{"id":329,"date":"2007-01-11T00:05:33","date_gmt":"2007-01-10T15:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2007-01-11\/329"},"modified":"2007-01-11T00:05:33","modified_gmt":"2007-01-10T15:05:33","slug":"thoughts-on-the-iphone-and-phone-usability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2007-01-11\/329","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on the iPhone and Phone Usability"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n

I've never had a cell phone that didn't totally suck. This is as true\nfor you as it is for me, because they are all<\/i> horrible. The only metric<\/span> in which a cell<\/span> phone can't rate “abysmal” is when\ncompared against other cell phones, because there are different levels of\nabysmal.<\/p>\n\n

For example, every phone number in America is 10 digits and of the form\n“(123) 456-7890”, so when you type in 10 digits on an\nAmerican-market phone (or bring up numbers in your phone book, or receive a\ncall<\/span> with caller id), why do most of them display a big<\/span> mash of numbers\nlike “1234567890”? It's just moronic<\/b>. Even the\njust-released Motorola phone I got<\/span> last summer did this, and was an overall\nusability disaster<\/a>.\nMotorola has been around for a long<\/span> time... has it never learned\nanything<\/i> about designing a product<\/span> for humans to use?<\/p>\n\n

It's not just Motorola; it's all phone manufactures. (I've had some\nNokia stock since 2004, but now that I think<\/span> about it, I don't<\/span> want it, so\nI just<\/span> sold it while typing this.)<\/p>\n\n

There's no technical reason behind this complete lack of development in\nuser interfaces. I think<\/span> a good<\/span> percent of the general population could\ndesign something better on their first try, so the problem must be that the\nsmall population of people who actually work for phone manufactures are\ntotal idiots.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nCall Waiting, iPhone Style<\/div>\n\n\n

Until today.<\/p>\n\n\n

I watched the introduction of Apple's iPhone<\/a> today (via this video<\/a>) and was astounded, not\nthat the iPhone seems to have such a great<\/span> user-interface design (although\nit does), but that it's so great in the face of a history<\/span> of moronic\nphone design<\/i>.\n\n<\/p>

\n\nIt's been designed like the cell phone should have been designed many years\nago. That usability has been combined with current, state-of-the-art\ntechnology, so its feature set is advanced. Advanced and<\/i> usable.\nThat'd be an oxymoron from just about any company except Apple and\nTiVo.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n

It seems that the phrase generally used to describe Apple's other\nproducts — “it just works<\/i><\/b>” — will\napply here as well.\n\n<\/p>

\n\nI've never used more than the most basic features of any cell phone I've\nhad because I don't<\/span> have the time or energy to invest in learning the\ncrappy extra features that I'd be frustrated with if I did<\/span> use them. Tiny\nscreen, slow and expensive internet access to wimpy pretend\npseudo-“web” pages. Ugh.\n\n<\/p>

\n\nBut the iPhone.... wow. The hour-long live demo in the video showed a whole<\/span>\nnew world of usability in all aspects of the device... phone, music player,\nphoto viewer, video player, internet browser.... It seems<\/span> to be designed\nfor humans<\/i>, to actually use<\/i>. Pure Apple.<\/p>\n\n

It runs OSX, so I wonder how long before Firefox and Photoshop are ported to it.<\/p>\n\n
\n

<\/a>\nBrowsing the Web, iPhone Stylebird's-eye view<\/small><\/div>\n\n

Of course, the Apple Cult faithful will drink the Apple cool-aid no\nmatter what Apple puts out, and I should<\/span> make it clear that I'm not such a\nperson.<\/span> I bought<\/span> my first Apple product, a laptop,<\/span> just before Anthony was\nborn in 2002. True to Apple form, it not only didn't suck in most every\nway; it was wonderful<\/i>. (Unfortunately, product longevity is not\nApple's strong suit, and I had<\/span> to buy a replacement<\/span> last summer.)<\/p>\n\n

I've since bought two iPods (the second to replace the first<\/a> that I\nlost<\/span> in Malaysia) and that second laptop, a MacBook.<\/span> I was sufficiently<\/span>\nimpressed with these products, as a consumer,<\/span> that I put<\/span> most of the\nproceeds from the sale of\nour house<\/a> into Apple stock. (What didn't go into Apple went into Adobe,\nbecause I'm extremely impressed with Lightroom<\/a>, their\nphoto-workflow application that I'm sure I'll write about more in the\nfuture.)<\/p>\n\n

The biggest problem I have with the iPhone is that it's not out yet, and\neven after it does come out, it'll take a long<\/span> time before it finds its way\nto the Japanese market. (When it does, I predict<\/span> that they'll go with\nSoftBank as the service provider; time will tell.)<\/p>\n\n

So, I have to<\/span> wait, and live with my current phone that's full of\npedestrian features hidden behind a complex,<\/span> opaque user interface.<\/p>\n\n

Sometimes, it just sucks to be me.<\/p>\n\n
\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I've never had a cell phone that didn't totally suck. This is as true for you as it is for me, because they are all horrible. The only metric in which a cell phone can't rate \"abysmal\" is when compared against other cell phones, because there are different levels of abysmal.<\/p>

For example, every phone number in America is 10 digits and of the form \"(123) 456-7890\", so when you type in 10 digits on an American-market phone (or bring up numbers in your phone book, or receive a call with caller id), why do most of them display a [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}