Everything that can be iPhonelike, will be
From A Touching Story at CES in Business Week:
The Apple iPhone’s impact was widely evident at the Consumer Electronics Show, as new touch-screen devices could be found everywhere.
Hello? This was inevitable. But can they all do it as well as Apple does it? I think we know the answer.
I’m waiting for Apple to …
- collaborate with Canon or Nikon on a great digital camera whose interface is iPhone-like (instead of incomprehensible icon and push-button driven), and
- release a land line phone that works like the phone/contact part of the iPhone, and syncs to any computer I own.
It will happen. It’s inevitable.
The iPhone is too great a leap forward in interface design to be confined to, well, the iPhone. But with all the patents that went into the iPhone (and all the design thinking that only Apple seems able to do), copying a touchscreen is not going to cut it.
Indeed, calling it a touchscreen interface misses the point of its smoothly integrated, intuitive multi-functionality.
Apple will surely partner with leading brands to bring its interface wizardry to all the devices that frustrate us, from cable boxes to remotes of all kinds.
And then they may even fix sync.
I would love it if Apple would work with others to make all of these great interfaces for all of our gadgets, but it just doesn’t seem like they would do that. They like to keep thing as “Apple” as they can, but it would be an awesome step for them to take in my eye’s.
I can definitely see the camera thing happening - two finger pinch to zoom or focus, tapping to switch between modes, sliders to control shutter speed and aperture… awesome.
At least Apple is opening up the iPhone/iPod Touch to third party developers with their SDK. That is a huge step in the right direction. It will be interesting to see what else Steve Jobs announces at the MWSF on Tuesday. Let the prices drop!
I’d prefer everything that can be iPhonelike will be part of the iPhone - to an extent anyway. I don’t want a camera with an iPhone-type interface - I want a higher quality camera built into the iPhone. Not the world’s greatest camera, just a good enough point and shoot, such that I don’t have to carry another digicam around unless I need a pro camera that day.
And on and on with any other devices that can be iPhonegrated.
Might take awhile but I expect that’ll happen - I hope so.
I don’t want Nikon/Canon to put touchscreen controls on their cameras, at least not on their professional/prosumer lines. I’ve got a Nikon D40x and more often than not I change aperture/shutter speed settings without looking at the LCD–indeed, most often while still looking through the viewfinder.
My mind races to think of how I’d do that with a touchscreen. Every shot would require me to look away from the subject, pull the camera down from my eye, and call up the touchscreen. Not very useful.
Consumer cameras maybe, but I shudder to think of what would happen if they did this on higher-end cameras.
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Carl beat me to it. I can think of nothing worse for a camera than going touch screen. You’re not meant to look at the buttons when you use it. And that’s the giant failure of touch-screen, you must look at the screen. Great for some applications, terrible for many others.
@Carl & Matt: To be fair, I don’t think Jeffrey was referring to the vital shooting buttons like shutter, aperature, etc. but most likely the menu system and other setting controls that we do not normally manipulate while our eye is to the viewfinder.
Imagine being able to finger-swipe through your shots, pinch zoom them, or navigate the menus like an iPod.
I always get a kick out of the Verizon Voyager ads that tout their device as a touchscreen iPhone killer (their CEO’s words, not mine). “Touch does more on America’s largest network” but they never actually show you that the touchscreen is simply to press buttons - icons that look eerily like iPhone icons… seems like touch does less on their phone.
I still thing the killer app is Mobile Safari. I had never desired the mobile web before it came along. I think it does more to help usher us into a useful and usable mobile internet future than anything to date.
All this has happened before, and will happen again?
@Anthony, thanks, that is indeed what I meant.
My friend’s camera is very nice until you try to, say, page through the five shots you’ve just taken in order to pick the best two, delete the baddies, and view the best two in sufficient detail to decide whether or not you need to keep shooting. This is hard to do on any camera I’ve ever owned, but supremely easy to do on an iPhone. That’s my point.
And if, like the iPhone, said camera also allowed you to email the photo to Flickr or to an editor or art director whose approval you need before wrapping the photo session, well … so much the better.
I got a Sonos and an iPhone around the same time. The Sonos is a great piece of kit, but it’s controller seems slightly tacky next to the iPhone.
Your very true but you never know what happens. I see the iPhone gaining more third party apps, software, and hardware that integrates to it. I think the iPhone will remain an iPhone and as portability becomes more evident in society the cell phone will replace the land line phone. So I think Apple might not release a landline phone similar to the iPhone. But the camera idea is nice especially since the iPhone’s camera is very…plain. The Nokia N95 has a 5 megapixel camera that does video as well.
