Apple and enjoying all the benefits that went with such a senior post. But now his introductory note has vanished completely...