The iPhone 4 is an amazing looking product. And it feels even better. I can best describe it as sleek, it’s thinness and glossy glass body makes it smooth to touch and to get out of a pocket.

The bumper takes all that away. With a thick rubber edge that sticks to your hand, your pocket, the table, everything really. With plastic sides making the bumper pretty useless for protecting the phone from dropping it on the sides.

I don’t know. I can’t figure out what it’s for.

Basically, don’t go near this thing. It really sucks.

Just think about it, coming home from a shopping spree just aching to tell your spouse about the hideous dress/jacket/guy you saw. Whipping out your iPhone and displaying the picture on your Apple TV or iPad. Sounds like the future to me!

There are only two questions that come to mind I’m really interested in:

1. Will Airplay allow us to send content to a Mac as well as from one?
2. We know third party devices will be able to receive media but can third party apps also send media through Airplay? Since it’s a part of iOS it should be an open API… right?

Check out the CNET write up for more thoughts on Airplay.

The great design site UXmyths recently wrote an article claiming to debunk the use of Millers number in design. The article is a great read and really well researched, I recommend reading it to anyone who hasn’t studied Miller in psychology or cognition class.
But the article missed the mark. It debunks how people use Millers number, but not the importance of Millers number nor it’s application in design. Basically, I think somewhere along the way someone misinterpreted the theory. Let me explain why.

Millers number
The renowned psychologist George Miller is most famous for discovering a certain limit to the human short term memory. This limit has to do with the number of information bits that a person can remember at any one time, he called it the Magic number 7 +- 2.
This in itself has absolutely nothing to do with design, just as the article on UXmyths has detailed.

Short term memory and decision making
To think about something we need to hold the different thoughts or parts of thoughts in our minds. This is especially important in decision making where it is not to your conscious advantage to forget parts of the decision. Since this is limited to 7+-2 we can never remember more parts of any choice. But what about ideas? What about bits of information that are really just the sums of huge amounts of other information? To handle things like this we use chunking.

Chunking?
Chunking is the process where we categorize information that fit together, for any satisfactory reason, into one bit of information. For example a car is seen as a car not “a metal body with chair in that sits on four wheel rotated by an engine”. For the best explanation of chunking vie seen to date check out visual chunking and the law of Prägnanz. LINK

Why does this support Millers number in design?
Millers number sets a upper limit to chunks before they become noise. So while it is quite useful to have a menu with more than 7+-2 choices it would be really frustrating and hard to remember if there were more areas of interest or chunks of information on any one page.

So millers number is excellent in design, UXmyths is dealing with the simplified use of Millers number which leads to results that are just plain wrong.

In a sentence: Make sure you understand complicated psychological theories before you apply them to design.

Nicole Lazzaro has a presentation scheduled on the future of UX where she argues that design focusing on increasing positive emotions rather than minimizing negative experience is the future of UX development. A field where game design is leading the way.

I for one am really happy someone is bringing this up at a large conference. I studied game design for this very reason and I’m still having a hard time selling the idea to my colleagues, the notion that games are basically toys is still deeply ingrained in western culture and it’s now starting to hold us back from creating better experiences.

For anyone interested in learning from game design I recommend you start with legendary designer Raph Koster‘s excellent book A Theory of Fun.

A week later I hadn’t really changed my mind, until I was typing away earlier tonight and realized why I didn’t feel it fitted into my life. It’s a unitasking machine.

The iPad doesn’t multitask, yet, but after comparing my experience using the same apps on my iPhone 4 I’m now convinced that my problem is not a result of the device lacking features, but instead that the iPad forces me to focus on my work.

Work which I’ve learned so well to digress and be distracted from on my other machines. I’m just not used to having to focus for more than a few minutes at a time.

This discovery has really turned my experience around, I can’t wait to work like this for a few more days and see where it leads me. Unitasking is the new productivity buzz word. Let’s see if this machine helps me become more productive or leaves me doing less complex work.

RT @durietz: “Why does Dropbox rock but Apple’s iDisk suck balls? How hard can it be to copy an existing service?” [link]

Good question.

And how come some Apple products are so amazing while others, as @durietz put it, suck balls? What’s the difference in the pipeline at Cupertino?

In person this is rude and we all grow thick skin over the years to bear the bleating of haters. But in business it can be a huge problem.

Making haters into evangelists is on of the best uses of social media to date, but I want to talk about a beautiful way Jason Calacanis recently monetized the hate aimed at him.