As great as it would be to port the Apple technology into Nikon or Canon’s cameras, for me, the casual photo-taker, I would be delighted if the merge goes the other way, and some of those common-sense features of any camera (like zoom) are incorporated into the iPhone. I’d happily stop carrying my Elph and use just the iPhone if it was anywhere close to the same ballpark.
A clock radio, please. When it hasn’t been improved in 40 years, then you can’t call it retro, just old.
That would be the greatest single feature I could think of for my dslr, and would be sufficient to get me to switch brands.
To hell with iPhone interfaces and self-publishing. How about a search engine or, better yet, that “substance from bullshit” browser button. Yeah. And while I am dreaming, free scotch, too .. single malt.
If apple dropped the price and added a better quality camera with Flickr upload capabilities I would be a happy person. But we’ll see how long that takes. In the meantime, I’m waiting for my Verizon contract to finish so I can get an iPhone. Maybe by that time they’ll have what I want.
A landline iPhone would be sweet. I’d love to have the phone ring and see a picture of who’s calling. Or to have visual voice mail. as the saying goes, “I’d buy that for a dollar.”
A friend has just upgraded his phone to the LG Viewty. Its name may rhyme with ‘beauty’, but it’s blatant imitation, and obvious shortcomings compared to the iPhone left us both thinking less of his new model.
No doubt, it’s the first of many imitations, as you rightly point out, but surely none of them will match the style of Apple’s incarnation.
That said, I’m still holding out for a better camera and 3G support.
I guess you can’t please all of the people, all of the time!
It’s like 1997 all over again, when Apple introduced the Bondi-blue iMac and suddenly, EVERYTHING was translucent and candy-colored!
PS: @ Michael Zed: Check this out:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000MXWSYQ/
It’s the best clock radio I’ve ever used. It’s got two alarms, a nice, big display, auto time set, DST support and a snowblower. Okay, no snowblower, but it will bring you happiness. Well, maybe not that, either, but it’s a great clock radio.
Stepping aside the iPod Touch…err, sorry, I meant iPhone, there’s definitely going to be an increasing imitation of the touch interface. Other mobile phone manufacturers are already dipping their toes in to similar efforts pre-CES (good example from Shane already mentioned) - even the Sony Ericsson K850i has some ‘touch’ sensitivity built-in to it, and the same iPhone ability to rotate images when you rotate the device too. So I really expect the technology to be adopted by many other companies too (not just Apple) - but I’ll also agree: no one seems to be producing the tech as nicely as Apple…yet.
CNN has multi-touch LCD panels, and some nice applications that they’re using in their election coverage. Not sure if it’s Microsoft Surface or what, but it’s pretty fun to watch. Jon Stewart did a segment on it this week. (video)
Come on, Zeldman, the iPhone UI is not a leap of any kind. Essentially, the UI uses the point and click metaphor on a 2D surface for navigation (they’ve just replaced the mouse with your finger; that’s not revolutionary, but simply a change in input device). Apple creates demand and sexiness and the need to have a device, their products aren’t revolutionary (remember that shifts in science, and in turn applicaton to the consumer, don’t happen very often, Kuhn said about every century or so). Get a grip.
Did you say this when the iMac came out, too? Thought so.
I predict that the touch interface will be pissed down the drain just like the old iMac was. Nobody wants to tap and pray. Nobody wants a smudged up screen. Everyone benefits from tactile feedback.
I do many things on my phone while I am not looking at it. Do you? I do many things on my phone with one hand. Do you? I do many things on my phone while I am not looking, with one hand, while driving. Do you?
The iPhone is a nice concept, I do like all the features it packs, but the whole touch-screen idea is just silly. It is pretty clear to me that it’s just another one of those legendary bullshit Mac-hypes that all the fanboys will use to fuel their fag-flame. Count me out!
@Josh Stodola-
Do you really need to do that “many things on my phone while I am not looking, with one hand, WHILE DRIVING”?
Must make you feel safe and secure.
Email from my camera? That’d be just one more crap feature that I neither want nor need that I’d have to pay for then never use. I already have to put up with crap like that on my printer and my scanner and my phone. Why can’t I have just a dedicated device that works really well and doesn’t try to do a plethora of other things that it doesn’t need to do?
A sincere question for the iPhone detractors: have you actually used one yet?
