AirPlay mirroring

The iPad 2 can mirror its display, apps, home screen and all, to a TV or other connected display via the Apple Digital AV Adapter and an HDMI cable. But having a long cord tethering your iPad to your TV is no fun. That’s why it’s great that iOS 5 will bring AirPlay Mirroring, which will let you do the same thing without wires, so long as you have an Apple TV (the new little black model) attached to your television. It should be great for watching movies and slideshows, but latency issues could hinder its usefulness when it comes to gaming. We’ll have to wait and see how it performs.

Wi-Fi sync

Apple showed off how its iOS devices will be able to go PC-free when iOS 5 arrives, but if you still want to grab your music and movies from iTunes, you can do so over a local Wi-Fi network from your Mac or PC instead of having to plug your device in. Apple does say “it automatically syncs and backs up any new content to iTunes” every time “you connect your iOS device to a power source,” but it isn’t clear if that’s a requirement.

Multitouch gestures

The iPad gets expanded multitouch gestures, which have actually been available to developers before now. They include the ability to close apps with four finger pinches, swiping up to reveal the multitasking bar, or swiping left and right to switch between open apps. I’ve had hands-on experience with these, and they actually make a bigger (positive) difference than you might expect.

Custom vibration and LED flash settings

It’s technically an Accessibility option, but Apple is bringing user-customizable vibration and LED flash settings to the iPhone in iOS 5. You probably can’t make it specific for each contact in your address book, but it should let you know at a glance (or at a feel) whether you’re getting an email, a text message, or an iMessage.

Split keyboard

I have big hands, so I can wrangle thumb typing on the iPad without too much discomfort, but it’s not exactly fun. For those with daintier digits, it’s downright frustrating. The new split keyboard should make it much easier to type out emails without having to deploy an iPad stand and assume a more traditional typing position.

Did you watch or follow the keynote and have other suggestions of your own of great iOS 5 features not exactly given center stage today? Let us know in the comments

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The difference is best understood as a change in the user’s point of view. Instead of pulling the scrollbar down, you push the content up. The change signals a huge shift not just in scroll direction, but in user interface design where gestures are used to manipulate content instead of on-screen interface controls like scrollbars and sliders.

Scrollbar, We Hardly Knew Ye

The venerable scrollbar has been with us for ages. It was probably invented at Xerox PARC in the 70s, well before the graphic user interface (GUI) Macintosh was released in 1984. Back in those days, if you wanted to control something in the GUI, you had to be able to point at a control and click on it. The scrollbar was an obvious visual control to manipulate an application’s viewport, the section of content visible in the current window. It was versatile as well. The scroller not only provided the means to move the viewport, but its position also indicated where you were in the document.

One of the first steps away from direct manipulation of visual controls was the scroll wheel mouse, introduced in 1995 as a different way to move the scrollbar. Apple’s touch-sensitive trackpad and Mighty Mouse later used two-finger gestures for scrolling. However, the controls were still present on the screen to provide visual feedback on the scroller position.

The downside of the GUI was that every control needed to take up some real estate on the screen. Pretty soon we had apps with toolbars that were bigger than the content area.

iOSification

After over 25 years of scrollbars in Mac OS X, Apple was willing to rethink the UI for the touchscreen when the iPhone was introduced. Gestures provide a way around the need for an on-screen control for every GUI interaction and devote more space to the content itself (quite important on a small screen). Scrollbars were no longer controls, and remained only as a visual indicator of where you were. Instead, you moved content in the viewport by direct manipulation – you pushed the content itself up or down by making a gesture with your finger. This direct manipulation of the content itself is so intuitive on a touchscreen that even toddlers quickly grasp its use.

Different Strokes for Different Folks

On the touchscreen we have grown accustomed to using gestures to manipulate content directly. Unfortunately, when applied to the desktop this approach creates some cognitive dissonance for longtime Mac users as we try to use two-finger scrolling or mouse gestures they way we were taught, to move scrollbars indirectly.

What If You Don’t Know About Gestures?