For those who don’t know, Jason Calacanis is a serial entrepreneur with some great successes currently developing Mahalo.com and the ThisWeekIn podcast network (not to be confused with the TWiT.tv pod casting network run by Leo Laporte). Being successful and especially in a public space means you will attract haters in the hundreds or worse.

Tired of the haters Jason put on a special podcast featuring all hater guests. That’s right, anyone with any complaints again Jason were invited to speak against with him about whatever it was they didn’t approve of.

This is brilliant.
The podcast earns its revenue from ads and lo and behold the haters were filling the podcast with compelling content, not just for loyal listeners who’d chuckle at the event but for even more haters who’d love a go at Jason.

Short and simple, Jason was making his haters earn him money by hating him and looking all the more noble and right for doing it.

Jason, I don’t agree with everything you say but my god; that was one brilliant move!

Watch the episode here for a great example of how to monetize your haters.

EpicWin was released today and I downloaded it on the subway on my way to work. I was happily choosing my avatar and plowing through the “tutorial” quests (the first few to do’s that get you up to speed with the app) and I find myself creating smaller and smaller to do’s just to progress in my quests.

The way the game handles valuation of tasks makes it a bit strange but I’m not going to say to much to early. I’ll keep using the app a few days and update when I’ve really come to terms with it.

It’s just a few bucks and worth it just for laughs. You can find out more at the developers site: EpicWinApp.com

Update:
Launch trailer is up

Update 2:
EpicWin apparently closes all other music or sound processes. So if you’re listening to music and open EpicWin your iPod/Pandora/Spotify will actually stop the music, not just pause it. This is really annoying if you’re just quickly adding a task.

A lot of games are opting for cooperative or immersive multiplayer modes to allow players to be more social and have even more fun with their products.

But there’s a problem. Sorry to be the grouch, but the first step of getting out of a trap is noticing it’s there.
Cooperative and multiplayer games are mostly synchronous. Which means you have to play them at the same time. In fact minimizing gameplay lag is on of the largest problems game developers have today.

But is that really a good thing?
It’s great for action. But it’s terrible for pick up and play gaming. Which is already the dominant form of play if we compare online games and casual platforms such as the Nintendo Wii, DS and the iPhone with more core audience devices such as the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360.

The problem with multiplayer is the same as with loading times.
If we, as developers, are trying to convince our players to spent $60 and 20 hours to play our game, the game really needs to be fun and easy to get into. Loading times subtract from the experience, but not nearly enough as waiting for friends, not having friends or worst of all; having friends that all need to cash out $60 for the game. This kind of tribal synchronisation is very probably not that usual.

We need to open up to the fact that games are a part of life and start designing for finding new friends or, if possible, playing with friends asynchronously.

Flipboard is a news aggregator. Much like feed readers you’ve probably used in the past. The difference is that Flipboard reads your Twitter and Facebook streams, scans them for content and present it to you in a fantastic UI.

Flipboard is extremely competent and feels great to use, it’s well implemented into Twitter and Facebook functionally making it easy to reweet, comment, like and share.

Flipboard is free in the Appstore right now but I’d recommend giving it a look as fast as you can as a lot of media companies are gunning for Flipboard for scraping material not presented in their RISS feeds. Well see how it pans out in the end but this is really how you’ll want to use social media in the future.

RT @cameronmoll: So, anyone still using their Magic Trackpad?

I just unpacked my own and tried out most of the functions I’ve been looking forward to. Unsurprisingly it feels like my iPhone only the screen makes the entire experience slightly more immersive.

As I’m typing this there is no doubt in my mind that this is the future of computing, at least the near future, but should you get one? If you work on the road or need to upgrade a net book the answer is Yes. If you have a great laptop or use a desktop machine however, don’t. Not yet, let the platform mature a bit and you’ll be much less grieved.

Please bear in mind that this theme is made exclusively for NEW browsers and therefore does not support browsers from last year or Internet Explorer.

I’ll make due with this minimalist placeholder theme for a few days.

This argument is strikingly similar to Wittgenstein trying to persuade us that we don’t exist.

No template for life is a template for life.

A circular argument that only shows that you haven’t thought about it very long. There are actually endless templates for life, thousands of manuals on how to live, all of them true. For a given value of true. And most of them conflicting.

