I have proof from an expert that the iPhone interface really is better. Who's the expert? My 3-year-old son.
Over the years, I've seen countless newbies struggle to use the latest gadget, computer, or software. I like new technology, but it's been work hauling myself up learning curves.
But I'm convinced that after years stuck with only modest tweaks to the WIMP interface--windows, icons, menus, pointing device--real change is upon us. That's chiefly because the pointing devices now can be your own fingers.
Levi types random words on the iPhone's notepad application.
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)Within moments of his first crack at an iPhone, my son, Levi, had figured out how to flip from one photo to another by flicking his finger across the screen. He understood with no coaching how to steer the simulated steel ball around the holes in the Labyrinth game by tilting the phone. He loves to type nonsense words on the notepad application using the virtual keyboard, deleting them once they've been read. In the three months since I got the iPhone 3G, Levi has learned to take photos, browse them, change the phone's wallpaper, and, unfortunately, turn off Wi-Fi and switch on airplane mode.
My proudest moment came when Levi issued his first tweet, borrowing my account: "Eesfrrgjlphdvlksxnjjktwsdvnjmmkbvvnn." Though it was largely a matter of chance, of course, he could do it because he likes the cute bluebird icon of the Twitterific application, and touching it with his finger triggers entertaining interactions.
And I was intrigued when Levi tried unsuccessfully to use the phone's accelerometer to play JellyCar, trying to spur the car by tipping the iPhone so the car would "roll" downhill faster. Note to JellyCar developers: your user interface needs work.
Levi's first tweet
(Credit: CNET News)As a parent, of course, it's tempting to assume that Levi's accomplishments are the result of his astounding intelligence. But of course much of the credit has to go to Apple and others who've advanced the state of the interface art.
"Human beings are a lot more programmed to manipulate things with our hands and fingers," said Dan Saffer, a founder of Kicker Studio and author of Designing Gestural Interfaces. "I was at a party with a Microsoft Surface table. There was an infant playing with it, not even a year old, pushing photos around and squealing. It's amazing how much it makes sophisticated computing power accessible to a hugely wide segment of the population."
Keyboards and mice aren't being replaced--they offer speed and precision for typing words, entering data, navigating documents, and issuing commands. But they are becoming just one of a host of mechanisms.
Touch screens, available on some Hewlett-Packard computers, are a big part of the revolution, letting people interact more directly rather than relying on a mouse, joystick, or other indirect pointing device. Multitouch sensors, which can detect multiple fingers simultaneously, add more sophistication, such as the ability to shrink a photo by making a pinching gesture on a trackpad. Newer Apple laptops offer more extensive use of multitouch, though at this stage only through the trackpad rather than a touch screen.
Levi took this picture of his feet with my iPhone while he was sitting in his car seat.
(Credit: Levi)Computing devices also are getting ears and eyes. Speech recognition is available in rough form to power phone search on various phones with services from Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and Vlingo. FluidTunes lets you control your iTunes library by waving your hands in front of a Mac's video camera.
Intuitive, physical interfaces aren't just for kids. I was stunned to see my technophobic mother-in-law gleefully bowling with a Wii last year. Sure, she couldn't have installed Nintendo's still-popular gaming device if we'd paid her, but using it was as easy as tossing a pebble in a pond.
"There are Wii bowling tournaments now for elders. It takes a sport they love, but there's no weight of the ball anymore. They can play it in a wheelchair. It's a huge hit at nursing homes," Saffer said.
It's not just that devices are easier to use when you can touch the interface, he said. It's that it's easier to learn by watching others use them.
"One interesting thing about touch screens is there's this whole realm of observation you don't have with standard computer setups, where the icons are smaller, and it's hard to tell what people are doing by watching," he said. "You can learn how to use an iPhone by watching people flip through it for a second. You can get it in a way you can't with a standard phone, where you're watching people push buttons to get through menus."
Of course, immersion helps, too. Levi's parents spend altogether too much time punching at keyboards and staring at screens, so he's got plenty of examples to emulate his elders. As a camera buff, I'm delighted when Levi pretends to take pictures--he made a toy camera out of Lego once.
A view of Microsoft's Surface device at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel shows a list of entertainment options for hotel guests.
(Credit: Stefanie Olsen/CNET News)But I vacillate between pleasure that he's learning how to use technology and fear that he'll grow up ignorant of the non-electronic world. I'm prone to inordinate "screen time," a term heavily freighted with negative baggage in our household, and Levi's childhood will be far more digitally immersed than mine.
And perhaps worse, there's the prospect of losing my status as resident guru. There are plenty of more technically proficient people in my orbit, but none of them live in my house, and Levi doesn't ask any of them to read his typed nonsense words.
Most families come to some sort of reckoning when their son beats their dad in basketball. Ours will come when my wife asks Levi for technical support.
While children were nestled all snug in their beds, Apple apparently had visions of improved touch-screens in its innovative head.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office revealed a patent application from Apple, dated Christmas Day, for a swipe-gesture system to be used on touch-screen keyboards. It would allow a person to "perform certain functions using swipes across the key area rather than tapping particular keys," according to the patent application, authored by Wayne Westerman.
For example, the application explains that leftward, rightward, upward, and downward swipes might be assigned to inserting a space, backspacing, shifting, or inserting a carriage return.
MacRumors, which was first to point out the patent application, notes that Apple sees swipe gestures being used on top of the iPhone's on-screen keyboard to provide people with quick access to common keys. Ars Technica's Infinite Loop, which like MacRumors explains the patent in more detail, likens the technology to a "Palm Graffiti-like interpretation layer to the standard iPhone keyboard."
Here's a sample gesture depicted in the filing:
A downward swipe might be assigned to 'return.'