Because the scrollbar fades out of view until moved, the scrollbars are not easily discovered and there is no visual indication of how to move content in the viewport. We rely on our memory of when we used to see scrollbars. In some applications like Safari, it is not clear where we are in the viewport because there is no scroller or thumb to tell us. Not only is it nigh impossible to discover how to scroll the content for someone unfamiliar with gestures, there is no indication (beyond cut off graphics and text) that you *need* to scroll down the page to see anything below the current viewport.

As it stands, the Lion UI is also a bit inconsistent now. Mail, Address Book, iCal, Safari, etc. all sport the new fading scroll indicators. However, iTunes still uses a scrollbar. Of course, gestures work the iOS way, and the scrollbar works the Mac way. Confusing. I have to think that other controls on desktop apps that could be replaced with gestures, like the zoom slider in iPhoto, might also disappear eventually.

Frankly, Apple’s human interface guidelines and enforcement of those guidelines in the App Store become even more important once you widely adopt gestures. They just need to be consistent. If you can’t see a control on-screen, you are going to try standard gestures. Developers must adhere to those expected behaviors if users are to have any chance of figuring out how to scroll. Can you imagine an app with no scrollbar on-screen that requires you to use four-finger swipes to scroll? How would you figure that out? Would you bother before deleting the app in frustration? Could you imagine a future with mandatory 3-minute introductory videos to explain all the non-standard gestures?

It’s Not All Bad

The scrollbar in OS X Lion does have an advantage in that it doesn’t take up as much space and visual weight in the interface. Gestures provide enough flexibility in control schemes that we don’t have to rely on a mouse click on the scrollbar control to move the viewport and a mouse click on the content to move the cursor. We have multiple ways to interact directly with the content. Content is highlighted before UI controls. What remains to be seen is if the change will prove as comfortable in practice as the theory might suggest.

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It’s Got The Touch

First and foremost, the new version has a “multitouch” screen. Actually, it’s only capable of discerning two finger gestures (and only for rotating the screen). The introduction of a touchscreen on such a small device is certainly one way to reduce the need for physical controls (ironic that this was introduced immediately after the new iPod shuffle regained its tactile buttons).

The touchscreen also adds a “wow” factor for those who wish they owned an iPod touch or an iPhone. The icons even jiggle when you move them around! But don’t let that fool you. The iPod nano isn’t running iOS, simply updated software designed to resemble iOS. The result? You’re not going to be using apps with it anytime soon.

Design Details

If you were to take a casual, superficial look at the iPod nano, you might think it’s a bit awkward.

The form factor resembles a larger iPod shuffle and the straight edges at the top and bottom seem a little odd for Apple’s standards. One would think the form factor would resemble a smaller iPhone and be curved at the corners like the plastic boxes in which they ship.

The display itself doesn’t sit flat against the body of the device, likely a result of a decision to make the device as small as possible. In my opinion, the design is a bit contrived. Considering the latest iPod shuffle is just a smaller version of the second-generation model, and this new nano looks like a larger version of it with a multi-touch screen, I wonder what Jonny Ive’s team is actually doing.

Technical Specs

When you think about iPod nanos, you might think about how they could play video (2007 and on) or how they had a built-in camera and record video (2009). You might even think about increasingly bigger and better displays. Sure it wasn’t all that great, but you might even think back to when iPod nanos included a speaker (2009). Well, times are changing.

The introduction of a touch screen has driven the component costs of the iPod nano higher than previous models. As a result, Apple trimmed some features that were “not often used” to maintain an amicable price point for consumers, and the company’s profit margin.

Were these features infrequently used? It is true if you own an iPhone, you already have a camera at your disposal. But a nano was an inexpensive and convenient alternative for those who didn’t. And while few might have actually watched video on the tiny screen, you could still plug it into a TV.

The real point I’m trying to make is that while Apple seems intent on pushing the iTunes Store and all it offers, its latest device plays a lot less of that content than the previous generation. That doesn’t seem terribly innovative to me.

Granted, the nano has a specific audience. But for me, it’s not a simple matter of “well if you want those features, go buy an iPod touch or an iPhone.” Instead, it’s about Apple allowing form to trump function. There’s another glaring example I can cite from recent memory.

