Fun from the iPad
Made a couple of drawing while playing with the iPad and Sketchbook Pro. It is an amazing user experience… now if I could only get some amazing drawing skills. Enjoy!
Does the iPhone not like some artists?
So as many of you know I have sold my soul to devil and finally broke down and bought an iPhone. Over the last month or so I have found it to be a great tool but one that is definitely flawed.
One of the flaws that has been plaguing me is a missing artist on my play list. This sounds stupid but I thought I was loosing my mind because I could swear that it was there and that I have heard it play when I was using it as background music. I finally have conclusive proof that it is there and in fact, there is an odd bug that plagues the iPhone.
Basically I can look the song up by its name but when trying to find it by artist there is no listing. The really odd part is that for this given artist (Pepper) it occurs on my wife’s iPhone as well.
Is Apple trying to boycott this particular artists? (joking)
Package manager first impressions are amazing
I recently got an iPhone and in true geek fashion I have been excitedly showing some of its fun features to anyone that will listen. The one feature that seems to get a lot of reaction from people is the AppStore. People love how you can simply select something and next thing you know it is installed and ready to go. No download and unzip, no double click the icon, no restarting, no fuss.
None of them realize that there is an entire operating system that generally functions the same way albeit a lot less flashy. The package managers in most modern Linux distributions work on the exact same principals. Simply select an application you wish to install and it will take care of the rest. Some distributions go even farther and have a bit friendlier interface to their repository such as Ubuntu’s Add/Remove programs.
Perhaps Ubuntu should take a few ques from Apple on this and improve the experience a bit more. First of all the naming convention is boring and could easily be confused with the traditional Windows area which no one used. Second they should provide screen shots of the applications. Generally before I install an application I want to know what the interface looks like. Finally they should try and integrate some social capabilities. This would allow users to read reviews from other users who may be like them.
These few changes could greatly improve the experience of adding applications. It could also become a major “selling” point of the OS.
How Apple’s Safari Browser May Rise To Power
Love it or hate it, Apple’s Safari web browser has started making gains in market share. These gains have been small by many accounts but I believe Safari has a couple things going for it that currently Firefox and IE can’t compete with. Its ability to be easily embedded into and modified.
This ability does not come directly from Safari but rather its open source rendering engine, Webkit. This engine has proven to be extremely competent and lightweight. It also has one of the fastest rendering times available.
Because it is easy to work with and free(as in speech and beer) it is now being used not only by Safari, but Adobe’s AIR environment and you can even run Epiphany with a Webkit engine.
The mobile environment is where this browser will really get its wings from. Currently there is nothing that can compete with it in this area. It is extremely fast and allows users to view websites as they where intended.
Perhaps more importantly it creates an easy to use interface for navigating pages that where clearly designed for much larger monitors. This is the piece that really makes the difference. It renders the page in its entirety in a zoomed out view. From there the user can simply double click on an area to zoom in. Once zoomed in you can simply move around the page, or zoom out as necessary.
This combination, if unopposed may help vault Safari into a prominent position.
My first Apple puchase
Well I finally bit the bullet and purchased an Apple product. I know it is hard to believe that someone who is such a technology geek and an interaction designer is just now getting around to purchasing an iPod.
In the short time I have owned the Apple iPod Touch I must admit that the user experience is unrivaled in its market. This isn’t to say that it is perfect, far from it. Apple does an extraordinary job of hand shaping the user experience from end to end. They seem to think of almost everything.
This extreme molding of the experience comes at a cost that most people never discuss. Apple controls every detail of every product they offer and they are not afraid of limiting the user’s ability to edit or modify the product to their taste.
In my opinion this is an ugly mark against against an exemplary user experience. As a user’s knowledge grows, so does their desire to “own” the product. By this I mean, that when a user becomes comfortable with how something works they often want to customize it to their taste. This can be something small like a theme or something larger like configuring obscure features or setting default behavior through out an application.
By limiting the user’s ability to personalize the product, Apple limits the user’s ability to grow to their fullest potential. It also limits their products ability to reach it’s maximum potential as user’s may not find the resolution to the problem their are seeking answers for.
Perhaps my view is a little biased because I like Linux’s Kool-Aid a little more than Apple’s. What do you think?