(Talking about the Gamecube controller) the greatest videogame controller ever designed, mainly because it had a really big button on it.
- the RexBox blog

Simplicity was created, not by actually removing buttons, but by showing the user a primary button. Subsequently most design focused on that big green button. How we perceive an object, function or service is a lot more important than how that object, function or service actually works. Most companies get this wrong again and again.

Why do Apple command such rabid fans?

Like pixels on glass rather than pixels under glass. This is the result of a new manufacturing process Apple has pioneered. No other company gives a shit about things like this.

- John Gruber on the iPhone 4 display

Because they give a shit. Every other company can learn from this. Making quality products instead of focusing on internal politics or increasing the profit margin just a little bit more will be a lot more economically sound.

This situation leads to the belief that the organization itself is of importance, even though it was just created to solve a specific issue. And the people working in the organization loose focus of the organizations function and the organization starts growing in areas without return, administration and administration of administration.

The way to make sure this does not happen is to keep organizations small. Create another organization to solve a new problem, do not grow the old one.

Well, this argument is correct. But most of the people using it are really wrong and they don’t always understand the argument itself.

Web applications will, for the foreseeable future, be the most cutting edge and flexible way to develop functionality. They will surpass anything native clients do very soon. This is because cloud computing will make computing a lot more flexible and less reliant on hardware.

But these web apps will only be functionality. User interfaces in the web will lag behind tremendously. With HTML 5 and faster browsers UI’s will become more responsive and more complex. But user interfaces online, just like native app user interfaces, must be disconnected from the functions themselves so that errors or problems do not interfere with the users experience of the application. In other words, if your Internet connection times out the user interface can’t just stop. That would be similar to a Windows 95 blue screen and user would never be able to rely on the applications.

The solution, which is commonly used today, is to separate the user interface from the functions and simply run them asynchronously with user interfaces providing feedback while waiting for the servers to respond. No matter the issue with functions the user interface can keep users in the loop and provide them with the feeling of control.

Why is this different from native apps? It’s not. Native apps on devices such as the iPhone are quite often just interfaces for online services. And as such they are not different from online user interfaces. This is why native apps will not go away. native interfaces will continue to be much more responsive for years to come, providing the user the sense of control we all want from our apps.

“Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works. The design of the Mac wasn’t what it looked like, although that was part of it. Primarily, it was how it worked. To design something really well, you have to get it. You have to really grok what it’s all about. It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. Most people don’t take the time to do that.”
– Steve Jobs 1996

Most people I’ve talked to seem to have this conception that design is somehow visual only. Preferably graphical for the game & web business. This is a preconception we really need to change if we’re ever to get mandate to properly design.

And yes, this is the last Jobs quote in a while I promise.

But more importantly they’re highlighted the iPhone OS 4, and renamed it iOS 4. Why rename it?

Well first the iOS is also on the iPad. But I don’t believe that is enough of a reason for the change. The more interesting implication is that the iOS will become a wider device OS that Apple will keep developing hardware for.

Apple TV? Maybe. But be sure that Apple will release information late and that hype will build up.

“The desktop metaphor was invented because … you had to manage your own storage”
– Steve Jobs, 1996

He was right.

The desktop metaphor was great because you had all your files and needed to be able to navigate and store them. Today with standards for different types of data this metaphor is becoming obsolete. Most things can and are stored on the web.

Stored in accounts, used and read by apps that handle those file types.

How much more intuitive will general computing be when people no longer need to handle the management and storage of files?

Stupid sign hides stupid design

I took this picture of a door in my office. It has two handles. The top large green one is for emergencies only, and people have apparently been using it. To solve the problem, a large sign has been taped to the handle bearing the legend:

“Do not use this door handle unless it’s emergency situation”

Problem solved. Anyone can see that there’s something wrong here. But let’s boil it down:

The handle problem

If the handle is not to be used, placing it above the normal handle, making it larger and green is probably a bad idea. In fact, it’s the exact opposite of what you’re supposed to do according to various studies on cognitive processes, visual recognition and psychology. Of course, this design is made for emergencies only and for such is pretty good.

The normal handle below the emergancy handle requires the user to touch a button on the wall first in order to open the door. The additional step of course makes it less useable, but the really interesting design choice here is WHY THE F why in the world one of the handles require a button on the wall and the other does not… The result is the same so there is no difference to the user. Couldn’t the second handle also be used by just, you know, pushing it? And while we’re at it, why not just have one handle from the start? It would be much more cost effective.