Have you had a chance to check out the new iPod nano? What do you think? Will you upgrade or sell your previous generation for an ungodly amount on eBay? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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However, revolutions in user input technology can result in unforeseen consequences, an emblematic example being the spike in repetitive stress injury that resulted from the switch from traditional “springy,” raked typewriter keyboards to flatter, often “clicky,” and frequently hard-landing, computer keyboards back in the ’80s.

Analogically, little is yet known about long-term stresses that using multitouch input systems may inflict on our muscles, nerves, and tendons.

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Arizona State University Biomedical Informatics Department assistant professor Kanav Kahol is team leader of a research project to measure the amount of stress placed on hands and wrists of individuals using multitouch electronic devices like Apple’s iPad. Researchers will use cyber-gloves to measure kinematic phenomena produced in users interacting with multitouch systems with finger-flick gestures.

Prof. Kahol’s team, supported by a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation, includes computer interaction researchers, kinesiologists and ergonomic experts from both ASU and Harvard University, engaged in developing a tool kit that could be used by designers as they design and refine new multitouch systems.

The ASU project’s aim is to develop best practices and standards for human/machine interface interactions that are safe and cause minimal user stress, while allowing users to fully benefit from the new levels of immersion that multitouch interaction facilitates.

“We Are All Part of a Large Experiment”

“When we use our iPhone or iPad, we don’t naturally think that it might lead to a musculoskeletal disorder,” says Prof. Kahol commenting in an ASU media release. “But the fact is it could, and we don’t even know it. We are all part of a large experiment. Multitouch systems might be great for usability of a device, but we just don’t know what it does to our musculoskeletal system.”

In a project abstract, Prof. Kanol notes that the researchers’ principal focus will lie in developing a methodology and process for selecting ergonomically appropriate gestures and mapping them relative to tasks employed in human computer interaction, such as the multitouch technology that has reached maturity in products like the iPhone.

Prof. Kahol observes that as we move toward a world where human-computer interaction is based on various body movements that are not well documented or studied, we face “serious and grave risk” of creating technology and systems that may lead to musculoskeletal disorders (MSD), and that many of today’s multitouch systems give no consideration to eliminating gestures already known to lead to MSD injuries, or to eliminating gestures that are symptomatic of a patient population.

For example, he points out that the gesture for zoom function with the iPhone is exactly the same gesture used for detection of Parkinsons disease (PD), since people in early stages of PD can’t execute this gesture, which means that iPhones are not usable by PD patients or people who may go on to develop PD — just one example on how gestures wrongly chosen for multitouch interaction can alienate certain populations or cause muscle fatigue and other ergonomic issues. Kanov contends that it is important to address this issue before we create another man-made diseases like carpal tunnel syndrome — which he calls “a hallmark of bad interaction design.”

The overall methodology to develop ergonomic gestures involves development of accurate multi-digit hand movement simulations that can predict muscle fatigue due to gestures. This enables developers to select a vocabulary of gestures that can be mapped onto task hierarchies derived through task analysis.

The project’s initial focus will to evaluate the impact multitouch devices have on the human musculoskeletal system. Users will be fitted with electromyography (EMG) equipment to measure muscle forces, and cyber-gloves to measure kinematic features produced while users interact with multitouch systems. Researchers will then evaluate the impact of those stresses.

Part two of the study will develop biomechanical models where users will be able to, as Prof. Kahol explains, “enter the motion of a gesture, and the system will produce the forces being exerted through that motion, like a specific movement of the hand. We would then take this data back to the Microsofts, the Apples and other manufacturers so they could use it when they are designing new devices.”

The system the team develops is to be built with off-the-shelf components and provide device designers a new tool to use when developing new multitouch systems.

“The designers, the computer scientists, the programmers, they know little about biomechanical systems, they just want a system that they can employ in a usable manner and tells them if a gesture causes stress or not,” says Kahol. “So our major challenge is going to be developing the software, the tool kit and the underlying models that will drive the tool kits.” He notes that the last time designers developed a fundamental interaction system with computers they modified the standard keyboard — a transition that as noted above, was not without its share of drawbacks.

