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While reading an article partly about the iPhone user experience, a thought dawned on me about the virtual keyboard.  Like many other people, I was afraid that the lack of tactile feedback would be disorienting and difficult to get accustomed to.  And, like most people who have moved to the iPhone, I’ve found that it really isn’t.  That got me thinking about the whole nature of “touch typing”. 

Think back to high school (those of you who actually took typing classes).  What was the “sales pitch” the teacher gave you about “touch typing”? Well, it made you more efficient by stopping you from having to repeatedly move your eyes from the keyboard to the screen (or, er, paper - at least when I was in high school).

Now think about the iPhone.  Where’s the keyboard? Where’s the screen? Your eyes never have to move more than 3 inches to jump between the two.  AND, with the large visual pop-up key feedback (the real stroke of genius), you can rely on your peripheral vision to ensure correct keypresses, and still never take your eyes off of the entered text.  Apple simply took a negative limitation of a mobile device (limited room for both display and input), and turned it into a positive - the ability to support a virtual keyboard by replacing tactile feedback with peripheral visual feedback.

Turning limitations into advantages is a hallmark of both great marketing and great user experience design.  Whenever you’re in the process of designing a transformative product like the iPhone, always be sure to ask yourself “What old rules no long apply?”

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Peter Elkind of Fortune just wrote a scathing article about Steve Jobs in Fortune Magazine, but this post isn’t really about this.  It’s about this included quote from former Apple CEO (and sacker of Steve Jobs), John Sculley:

“Apple was supposed to become a wonderful consumer products company. This was a lunatic plan. High tech could not be designed and sold as a consumer product.”

This wasn’t just an offhand comment to the press.  It’s committed for posterity in Sculley’s memoir: “Odyssey” (13 used copies are currently available for $0.01 if you’re looking for further inspiration.)

And this is why he really should have stuck with selling “sugared water”.

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It has nothing to do with OS X.  Well, not in the way most Apple fans think.

I recently stumbled across two different, unrelated articles which point to the same conclusion.  In order for comptuters to truly shine, the software MUST be tied to the hardware.

The first article, “Has Vista Lost all Credibility?” talks about how product development and product marketing conflicts between Intel, Dell, and Microsoft led to a lot of the faults of Vista (and provides 158 pages of internal email evidence backing it up).

The second article, “Why I Quit“, by former Linux kernel developer Con Kolivas, talks about how even with complete control over the software, the PC platform architecture has become so convoluted over the decades that machines that are technically 1,000 times faster, they’re 10 times slower in “doing stuff”, like playing audio or moving windows.

This problem is only getting worse, and Vista has proven it once and for all.  The open “Wintel” architecture used to matter, when people were regularly building and upgrading their own systems, but those days are long gone.  With $250 PC’s at Wal-Mart, the average user is as likely to upgrade their own computers as they are their pocket calculator.  PC’s are disposable commodities now, and people are fine with that.

Apple knows this, which is why they developed the Macbook Air the way they did.  You can’t even (officially) replace the battery in this thing.  It’s a sealed, black box for the average user, and even though it comes at a premium price, people don’t care.  They want the illusion that the computer is just a single thing that just does what you want, whether it’s powered by Intel, Motorola, or magical fairies.

True innovation in computing (in this day and age) will only come from an integrated hardware and software platform.  The Amiga was a quantum leap ahead of its contemporaries (as Con Kolivas points out) because of its hardware innovations.  Apple is currently the only company following this path, and this is why Macs will become the defacto home computer within 20 years, regardless of how cool OS X is.

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So, anyone on the fence about upgrading to Mac OS X Leopard, just… don’t. I mean, it’s not as much a step backward as going from XP to Vista, but I’ve found very little in it that has improved my life. In fact, I’ve spent a whole lot of time figuring out how to hack away most of its changes:

1. Removing the horrible translucent menu bar. Here’s how I did it.
2. Getting rid of the ridiculous 3D dock. Here’s how I did it.
3. Changing the folder icons to ones that are, well, distinguishable. Here’s a good set.
4. Getting rid of the abysmal Stacks. Oops, can’t be done. But putting Aliases instead of folders in the dock can help. You don’t get the “show-as-menu-mouse-button-hold” thing, but at least you can avoid the stupid Fan and Grid views, and use a recognizable icon.

I also have never gotten my Aiport Disk drives to work quite right in Leopard, and Time Machine, the one compelling reason to upgrade, required a hack to work with my wireless drives.

And just as a final note, the OS has literally lost its sheen. Sure, early versions of brushed metal were a bit tacky, but I really miss the faint pinstripes, metal textures and other subtle effects. The totally flat gray widows of Leopard are just… blah.

I guess there’s some good back-end stuff going on in the Leopard kernel and whatnot but nothing that’s really changed MY life. And, of course, you can’t sell a $129 OS upgrade to regular folks without throwing in some new whizbang features. But I get the feeling that (aside from the brilliant Time Machine) Apple just focused on the back end for Leopard, and threw in some entirely rushed and thoughtless UI changes just to give folks the impression that they were buying an improved experience. I wouldn’t say that Emperor Leopard has no clothes, but they’re wearing out as quickly as a $20 acrylic sweater.