The sign problem

The sign is another great feat of design. First of all it obscures the handle. Rendering it useless in an emergency situation. But since the sign is well fastened and laminated with hard plastic you wouldn’t be able to use it even if you knew where it was.

Smart people were involved in every step of this process. But noone looked at the overall intended function, nor the users intended use. Not one. This is why you need designers.

“As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups.”
- Steve Jobs

Couldn’t agree more Steve, well said.

Update: Read the entire Wired interview with jobs here. It’s from 1996 but Steve is amazingly insightful about the internet of today.

My design is based on a rethinking of what iTunes manages, namely media. But lot’s of different forms of media. In this design of iTunes every media item is considered to be a media bit no matter if it’s a song, an album, an app or a book.

(higher quality images on Flickr)

As you can see this design is radically different from the current version of iTunes. I’ve followed Apples recent reductionist standard in design and tried to eliminate everything unnecessary while retaining the purpose of the program.

There are three main areas of interest in this design:

• The top navigation bar which holds filters, search and player controls. Allowing users to easily find what they’re looking for.
• The media view which allows users to browse through media, partly for fun and partly for aimless just looking. It also gives a great overview of what types of media and with modal boxes for more information can give users details if they want.
• The bottom devices dock. This is where media is divided to the available devices as well as start and stop the currently playing list. I’ll explain a bit more about devices below.

The start screen shows you the available devices as well as your favorite and most recently used media bits, this way the user instantly has an overview of where they left off last time.

I’ve considered devices to be anything that has media in it. From left to right:

• The currently playing list displaying the artwork for the currently playing media with a simple play/paus control for the queue. Users access the queue by clicking this icon or just drag and drop media to it to add it to the queue.
• The computer library. WIth home sharing different computers can share with all devices over a home network, I’ve just eliminated the extra fuss by reducing it as far as I’ve been able.
• Peripherals, in this case my iPhone. Used in the same way as computers, playlists and the queue. Drag and drop or click to view contents.
• Playlists, drag and drop media to and from and click to view.

A lot of people use playlists as a way to traverse their media libraries. I have actively made this harder as playlists are a lot more harder to search through as media libraries grow. Instead I’ve focused on search and filtering to allow easy browsing of the library. I have however thought this to be a perfect place for Apples famous horizontal scrollbars should the number of devices increase.

Filters are used to group media bits making it easier to find what you’re looking for in a large library, seach is however crucial since most people tend to grow really large media libraries. Click a filter and all media is displayed as stacks or bits, click one suck stack or bit to see it’s contents and either filter further or search the stack.

The currently playing queue acts as both a queue for media and as the main media player. It’s a simple principle to learn and as all devices work in the same way the user needs never get confused or irritated at features appearing and disappearing depending on context.

Media bits can be freely moved between devices, making sharing and syncing simple and easy to understand.

Each media bit has detailed information available only if the user wants so know more.

The player controls have been moved aside leaving only the large play and pause button on the icon for the currently playing list/device.
I’d love to get some more work done on this project in the future but I think Apple might beat me to it. And I’m excited by the thought of comparing my work with that of Jonathan Ive’s team!

There are a few weak points in this design so far, namely the lack of the iTunes store and the lack of a way to arrange Apps on devices. While I’ve thought about solutions for these and believe that this design can accomodate them I haven’t had the time to sketch it out yet.

Hope you like my work, and if you’re reading this Mr Jobs; yes, I’d love to come work for you.

See higher quality versions of this design at Flickr

Since then Atebits have been purchased by Twitter and Tweetie2 for iPhone has been rebranded and rereleased as the official Twitter app for iPhone.

Well that’s great. But before that happened I was waiting for the OS X update for Tweetie that Atebits had been working on for some time. Twitter might be more interested in the mobile market but I hate to see good design wasted, and I really want to keep using Tweetie on my mac. So please Twitter, release the official Twitter client for OS X, the app formerly known as Tweetie2 for mac.

If you are a developer you can start apps within the SDK but not, as far as I know, apps downloaded from the appstore.

See my previous rant about it here.

It’s all made in Keynote on my 13″ MacBook Pro.

Help us out! Just add #whyItweet to your tweet and explain why you tweet. We’ll be posting more about the project and following up on the results.

We can now officially regard the iPad as a great success, both for Apple and for the Tablet computer.

Update: It’s now official.
Apple said in a press release today that they sold their millionth iPad last Friday, 28 days from platform launch. Less than half the time it took to sell that many iPhones. Anyone still not believing in the iPhone OS? Find out more here