“When we developed the keyboard, we didn’t think through how working with it would affect the hands, arms, etc.,” Kahol said in a statement earlier this month. “As a result, it created a multimillion dollar industry in treating carpal tunnel syndrome. That is what we want to prevent with multitouch systems. We are going for the preventative, rather than the curative. Multitouch systems might be great for usability of a device, but we just don’t know what it does to our musculoskeletal system.”

Now, hopefully we will.

The world is expecting Apple to announce a new tablet, or slate, style computer on January 27. Most predictions peg the device as essentially an iPod touch with a 10″ screen. But simply scaling Mac OS X Mobile to a larger screen size isn’t likely, as the operating system that currently powers iPhone and iPod touch models is optimized for their specific screens. The question arises, then, as to how users will input text into the Apple tablet.

The iPhone keyboard works well for several reasons. The device is small enough that you can type with just one hand while holding the phone with the same hand. The keys are surprisingly large, even in portrait mode, and Apple technology makes keys invisibly larger based on likely letter combinations. Auto-correction works well enough that the easiest way to become a fast typist on the iPhone is to suspend your disbelief that you’ll make mistakes, and just keep typing.

The same keyboard on a larger screen, whether still small or scaled up, wouldn’t work nearly as well. The biggest problem would be holding the tablet and typing at the same time. If the form factor is anything like most suspect it will be, the weight and balance of the tablet would make such input impossible, requiring users to instead hold it with one hand and hunt-and-peck to type with the other.

Current Lines of Thought

Perhaps the most obvious solution would be to split the onscreen keyboard and push it to the edges, allowing users to hold the device and type with their thumbs. A similar approach was used with a number of ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs), such as the Samsung Q1. This doesn’t strike me as particularly elegant or particularly Apple, but it could work, and might be the easiest solution technically.

Another option is an altogether different keyboard interface purposefully designed for five-finger typing with one hand. Users could hold the device in one hand, and quickly type with all fingers of the other. Combined with advanced multi-touch gestures for text input and overall control, this method is reminiscent of Microsoft Surface and Minority Report.

Unlike the iPhone and iPod touch, Apple could also allow the tablet to work with hardware keyboards, either via Bluetooth or USB connections. The current Apple wireless keyboard would make a perfect companion for times when touch input isn’t sufficient, with the touchscreen display eliminating the need to also have a mouse. Using a traditional keyboard also strikes me as very inelegant and un-Apple, but may be needed to drive mass adoption.

A Hardware Solution

However, a hardware keyboard designed specifically for the tablet and doubles as a dock might fit the bill. Given Apple’s apparent cloud ambitions (building a data center in North Carolina, purchasing LaLa, etc.) and cost concerns, the tablet is likely to have a small amount of onboard storage compared to laptops. Chances are that Apple will view the tablet as a cloud computing device, or one of several satellites orbiting around a full Mac serving as the digital media hub. Like the iPhone or iPod touch, the tablet may only hold a portion of your songs, movies, pictures and other media, meaning it will need to connect for syncing. A dock for syncing that doubles as a keyboard, with Jon Ives’ design panache, would be an excellent way to meet core needs while also extending the functionality of the device.

Given all of these options, I’m expecting three things: a variant of the software user interface that further limits users need to input text even more than the iPhone already does; an advanced multi-touch user interface that is optimized for five-finger input; and the option to use a keyboard–possibly a new keyboard that doubles as a dock–when necessary. The next-generation multi-touch capabilities that Apple has patented and developed are likely too advanced for many of today’s computer users. I expect the tablet multi-touch user interface to follow a similar path of increasing complexity and capability over several years as the trackpad and Magic Mouse have.

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Immediately, you get the cool vibe when using it. As a geek, I must say it’s just as slick as the video presentations we’ve seen. Though probably much better suited for the multi-touch interface it was designed for, at face value the features seem pretty useful. (Or at least a good alternative to the native Desktop.) But is BumpTop going to be worthy of daily use in place of the vanilla desktop we’re all used to? Right now I think its focus is a little too narrow for that. Here’s why.