Filed under Apple, General Computing 1 Comment »

Apple 4GB iPhone price: $299
Apple 4GB Out-of-Warranty repair price (regardless of what’s wrong): $199.

Apple’s Out-of-Warranty pricing seems to work this way: Charge as much money as possible without convincing the user just to buy a new product.  Thereby, A) Making them feel like an idiot for breaking the item, and B.) Not giving them the satisfaction of at least getting a shiny new item.

I bring this up for no particular reason.  Oh wait, I forgot my Twitter posts show up on my blog… Wish me luck.

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iPhone version 1.1 software has been released. Update yer phones via iTunes.

New features according to the installer:

• iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store
• Louder speakerphone and receiver volume
• Home Button double-click shortcut to phone favorites or music controls
• Space bar double-tap shortcut to intelligently insert period and space
• Mail attachments are viewable in portrait and landscape
• Stocks and cities in Stocks and Weather can be re-ordered
• Apple Bluetooth Headset battery status in the Status Bar
• Support for TV Out
• Preference to turn off EDGE/GPRS when roaming internationally
• New Passcode lock time intervals
• Adjustable alert volume

Oddly enough, the non-sortable cities in the Weather app really was annoying me… Aside from the Wi-Fi Music Store, I think I could take or leave all the rest… I’d love for Home Button double-click to bring me to Safari bookmarks…

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Amazon just started a store offering DRM Free MP3 Downloads for a measly $0.89. Well, some are $0.99, but they’re still cheaper than paying $1.19 for the same tracks at the iTunes store - and they’re encoded at an ear pleasing 256k bit rate. I don’t know what the music biz oligarchs are up to, but enjoy it while it lasts…

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Have an Apple Mighty Mouse (or regular optical mouse?) Check out this optical illusion and/or Easter Egg…

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If you use Boot Camp on a Mac to dual boot between Windows and Mac OS X, you have likely noticed that the clock goes wonky every time you switch between operating systems.  Here’s a quick registry hack for the Windows side that rectifies this problem (I hope… I’m blogging this before I actually reboot to try it out…)

Filed under Apple, General Computing 1 Comment »

This is huge. Apple and EMI have announced that Apple will begin selling DRM-free tracks from EMI, one of the “big four” record companies. I never saw this coming—at least not this soon. I figured some indie labels might have jumped first, but that would have just been a small baby step—and Steve Jobs isn’t exactly a fan of incremental change. I’m not sure how Jobs pulled it off, but kudos to him.

Now begins a great social experiment. DRM detractors have long claimed that DRM free music will sell better than protected music - the argument being that, thanks to the ubiquity of the Internet, a single unprotected file can spread just as fast as a million copies, so you’re only inconveniencing the “good guys”. Remove the DRM and the convenience factor will convince the good guys to buy more music. I want to believe this is true. I hope this is true. Now we get to find out.

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The ironically named “ThoughtOut.biz” has created the MagStay PRO, a handly little plastic widget which prevents Apple’s MagSafe power adapter from accidentally being removed from your MacBook Pro. Which, incidentally, is the entire purpose of the MagSafe connector. But who am I to tell people that they shouldn’t pay $11.99 to de-fling-off-table-proof their laptop.

Filed under Apple, Gear and Gadgets 1 Comment »

I’m now a 100% Mac user (aside from the incident where my mom wanted to show my wife a “how-to-knit” CD-ROM that was Windows-only. I have an iMac in my home office, and i use a MacBook Pro at work. One thing I’m learning about Mac culture is that Mac users are a productivity-minded lot. Contrary to the stereotype that we’re noodling on GarageBand or iMovie all day, Mac users like to get things done quickly, their way.

There are so many Mac apps devoted to this goal. Some examples:

VoodooPad: A personal Wiki tool that lets you do damn near anything.

TextMate: A text/code editor that brings the “customize everything” ethos of Emacs into the modern world.

TextExpander: A tool that lets you create really cool text abbreviations that expand into long chunks of text that you would otherwise repeatedly type out.

Quicksilver: I haven’t even quite figured out what this does, but it’s some sort of major productivity enhancing tool with a cult-like following.

I bring this up now because I came across this great quote from a Mac user stuck working on a PC for a while:

One thing Windows does is make me want to give up earlier. I actually just don’t care if I can’t figure out a good way to do something. This is an exciting new feeling - I just give up and get back to work, and each time, I feel a little more like a real grownup. You know, how you feel after all your youthful dreams have died.

Filed under Apple, General Computing, Microsoft 1 Comment »

Anyone who’s used Vista (especially back in the beta days) knows why this is funny.

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Here’s another Steve Jobs “Q&A” that beautifully sums up Apple’s approach to technology vs. Microsoft’s.

QUESTION: Microsoft has announced its new iPod competitor, Zune. It says that this device is all about building communities. Are you worried?

ANSWER: In a word, no. I’ve seen the demonstrations on the Internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes forever. By the time you’ve gone through all that, the girl’s got up and left! You’re much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you’re connected with about two feet of headphone cable.

Via Newsweek, via 37signals

He’s got a point.

Filed under Apple, Gear and Gadgets, Microsoft 1 Comment »