Macintosh 1984
Windows 1.0 1985
Windows 3.1 1992

I am interested in the history of fluid user interfaces and I’d love to hear about innovations from companies other than Apple. Which user interfaces did you have in mind?

I didn’t say anything about dial&drive being uniquely dangerous. It has been the cause of many fatalities and as a result it’s uniquely, if you must, illegal. Neither is drink&drive uniquely dangerous. Yet it’s illegal as well. It’s utter nonsense and height of irresponsibility to parse these words. You shouldn’t drive and engage in distracting behavior, period. And we shouldn’t be finding ourselves encouraging people to switch to keyboard-based phones because they are somehow easier to dial while driving. That’s ridiculous.

I think Om and Angus’s observations about the fluid interface are spot on, and I hope we see more of this feel in Leopard. One thing I see is that these interfaces are also more tightly walled off from customization and adding your own content. I don’t much lament the lack of customization, but in Front Row I always feel a little cut off from the rest of my stuff that I think belongs there, and unless I’m willing to hack it in or do hours of conversion processing, that’s how it will remain to be. The streamlined flow works much better for grandparents and other neophytes, but sometimes leaves me wanting more. The iPhone has the same feeling, from the screenshots. Everything is very streamlined and smooth, but the apparent lack of expansion makes it feel kind of incomplete. This is the reality of appliance computing, though, and I think that’s what Mr. Jobs was pointing towards with is Gretzky quote at the end of the keynote.

Speaking of the iPhone and whether it’s innovative: this seems to be a real hot-word for people who don’t think it’s all that. The point of it is not whether the individual technologies in the iPhone have existed elsewhere. Instead, ask if you’ve seen select and pull together those technologies as well as Apple has done here. That is the innovation that they bring - selection and combination into a coherent and pleasant experience. I’d buy that for a dollar more than the competition; heck I’d buy it for a hundred dollars more.

Voice Dial my friend. Voice Dial.

I find it funny all these opinions over Apple’s iPhone when I did not see any of the same on Microsoft’s CE enabled Smart Phones that own the market now.

I use it all day.
I use it to schedule, plan, talk and surf the web when i need to.
I just got it last summer.
I was very excited by it when I got it.
But in the end I can’t wait to get rid of it.
Steve was right, the killer app is the phone.

The Widgets will win too.
Stock, Weather, Maps are all I need on a daily basis on my phone.

IM and Mail are huge too. But I get my mail over Google Web interface. It works well for me.

Will the iPhone be perfect. Nope. Will it be multi generational like the ipod, yes. big difference is that we will be waiting two years in between each upgrade.

You guys are missing the point. With synchronized addressbooks, you don’t have to DIAL numbers anymore (or rarely). You will initiate calls with your contacts by touching their icon, or presumably shortcuts/gestures.

Speaking as somebody who has been using Addressbook/iSync for at least 5 years now (ever since the T68i), and now uses a 3G videophone, I can attest to the fact that as soon as you don’t have to, you’ll stop “dialing” numbers in the first place.

For example, most phones now have a recent caller list. To initiate a call with the people you speak to the most, it’s usually a question of “d-pad down, down, center.”

There’s always a need for it (meet someone new, see a billboard, etc.) but these cases certainly do not occur frequently on curves at 60mph.

I’m sure the iPhone will include some shortcut or direct-dial feature. And I can guarantee it won’t be pressing 8-1-1-5-5-5-2-3-4-5. It’ll probably be along the lines of: see grid of “favorite” contacts’ faces, tap contact. Or, swipe with two fingers means call boss, swipe with three fingers call home…

Quick Hits

Nokia - A View of the Future
Email Design Gallery
Let VA Fly!
Let’s define the word “pull” [Greg Verdino’s Marketing Blog]
Sharp LCD Supermarket Price Tags
The iPhone User Experience: A First Look [Ask Tog]
Apple Us…