My last post about "reverse switching" from an iPhone back to a BlackBerry generated a lot of great comments that I believe warrant a short follow-up (much shorter than the original post, I promise). I can't address all the comments, but here are a few thoughts.
For the record, in my post, I'm describing 3.1 software on an iPhone 3G.
Yes, the 3GS actually speed some things up, such as the camera; however, in my view, the iPhone's speed issue is not one of CPU horsepower, but because of its fundamental interface architecture. As I say in the article, the paned, step-by-step interface is "easy," but it puts a limit on how fast it can be used, simply because of the number of steps it requires to perform a task. Apple can speed the CPU all it wants, and it will only make a marginal difference to the key usability index of time on task (the amount of time it takes to start and complete an activity).
(As an aside, on the topic of doing great user interface with a low performance device, here's an old post I wrote about the UI design of the Palm. Palm beat the experience provided by Windows Mobile phones of the day, even though its CPU, memory, and screen were far inferior.)
As some point out, there are things that can be done with a jailbroken phone that address specific issues. However, I'm using a work-issued phone, so I'm not going to jailbreak a phone that doesn't belong to me. Besides, jailbreaking is something that only a tiny percentage of users will risk doing, or even know about. You may say I'm a BlackBerry power user (I don't really think I am; there are people who know way more about it than I do), but things like knowing one's way around the menu are way less geeky than jailbreaking. ... Read More
Google Chrome was born explicitly as a platform for Web applications. From the first bits I saw I can say that Google's new creation delivers most of the promises and brings new interesting innovations in the user experience realm. Competitors will find them hard to ignore, especially when you look at the tab concept improvements. For a good review of these points, you can refer to this post on Ars Technica.
Many hailed Google's move as a revolutionary step. And indeed, with Google Chrome, the Web application era is getting real. Let's look beyond the technology and outline some possible models and consequences Chrome might have for the field of user experience:
Firefox's concept, where the Web browser remains the key tool and the main interface for using a Web application, is a service that is completely online. In this case, the user experience is chiefly based on typical Web technologies, that is, the magic triad XHTML, CSS, and Javascript. Standard Web browsing is blended in with Web application interaction. The user jumps between tabs within the same context and tool.
An alternative model seeks to overcome the Web browser, hiding it for the user, like Mozilla Prism, or at least trying to replace it with a different client and dedicated interfaces. This is the model you can see in action with Adobe Air or Microsoft WPF, and also with Apple's iTunes. In this case, the user experience is based on a mix of locally installed software components and user interfaces, online contents and services. With this model you get the best performances and a more consistent user experience while the Web remains in the background as a distribution channel for data exchange. Any device and system has its own client, designed and created ad hoc. Nevertheless, as you can see with iTunes, the user sometimes is locked into a "walled garden."
The pure online Web application model based on Chrome, with few local components installed on your hardware, is certainly the most promising one: truly open, flexible, and easy to upgrade. But for now, Chrome is still a Web browser, and its dependency from the Web browser's user experience could be a soft spot, or at least a strong constraint for the Web application's evolution.
Talking about the Chrome "revolution," many commentators are using the metaphor of the operating system. The browser plays the part of the platform, and the Web application is the software. But a real operating system is not only a software platform; it also provides a framework for user interaction, a consistent UI layer, as well as components that the software designer and developers usually have to follow. It puts together many small tools and modules, unifies the user experience, and brings into play every software application built on it.
I think that this is the next big challenge. Will Google be able to change the rules of the Web user experience? With Chrome and Android, Google is getting into the big game: building a consistent and unique experience for end users as well as application designers and developers. Google is an acclaimed leader in Web technologies innovation, but from the end user point of view many Web applications are still nothing more than a toy for geeks. Now they have the opportunity to get their beautiful tech jewels out of the eternal beta phase, into true commercial products focused on the end user.
At the Consumer Electronics Show, Hitachi is demo'ing a product called Starboard that is a multi-touch interface at a very large scale. You can use it to control a regular PC, and they've also got some custom apps for it. One of those is shown in the video.
What's interesting is that this is a projected interface, so it's untethered from the need to have a touch-sensitive LCD. This allows it to scale very large relatively inexpensively. They were also showing a wall-size version.
The projector in both cases was a very short throw Hitachi model that could produce an amazingly good image from an extreme angle. For the one in the video, the projector lens was maybe a foot above the surface, perched top-center of the image. Yet the image was completely distortion free and perfectly rectangular and about 4 feet across. Same thing with the one on the wall, which was an even more extreme example.
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