(Credit: U.S Patent and Trademark Office)
Nothing is much of a secret about Apple events these days.
Turns out, a high percentage of the rumors and leaked images of the notebooks announced Tuesday were right on target: The price drop, the aluminum casing across the entire product line, the new unibody construction process, the black bezeled displays were all mentioned on Apple rumor sites and gadget blogs before CEO Steve Jobs took the stage Tuesday.
But, as would be expected, several of the most widely circulated pieces of speculation proved false. In brief comments after his keynote speech, Jobs did something he doesn't usually do, and clarified what isn't on his company's immediate notebook road map. Three of them are some of the most oft-repeated rumors of future Apple products. Here's why touch screens, Blu-ray, and Netbooks are not what Apple has in store for us anytime soon.
Blu-ray
Perhaps Jobs' most puzzling or awkward comment during Tuesday's event was regarding what is assumed to be the standard in high-definition packaged media. Regarding Blu-ray, Jobs described it as "a bag of hurt." He expanded, saying that he meant that not from a consumer experience perspective, but that the licensing is expensive and complex. Apple apparently plans to take a wait-and-see approach after Blu-ray has been in the market awhile.
Though Jobs clearly left some wiggle room in his answer, don't expect to see a Blu-ray drive in an Apple notebook anytime soon. If you're disappointed, blame iTunes. Apple is in the middle stages of building a video download business, and it's clear that the company wants its customers to use iTunes to watch high-definition videos, not revert to packaged media, where it can't get a slice of the revenue as it does while selling or renting digital content.
While Blu-ray is certainly the dominant high-definition format, it's still not the dominant packaged media format. DVD sales are tapering off, but still haven't completely disappeared. By the time that happens, it's assumed digital downloading for videos will become more common. In the interregnum, the major Hollywood studios are hedging their bets, some offering titles as a free download once you buy the title on disc.
But not Apple. In fact, Blu-ray's presence in an Apple computer is pretty much a moot point, according to Steve Baker, vice president of industry analysis for NPD Group.
"They're (Apple) not trying to be everything to everyone like Netflix or Blockbuster. They're going to keep trying to deliver economy around digital downloads. I still question why anybody would question or care whether they'd have Blu-ray," he said.
Touch-screen notebook
Jobs also seemingly put the kibosh on any touch-screen Mac, another rumor that rears its head every once in awhile. When asked Tuesday, Jobs said that while they've looked at touch screens for notebooks, "it hasn't made a lot of sense to us," he said.
Apple is one of the leaders in implementing touch screens in its devices--the iPhone, the iPod Touch--and using them in innovative ways. And while Jobs admitted that his company has looked into it, it's passing on making a notebook version of Hewlett-Packard's TouchSmart PC, the desktop with a touch-screen monitor.
While it would be innovative to put one in a notebook, it's not really likely from any major computer makers at this point, according to Charles Smulders, Gartner's managing vice president.
"We're seeing some vendors using touch screens, but it's typically on the desktop form factor not on a notebook," he said. HP's TouchSmart, for instance, is designed to be used in a room like the kitchen, where interactions are more brief. Long-term or all-day use generally requires input devices like a keyboard.
Netbook
And though many Apple fans were hoping for a Netbook, a cheaper, underfeatured notebook, from the company Tuesday, they'll have to wait longer. When asked about that Tuesday, Jobs said Netbooks are still a nascent market and that "we'll see how it goes."
While he certainly left some room to change his mind, he didn't sound excited about the category at all. And the company might be timid about getting into the Netbook market since its attempts at the smaller, cheaper Mac Mini weren't that well received, said Baker of NPD.
"They did a Nettop (a desktop version of a Netbook) and it wasn't particularly successful, if you think about the Mac Mini as a precursor to Nettops," he said.
On one hand, it does make sense for Apple to leave Netbooks out of its Mac lineup if just to preserve its brand image. (Just look at the reaction to Apple lowering the price of its lowest-end MacBook to $999.) Netbooks are based almost purely on price, and Apple doesn't make its product decisions on price points, but rather features.
Any lower price point would be likely be a big hit to the quality of experience Apple tries to deliver, and its margins. (While Apple is catching up in the U.S., it's still far outpaced in units shipped by HP, Dell, and Acer, which can afford a side business of making smaller, cheaper Netbooks.)
But while Jobs' comments Tuesday don't sound too promising, he certainly left plenty of room to change his mind. After all, he's right about Netbooks being very new. And while they're selling relatively well right now, there's not a lot of innovation in the sector. As the market matures, there's plenty of room for Apple to jump in, according to Smulders.
"It's such an early developing market; there's a long way to go before the optimum form factor and user experience is delivered," he said.
For complete coverage of the Apple notebook news, see "Apple polishes up its MacBook line."
It seems that a few iPhone users are encountering problems with the iPhone's touch screen, prompting Apple to replace some units.
Posters on Apple's support discussion boards and forums belonging to both AppleInsider and MacRumors have complained of dead spots on their iPhone's touch screen, almost like the old floor at the old Boston Garden. On a phone based almost entirely around touch-screen input, this would obviously be a serious problem.
Some posters in Apple's discussion boards and elsewhere are reporting dead spots on their iPhone's touch screen.
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)It's not at all clear how widespread a problem this is. There were several active discussions about the problem on Apple's own support forums, noted by AppleInsider and others, but they appear to have been recently pulled from the site. Other Apple-hosted threads are still active, with fewer individuals complaining of dead spots on their iPhone screens.
Apple appears to be replacing iPhones for customers who have encountered this problem, according to AppleInsider's report and the forum postings. An Apple representative did not immediately return a call seeking more information about the problem.
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