21st Century Gizmo: iPhone
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Dropping a battered plastic divider by my groceries on the checkout till, I realized how mainstream Apple is these days. The divider carried an advert for iTunes vouchers. When a relative buys me a voucher I shall know that Apple is the only game in town. Must drop more hints.Why is Apple growing so quickly? It's all due to design and I want to explain what that is, why Apple is good at it and what an iPhone is, without sounding too much like a fanboy.
As if their online store isn't enough, Apple is the fastest growing retailer in the USA taking $1bn a quarter in their expensively appointed shops (more profit per square foot than Tiffanys!), only a few years after Gateway — a manufacturer of PC clones — abandoned their chain of stores.
The "bricks and mortar" shops were stringently redesigned after realizing the need to address users' needs such as music or film, so Apple abandoned their initial design where the shop was conventionally laid out by product type. This all happened in a mock-up and delayed the opening of their first store by months.
CEO Steve Jobs said Apple's high street stores were put in place for the iPhone, also that Apple had to lose its dependency on large retailers with little knowledge of Mac OS X.
Apple apply design rules to their operating system so it keeps out of the way and looks as elegant as the hardware. They also make their own applications which rule some market niches like online music, via iTunes and iTune's dedicated hardware aka the iPod, dictating their one-price policy to the music industry. They also dominate music production (no latency on a Mac), graphics and art, taking in magazine and poster production and video editing either with Avid or their own range of Pro applications. For instance editing video with soundtracks using iMovie is possible without reading a manual: intuitive functions belaying sophistication behind the scenes. It's also fun to make your own music using GarageBand, a product so gorgeously straightforward yet powerful it could only exist on an Apple.
These kinds of products and the layout of the stores reflect the Apple philosophy of seeing their users as producers (active) rather than consumers (passive). They create rather than watch.
Apple's design process follows the precept 'form follows function'. Apple keeps it strictly simple. For instance: the iPod. The design of this is brilliant not because it looks sexy — the appearance is a by-product of the design process — but rather because you can hold it in one hand and scroll up and down the lists and menus and notes only using your thumb. Jobs and co. sweated over the onscreen menu, simplifying and reducing it to the minimum. Physically there is no surplus material, no ridges or stickers; there's just what you need and that's it, so no black lines or gaps around buttons that are already a different colour and texture, and so on. It's hard to convey why anyone should want one, especially to people who weren't planning to transfer their music collection to a digital format, until they think about being able to access any track they like immediately, anywhere. All your music in your pocket. Just employ the opposable digit. Also the OCD and retentive folk amongst us can scan the cover art in (whenever iTunes doesn't have it) or program smart playlists in iTunes that flow into each other.
So to sum up: design is for hardware and software. Design is all-encompassing: beauty and efficiency comes from the way each component fulfils its purpose and fits into the overall structure. Executing design with style is art.
Apple's competitors' philosophy seems to be to build something just about good enough and sell it cheap. No need to delight the customer with refinements or to think about the user experience and how the programs could integrate... maybe they think they have enough of a captive corporate market, or habitual customers who only buy what they know. (Hello Aaron!) But Dell could never be like Apple. It is harder to be restrained than to add more features in order to give the impression of good value, while building down to a price. Dell's marketing department prefers that. It's also easier to use focus groups than trust to judgment.
The iPhone? It has Mac OS X. It can do things the iPod can, like photos, notes and calendars, or play music and video. It's a phone too, easier to use than any other phone. Most importantly, it has Mac OS X, and that is what differentiates it from other small portable devices. This means it can run widgets or exactly the same email or web browser program one finds on a laptop or desktop, or amazing new apps like Maps with search and live traffic conditions. So it can not only replace a cellphone, smartphone, iPod and maybe laptop, but also satnav? And imagine how well it will sync with all the personal data on your Mac. It is not a cellphone where each button always has the same function. It will regularly have new software. I believe it is a new class of device, namely a handheld computer. Obviously I can't get mine soon enough.
Many developers have been hoping to get their applications on the iPhone, but Apple has not yet released a Software Development Kit and shows no indication of doing so, however apps can be written with HTML/AJAX such as the widgets/gadgets you may already have on your desktop PC. Four examples have already appeared: a Twitter messaging client (now called Hahlo), a Digg client, an AIM chat client, and a shopping list called OneTrip which is quite good and reminds me of an app I once tried on the bulkier Apple Newton, which leads me to wonder whether Jarvis Cocker will finally abandon his Newton for the iPhone.
I'm already planning to download the shopping app and replace the options with my own and then host it on my site. I'm also thinking of writing a randomly rude quiz app, for which the interface is perfect.
The "soft" keyboard of the iPhone is the only doubt that I have at the moment, before the launch. I'm hoping to write rubbish like this while travelling on trains. Sure, I could use a BlackBerry or Hiptop or Palm or eMate, but I don't like their tiny keypads or predictive texting. The iPhone has a proper dictionary, like a laptop, but the keyboard is on the touchscreen so it will not have the physical feedback that one is used to when pressing an actual key. Apple say that when you learn to trust it you will fly. Initial reports suggest that this can take a day or two. I do hope so. I am reassured by the speed of Steve Jobs typing in his demo: "Sounds great! See you there" in 15 seconds. It would be fun to send grotesquely verbose emails or SMS text messages, something I could not attempt on a cellphone or most smartphones. Actually I can't even find the text function on my current phone — an ancient Alcatel — unless I have unread texts. The iPhone has been called a God Machine and the new It Object. It is, I believe, the first truly 21st century device. After it launches on the 29th, Apple should take over the smartphone market and some of the cellphone market.
