[Sigia-l] Tog on iPhone

[tOM Trottier]

On Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 0:35,
Will Parker <wparker at channelingdesign.com> wrote

> On Jan 16, 2007, at 10:14 PM, tOM Trottier wrote:
...
> > Yep, Tog confirms that the iPhone is just perfect for the
> > dumb/rich  market quadrant. Cool, simple, visionary crippled
> > interface. A better iPod
> 
> Thanks very much for your guidance, but I'll wait 'til I get my
> hands  on the thing itself to decide whether I'm dumb and rich
> enough to buy  one. I probably qualify on both axes, but I want to
> be really, really  sure about that.

Smart people use hammers too, and everybody knows how dumb a sack of them are.

The iPhone IS a better iPod. A good cool status symbol.
 
> > I also wonder how the iPhone will work with wide web pages -
> > unlike  the NYT/CNN narrow columns - with hardcoded column
> > widths... Reformat? Greek text?  Incomplete lines? Scroll sideways
> > with finger?
> 
> Wide web pages? Heck, those suck raw sewage on regular browsers with
>  screens under 1600px wide -- which means that the problem, dear 
> friends, is in the designer, not the browser. When it comes to 
> reading devices (and I see browsers as a sub-class of that
> category),  sensible people design for readability.

Yes, true, but so many assume screens of 800px+ width.

> > Pogue says it won't work with fingernails or styli, so goodbye
> > good  editing capabilities.
> 
> Ah, yes - cuneiform is so much better since we stopped using mud.

Fingerpainting/printing is so much more expressive than using a pen/pencil/brush, and much 
faster than cutting up letters from the paper.

> However, let's hold on to that pronunciamento for just a second and 
> per Frank Gehry's advice (see sig block below), as people interested
>  in UI design and behavior, let's think about this for a minute and 
> see whether there's in fact a real solution to this particular
> problem.

True, it is just announced, and s/w changes, or evaporates, so quickly.

Maybe the killer app will be a great game? Stereo sound effects?
(would be neat if Jobs had a 3D display with sensing of fingers' 3D position above screen 
... maybe next time)

> Here's the formal question for the group: HOW WOULD YOU design a set
>  of text editing functions to work with the iPhone touch screen? Is 
> there a general solution for rapid, reasonably error-free text input
>  on a finger-operated touch screen that does NOT involve memorizing
> 83  gestural macros or other skull-mounted firmware?

Fitaly "keyboard" or similar? Bigger than on Palm, of course.
A bigger screen would be better, extending the full length.

But editing is the big problem. 
How do you point to the insertion point, or select text, with your big fingers obscuring the view.

> (Please note that I think the ideal solution is to AVOID having to 
> play the Crackberry game of blasting text into your mobile device 
> every five minutes, but let's leave discussions of addictive
> behavior  aside. Design solutions only, please.)

Voice recognition would be great for input, messy for editing.
 
> - Will
> 
> Will Parker
> wparker at ChannelingDesign.com
> http://www.ChannelingDesign.com
> 
> "Well, let's look at it for awhile and be irritated by it and then 
> we'll figure out what to do." - Frank Gehry on the creative process


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