BumpTop is first and foremost an application that runs in place of your computer operating system’s desktop interface. It’s neat, but it’s the Desktop, which is usually covered-up by the applications you’re actually using 90 plus percent of the time. In many cases, one of the applications being used quite regularly is probably a file browser, like Finder. This is the space into which I think BumpTop could become a great fit because honestly, who keeps the majority of their files right on the desktop?

Personally, I just don’t focus on my desktop all that much. Some of the craftier among us have begun making their desktops pretty interactive (by using widgets and GeekTool, for instance — see Lifehacker for some of the cool stuff I’m talking about), so they may have room to disagree. For now though, they’re in the minority. But I submit that many of us spend more time in the likes of Finder, looking for files to work with. If BumpTop can come up with a more file-browser-centric strategy, I think it will gain more longevity. Otherwise, I think its cool factor will wear off after a short honeymoon period and fall by the wayside for many users.

You can sign up to get updates on the availability of the Mac version by entering your email address at BumpTop’s web site. If you have a Windows machine, that version is currently available to the public, so you can download and enjoy it for yourself.

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I’m one of those, along with many I know, that prefer people to keep their fingers off my screen when pointing to or talking about something on my computer. I hate smears. Multiply this times n when a glossy screen is present — which of course is always now with the new MacBook lineup. (Has anyone else noticed that the glossy coating on the new MacBooks is even more of a magnet for smudges than the old?!)

Then there’s the other categorization of computer users: those who keep their hands on the keyboard as much of the time as possible, and those who live and die by their mouse. Like a good nerd, I tend to be the former. But even for the mouse-lovers amongst us, it’s little more than a lateral sweep of the arm to the side and back to the keyboard. These new touch screen computers require an actual reach up and around to the screen to do whatever it is you need.

For me, these are two very solid reasons as to why the Hollywood idea of touch computing doesn’t jive with real world applications. At least not at this point in time.

The above reasons, however, highlight precisely why Apple’s multitouch trackpads seem to be hitting a sweet spot for those interested in touch computing. With this larger than life trackpad on my new MacBook (nearly three times larger than that of the new Dell I just got at work) I get the option to play with gestures and touch computing without the hassle of reaching all over the place, or smearing my gorgeous display. The current support for multitouch on Macs is still in its infancy, yet there’s a great deal of flexibility. We’ve already seen where Firefox has gotten into the mix, as has Curio (and likely others that I’m unaware of at the moment). I can only imagine that a wide array of options for leveraging this is just around the corner.

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Hot on the heels of Apple’s new MacBook line — which among other things, offers a multitouch trackpad –coming to market, we’re seeing the first third party applications which support multitouch gestures. Mozilla is the first to the party, and has now made available an experimental build that will support multitouch gestures from within Firefox.

With this experimental build (need we point out, this is OS X only, and then, only if you have a shiny new MacBook or MacBook Pro with full glass trackpad, or MacBook Air) you’ll gain the ability to:

• Swipe forward and backward (like the buttons on your browser)
• Pinch to zoom in and out
• Twist from tab to tab

Any of you who are in a position to take advantage of this cool new feature in Firefox, can thank Edward Lee for his efforts on this work. He details his progress here, if you’re interested in taking a look.

What’s much more interesting to me in this news, is the rapid emergence of the third party software developers taking advantage of the new hardware feature. Adobe’s CS4 suite is supposed to utilize the same thing in some cases. Are there any others out there right now that also leverage this functionality? I’d love to hear your thoughts on killer apps for multitouch trackpads. I think photos and graphics are the obvious targets off the bat. Being the Quicksilver junkie that I am, I’d love to see the Gestures plugin capability expanded to work with multitouch. That kind of feature would really explode the functionality (for me) that I get from Quicksilver!

So let’s hear it — what do you crave (as far as multitouch support goes) from third party software vendors?

Via MozillaLinks

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