I agree about cameras needing better interfaces. One thing I like about my Canon 400D/Rebel is that it uses the rear LCD screen to display data that in other DSRLs, gets crammed onto a small, old-school LCD. I find it so much easier and quicker changing the ISO or white balance with the visual feedback of a large, context dependent LCD screen. Adding a touch interface option - or something (as well as keeping the buttons) would make it much easier to use when you not in the “holding up to your eye” mode.
Do any other 400D users find the single LCD better than the dual LCD setups on most other DSLRs?
Care to name any other popular devices that use multi-touch, and therefore, decent gesture-based interfaces?
As you say, it was/is somewhat inevitable. Just like it was inevitable that AJAX techniques proliferated, but not always with the same level of quality. The downside - in both examples - is how these whizzy interfaces can be designed to look great, behave great but also be usable for blind people. No tactile button feedback and no suggestion, as far as I can tell, that it’s high on anyone’s priorities. I love my (hacked) iPod Touch but wonder how I’d feel if I lost my eyesight and was unable to not just use the ipod Touch for any of its functionality, but also all the *other* alternatives that have copied the touch screen interface (blindly, hah!). Suddenly, everything’s being shut out for me, and I’ll have Apple to thank. Better look after the old mince pies, then.
I agree on the advantage in design that Apple holds (and probably never will let go).
Just have a comment regarding the landline phones.
Don’t know about your opinions in the US, but in Europe (or at least in Sweden) I am looking forward to a future with mobile phones and flat rate subscriptions.
Personally I wouldn’t mind throwing out my land line phone and exhange it with a charger/synchronizing unit from Apple.. ;-)
@dean: “Why can’t I have just a dedicated device that works really well and doesn’t try to do a plethora of other things that it doesn’t need to do?”
the iphone isn’t for you then. find some free w/contract phone that does nothing and stay on a $20/month prepaid plan.
@ Mark Douglas
Well of course I don’t really need to, I could always pull over to the side of the road and do what I needed to do. But, the key here is that I don’t have to pull over. And of course I feel safe, otherwise I wouldn’t be doing it. One hand on steering wheel, both eyes on the road. My brain can easily respond to tactile feedback without any distraction. Jealous?
Land-what? People still use those? :)
Everything will be iPhone-like… but not compare to the iPhone. As you said, a simple touch screen is not enough, and no one will match the intuitive interface.
This is actually a tremendous blow to ingenuity - which occurs across all industries when a ‘cool’ aspect hits the market - as everyone decides to copy the iPhone, there will be no other leaps forward, and all devices will become homogeneous, boring, unhip pieces of technocrap.
Oh, I wish some day Apple could work with other companies. Although they are actually more close that many other companies. Lets see..
I wouldn’t want my DSLR to be touch screen, for any functions. I have my face smushed up against the LCD when taking shots for one thing, for another, finger print streaks on an image critical screen? No thank you. For another, it’s intrinsically less secure if you have to hold the camera with one hand but gesture with the other. I wouldn’t want the increased risk in dropping my expensive toy because the interface requires me to hold it less securely.
I can not remember once, in my two years of using my DSLR, having to page through all the images stored on it. But, that may be more to do with my shooting/review style than anything else, and I can see why some people might shoot/review in that way.
I think too many companies are jumping onto the gesture/touch thing without thinking about it critically first. I like tactile feedback, I’m faster with it, more accurate with it, and more comfortable with it. Which is why I don’t have in iPhone, it’s far too annoying for text, and I use text more than I use calls. iPod Touch however, is far better suited to it - great intuitive interface, and far less need to type. A scenario where touch screen excels.
Aye.
There have been some compact cameras that used a display like this. They did not go down well.
until devices like the iPhone or iPod Touch have tactile feedback, how can anyone (let alone someone so concerned with accessibility issues) say that the iPhone’s interface is great?
Until Apple ships a device with the tactile touchscreen technology that Immersion is developing, I’d feel like a hypocrite buying one.
Simply put, if you HAVE to look at it in order to interact with it, then regardless of the bells and whistles, the UI is not something to jump up and down about… unless you have impaired vision, and are pissed as hell that you can’t play with the cool toys.
Do you really need a landline phone? I switched to T-Mobile’s hotspot at home, now my home phone is a blackberry curve. Unlimited calling over wifi, and I can continue a home call on the road, without using minutes.
VOIP on wireless is here, and even offered from a Tier 1 carrier