To learn more about the iPhone, I recommend watching Steve Job's keynote in which he introduces it as a three-in-one device. See how he mocks other phones and how difficult it is to make calls on them. Also see the ads. Go through the Apple/iPhone pages and view the many short movies. Regular Apple web sites like MacSurfer have iPhone news as well as the iPod sites like ilounge and iPhone Hacks, the iPhone being a widescreen iPod. Gadget sites like Electronista.There are also dedicated iPhone websites started by third parties: iPhonic, iPhoneworld and iPhone Atlas from the MacFixIt people.
Some articles:
Technology Review: The Secret of Apple Design by Daniel Turner (registration required)
iPhone and the Future by Frank Levinson
The iPhone keeps its cool secret by Mike Rogoway
The Unofficial Apple's Consumer Strategy
Entering iPhone Era: Marking Time in Mobile by Tomi T. Ahonen
Sun Tries to Jump on iPhone Bandwagon with jPhone by Daniel Eran
How Do You Like Them Sandwiches?Roughly Drafted: Tech: The iPhone, PDAs, Mobiles, and VoIP Telephony
Apple is a Quiznos. It has the stores, employees, recipes, product variety, past success, reputation, and demand.
Suddenly it's obvious that the value of the iPhone isn't just that it has a clever grid of squarish icons on the front, or that it is a thin phone, but that it is an integrated product and part of an overall successful business.
The most uninformed iPhone article yet: Apple's Hype Phone by Laura Goldman
Apple's iPhone Rocks the Cell Phone Industry by Paul Carton.
January 2007: Analysis: iPhone will change the world "iPhone is a phone media centric device that confuses categories"
Labels: Apple, design, iPhone, rave
ω 7:24:00 PM.Programmable computing devices
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Backpack for your mobile.GeekBrief TV is a tech news podcast presented by "Cali Lewis". She's cute and informative.
The Amiga is back! This article is old and a bit of a tease but brings us more-or-less up-to-date with the Amiga computer. For more info see amiga.org, amigaweb.net, amigaos.dk, wiki.aminet.net, www.amigafuture.de, www.amiga-hardware.com... in these days of Mac and Windows it might seem an anachronism but imagine how its virtual memory multitasking OS would fly on modern hardware.
For both Mac and Windows: Subway maps for your iPod. Or for webmasters, how about a portable CSS guide: just copy the westciv Style Master CSS podGuide to the Notes folder on your iPod.
Rather than packing an obliterator ray in your holiday luggage, you can remove unsightly people from your snaps with Tourist Remover, a free online photo tool.
PC myths: IBM's BIOS.
macbillboard has smashing desktop wallpaper, especially some beautiful isometric artwork.
Get free PowerPoint templates from A PowerPoint Blog.
Persuasive game: Disaffected! sounds a bit depressing to me. It puts the player in the role of a copy shop employee.
Disaffected! gives the player the chance to step into the demotivated position of real FedEx Kinkos employees. Feel the indifference of these purple-shirted malcontents first-hand, and consider the possible reasons behind their malaise -- is it mere incompetence? Managerial affliction?For Mac only: free games. Actually, most games are free for people like me who seldom get to level 3, thanks to demo mode. macgamefiles.com
David Weiss works at Microsoft as a software design engineer in the Mac Business Unit. A programmer, in other words?
todo.txt is a way of maintaining a to do list with text and scripts from the command line, on Unix or Mac OS X.
Julian Wright is doing superb work on mobile.feisar.com to make sure iSync works with all the latest Sony Ericsson mobile phones via Bluetooth and he also provides icons and themes. Makes me wanna trade-in my old Alcatel.
Mac Webdesign Workflow recommends some great software for making web sites - will he ever use Dreamweaver? Oh, the tension.
For all you presentation fiends, Les Posen's CyberPsych Blog is strong on Keynote. Al Gore and Steve Jobs do not use PowerPoint!
Hello Mac - the lost 1984 video clip collection. Steve Jobs spoke faster then.
I reboot my Mac at home every five or six weeks, when Apple sends me a system upgrade, otherwise I would never need to. Windows machines, on the other hand, need frequent rebooting. Crash Test.
The workaround is to reboot them periodically, and savvy Windows sysadmins typically do this as a matter of routine every month. If they fail to do this, their servers will progressively slow down, choking on their own detritus. Eventually, after a tad under 50 days, they'll automatically shut down, even if they're managing one of the most safety-critical tasks in the world.Announcing the Apple iProduct. The riposte: Apple Haters Unite!
Dashboard Widgets Showcase.
Take a virtual tour around Apple Store Fifth Avenue.
Realize your strange ideas and creative desires with Apple's iLife Tutorials for iPhoto, iMovie HD, Garageband, iTunes, iDVD and iWeb.
Naughty. HandBrake copies DVD films to iPod or PSP format. Update thanks to Technorati Profile I know this now called MediaFork.
A new use for old Macs: MacQuarium.
Hrmpf! is a good Apple blog.
295 different Apple Mail icons. I use the Boris Karloff icon.
I have dreams about taking this to concerts. iTalk is a high quality stereo microphone for the iPod. In the seventies I took a big cassette recorder with me to lots of concerts and no-one seemed to mind. It's tremendously evocative listening to Hawkwind occasionally filtered by the unique acoustics of the toilets in the Hammersmith Odeon.
Labels: Apple, computing, links, Macintosh
ω 8:58:00 PM.
Comments by: YACCS.
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