iPad Guided Tours →
Apple has launched their guided tour to the iPad. A couple quick thoughts:
- Dang, that thing looks amazing.
- Dang, that models hands are steady.
Drool.
Pat Dryburgh is a freelance designer.
London, Ontario
I Have To Say…
I opened the Lightroom 3 Beta a few weeks back, and within minutes had imported photos and was editing them.
I’m about an hour into using Aperture 3’s thirty-day trial. I don’t think I could be more confused.
Aperture is very, very pretty. Lightroom doesn’t fit the Mac OS X environment, something I care about a lot.
Adobe, Apple — you both have 30 days to convince me. Go.
Would you say to someone, “Wow, you must hate dogs. You only have one. You enjoy his company and playing with him, but seriously, only one? What do you have against dogs?”.
No, you wouldn’t say that. Because it’s a stupid thing to say.
The shallow assumption of Apple’s buttons is they hate buttons, the deeper conclusion is they love the shit out of a few important buttons. I bet they obsess over the placement, color, label, push-back and feel of every single button on every Apple device.
Humans suffer from a subjective viewpoint. We see the universe with us at the center of it. It’s almost impossible to gauge anything outside of our own desires…when we size up a new gadget such as the iPad we consider first and foremost: “What good is it TO ME?”.
User experience designers, however, cannot long suffer this fate. We must design (and hopefully critique other designs) from a more objective viewpoint.
Apple’s iPad: For what Audience? - 52 Weeks of UX
First, I can’t get over how great this site is. Second, the writers have nailed it when it comes to geeks like us critiquing the iPad. Sure, there are a ton of things I would love for it to do, but I can almost guarantee that adding those things would simply confuse the person that this device is actually intended for.
I have to say, I have a lot of thoughts running through my head regarding Apple’s announcement today. However, I am not qualified nor do I have the time to rehash everything there is to say about it. Lucky for me, I know lots of people who have lots to say about it:
- David Kaneda gives a brief rundown of the iPad: its software, hardware, and accessories.
- Kyle Baxter postulates, as I do, that “for a lot of people, like students and normal computer users, this could be their only computing device.”
- Elliot Jay Stocks comments that “the pessimist in me sees the e-book functionality as the iPad’s core, with all the extra stuff added as fluff to make it appear that it’s not just an e-book reader. I guess I was expecting a bit more.” I disagree with his thought that the e-book is the core of the iPad. Apple sees this as a true replacement for a laptop for those who don’t need Pro level software and hardware.
- Kyle Meyer agrees: “We (geeks) aren’t Apple’s target audience with the iPad.” My mom would not just love this device, she would thrive on it. No more file system headaches, no more “how do I do this” questions. She doesn’t want the headaches that come with traditional computing. An iPad paired with the keyboard dock would be the perfect computing solution for her and countless millions like her.
- Lastly, Chris Bowler questions what this new device, and the direction it seems Apple is heading, means for the desktop (or laptop) experience:
It seems clear that all this technology will trickle down to (or take over) the desktop at Cupertino. But will it be open or closed? I shudder to think of OS X (or it’s future derivative) as closed, when it’s the third party ecosystem that brings me the most enjoyment on this platform. And this ecosystem is a result of the openness of the OS.
I hope that the iPad is a success, because as I stated above, I think it could dramatically improve the computing experience of a lot of people. That can only have a positive affect on those of us who work to create amazing experiences on the desktop, web, and mobile platforms.
Steve Jobs explains the Apple Store (via doctoreeee)
I unfortunately live 2 hours away from the closest Apple store, so I do not have a lot of experience shopping in one. However, from everything I’ve read, I know that Apple has put a ton of thought into how it all works for their users.
In this video, introducing the first Apple store, Steve Jobs walks viewers through the different sections of the store, highlighting some interesting sections, such as the “Solutions” section, as well as the “Genious Bar.”
Watching this video, I couldn’t help but feel that the layout, aesthetics, and overall quality of the store is just as fresh today as it was back then. Aside from the obviously dated computers sitting on the display counters, I doubt many could guess that this store is almost a decade old now.
Then, Who Wants a Tablet?
Today, Tim Van Damme made a very compelling and in some ways exciting argument for an Apple Tablet that would not only compliment the desktop computing experience, but would integrate fully into it. An illustration below explains what that means:
Illustration by Tim Van Damme
While on one hand this solution seems, in my mind at least, to be the only viable solution speculated on so far, on the other hand it gives me yet another reason to ask “if this is it, then who the heck wants one of these?”
According to Tim’s argument, the Tablet would essentially “dock” itself into an iMac like docking station to create the “desktop” experience. For a more laptop-like experience, the Tablet would dock itself into the base of a laptop keyboard.
My argument is that we already have an experience like this.
I currently own a 15” Macbook Pro. I use this laptop at the office, at home, at coffee shops, on the sofa, etc. It pretty much follows wherever I go. Anywhere that is uncomfortable to use the Macbook Pro, I use my iPhone.
At the office, I have a 24” Dell monitor. Paired with an external keyboard and mouse, my laptop+monitor combination creates a truly desktop-like experience (without the hassle of a gigantic tower sitting at my feet). When I’m out and about I can use the Macbook Pro as a true laptop, with the best keyboard and trackpad experience available on any laptop today. In both circumstances, I have all of my files with me wherever I go.
“But”, one may argue, “the Tablet will let you sit on your couch! Don’t you get how cool that is?” To which I respond by simply pulling out my iPhone and showing how incredibly cool and powerful Mobile Safari and all of the other iPhone apps are, all while holding a drink in my other hand and sitting comfortably on my sofa.
I can think of no experience in my life where a Tablet makes sense. Maybe I’m the outlier here, and the general population could really use something like the Tablet. Unless, as I tweeted last week, the Apple Tablet can do something truly miraculous, I just don’t feel that same “I need to have that” feeling I get with most other Apple products.
