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© 2010 Jason Delport
Raising the Bar on the Mobile User Interface
After the last week of media overload I must say that there is really only one thing about the iPhone that has left a lasting impression on me and that is the fluidity and naturalness of the user interface. Yes, there's nothing new here, Apple have been creating beautiful user interfaces for years and lots of phones have rich icon driven menus with fluid transitions between options as the user navigates the interface. It's just that Apple took this to the next level and have made an entire, end to end, mobile user experience based on these principles. I have never seen anything like it outside of the movies before (think Minority Report).
And now for some heresy; the iPhone OS is a thing of beauty and I can see why Apple would want to protect it by not letting third parties indiscriminately install ugly applications onto it. Having said that I still won't be buying one. I have been using 3G for a year and in a years' time when the iPhone finally hits European stores I would have been experiencing 3G bliss for 2 whole years and there is no hope in hell I would downgrade my connectivity to GPRS.
It seems that the next generation of mobile user interfaces need to attempt to be more natural by implementing the laws of motion more rigorously. Most mobile user interfaces are very static and enterprisy, seeing the iPhone OS instantaneously wobble, bounce and morph all the while accommodating multiple user gestures and device position was very impressive and it has certainly raised the bar for me. In mataphorical terms it's almost as if interacting with a current phone OS is like throwing a pebble in a pond and then not getting any ripples or splash. On the other hand the iPhone user experience has a perfect ripple and splash for every possible type of pebble you can throw at it. This will almost certainly help make up for the tactile deficiencies associated with having a touch screen.
This is definitely something we are going to be looking at building into our Java ME GUI library. The current native Java ME GUI components look like they belong in the era of Windows 3.1 and no serious application developer should ever consider using them unless they require T9 support in a text box. (Now that's a feature I would love to see in MIDP 3, access to T9 in custom low level GUI components!)
And now for some heresy; the iPhone OS is a thing of beauty and I can see why Apple would want to protect it by not letting third parties indiscriminately install ugly applications onto it. Having said that I still won't be buying one. I have been using 3G for a year and in a years' time when the iPhone finally hits European stores I would have been experiencing 3G bliss for 2 whole years and there is no hope in hell I would downgrade my connectivity to GPRS.
It seems that the next generation of mobile user interfaces need to attempt to be more natural by implementing the laws of motion more rigorously. Most mobile user interfaces are very static and enterprisy, seeing the iPhone OS instantaneously wobble, bounce and morph all the while accommodating multiple user gestures and device position was very impressive and it has certainly raised the bar for me. In mataphorical terms it's almost as if interacting with a current phone OS is like throwing a pebble in a pond and then not getting any ripples or splash. On the other hand the iPhone user experience has a perfect ripple and splash for every possible type of pebble you can throw at it. This will almost certainly help make up for the tactile deficiencies associated with having a touch screen.
This is definitely something we are going to be looking at building into our Java ME GUI library. The current native Java ME GUI components look like they belong in the era of Windows 3.1 and no serious application developer should ever consider using them unless they require T9 support in a text box. (Now that's a feature I would love to see in MIDP 3, access to T9 in custom low level GUI components!)
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