Somebody Pinch Me and My Phone
posted by DL Byron on January 20, 2007
Reflecting on the Genius of Steve Jobs and Apple, in his Ask Tog column, Bruce Tognazzini, reviews the iPhone cell-phone user experience, pinching gestures, the history of touch interfaces, and more. Didja know that “multi-touch gestural” have been around for 20 years? I didn’t, but it doesn’t surprise me.
Beyond the iPhone interface, and much like how iPod+iTunes helps a user manage music, what the phone will do (well, hopefully) is solve the syncing problem. The main reason I’ve kept my Sony T-616 so long, is that I got it working with Entourage, Address Book, and iSync and there’s nothing significantly better in 4 years. When the rumors of an iPhone first started, I could only hope and wait.
Where the MS apologists will default to iPhone FUD, will decry it’s “high-tech jewelry” and businesses will never buy it, they fail to realize how cool it is and how well it’ll work. As Tog says, “You can imagine Bill Gates’s frustration. He probably has a cadre of engineers ready to take it apart, put it back together with a couple of screws missing, and paint it brown.” And put some Windows Media on it.
Jobs and Ives have both said that they design the best products they can, with passion, and sales follow. They didn’t set out to build a phone that megacorp will buy for all it’s execs or an iPod for that matter. If you build a platform solely for work, you lose against the home and home and work collide. As Lenn Pryor told me in a conversation about Ballmer’s foolish iPhone diss, “I am tired of carrying two phones + ipod I want one that does it all and with style.” Ever try to browse with a Blackberry? Or wade through 3 voice mails to get to the 4th one?
I want to touch, pinch, and organize my new phone, as soon as I can.
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