CategoryApple

∞ The iPad launch – from a Microsoft perspective

iPad is 10! They grow up so fast!

I love Steven Sinofsky‘s Tweetstorms. He used to be a big honcho at Microsoft, and now he writes with a nice openness about the things that happened there. He collects the tweets on his Medium-page, which you should follow.

The last article was about the iPad launch and the responses at Microsoft HQ. The best part:

The first looks and reviews a bit later were just endless (and now tiresome) commentary on how the iPad was really for “consumption” and not productivity. There were no files. No keyboard. No mouse. No overlapping windows. Can’t write code!

In a literally classically defined case of disruption, iPad didn’t do those things but what it did, it did so much better not only did people prefer it but they changed what they did in order to use it. Besides, email was the most used tool and iPad was great for that.

The whole thread is well worth a read.

Talkin’ bout a resolution

T

It seems like the whole internet is talking about an iPhone with a bigger screen. John Gruber and Marco Arment said there would be two possibilities. Bigger pixels or more pixels. Bigger pixels would indicate the same amount of content, just bigger. That would not seem like a worthwhile endeavor to me. So here I’ll analyze the more content on screen possibility.

More content = more icons

There is one place in the system where there are clear dimensions. This is the organization of the home screen. It is a grid of six by four icons. They are each 120 x 120 pixels with 32 pixels in between and on the outside of the grid. This gets us a 640 x 1136 screen. Adding an extra row and line of icons adds 120 +32 = 152 pixels in both directions. This will get us 792 x 1288 screen.

Pixels to size

An iPhone 5s compared to a version with a 792 x 1288 screen. Visualised by Ys-Brand.

If (big if) the pixel size stays the same (326 ppi) that means the screen will be 2,43″ x 3,95″ and give us a diagonal of 4,64″ and a ratio of 1:1,63. I’ve asked my brother Ysbrand to mock me up an iPhone with the bigger screen. On the left is an original iPhone 5s, and on the right you see a version with the bigger screen (click for a bigger picture).

The phone on the right looks big but manageable to me. I would not be surprised if this turns out to be the solution that Apple uses, but something totally different wouldn’t surprise me either. What do you think?

iMediacy – The iPhone Revolution

i
Cover image iMediacy

During the last months of 2008 it was time to finish my Bachelors in Communication and Information Sciences with a 5000 word thesis. I decided to focus my attention on the iPhone. The situation was quite different from the current one. The 3G was the current model and the App Store had launched just a few months earlier. I wanted to explore how a product like the iPhone could have such an impact after being on the market for only a short time. My suspicion was that this would have to do with the interface, which is why I focused on the theories of Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin about remediation, hypermediacy and (transparent) immediacy. Hypermediacy and (transparent) immediacy are usually at odds with each other. Making a product that could have qualities of both could make for a great user experience? was this the secret of the iPhone? My research question was this:

Is the iPhone interface capable of decreasing the tension between immediacy and hypermediacy as defined by Bolter and Grusin?

If you would like an answer to this question, please read my thesis. It won’t take very long and I’ve tried to write in an approachable way. Comments are always welcome.

Apple voorspellingen

A

Zoals de meeste lezers wel weten ben ik een Apple-fan. Daarom bij deze mijn voorspellingen voor de nabije toekomst!

ODD verdwijnt

Hopelijk heeft je volgende computer geen DVD-drive meer, in ieder geval niet ingebouwd. Tijd om alles te streamen/downloaden. Voor de CD’s/DVD’s die je nog nodig hebt koop je maar een externe drive. Het levert (zeker in het compacte segment) meer performance/batterijduur op. ODD betekent dus Optical Disc Drive..

NFC

Near Field Communication heeft de toekomst. Denk aan RFID Tags, maar dan in een vorm waar je er zelf iets aan hebt. Je volgende iPhone heeft zo’n chip, waardoor enorme mogelijkheden ontstaan:

  • Betalen: Je betaalt met je mobiel, waarbij je meteen een elektronisch bonnetje ontvangt. Gevolg: een automatische boekhouding!
  • iPod Synchroniseren: In plaats van die kabel haal je je iPod gewoon langs je computer. De synchronisatie verloopt draadloos en je hoeft niet eens een wachtwoord in te typen.
  • Computer Synchroniseren: Je haalt je iPod/iPhone langs andermans Mac. Je kan meteen bij de bestanden op je iOS apparaat en je apps uit de Mac App store zijn ook te benanderen.

Dock Connector verdwijnt

Als we draadloos kunnen synchroniseren moeten we natuurlijk ook draadloos gaan opladen. Apple werkt volgens mij naar een draadloze toekomst. Voor afspelen wordt de dock connector al vervangen door het Airplay-Protocol. Hoog tijd dus dat dit voor synchroniseren en opladen ook gebeurt.

Wishlist

Mijn wishlist is vrij simpel: Alles waterdicht..

Het is tijd voor #Appmashing!

H

Hoeveel apps heeft de gemiddelde lezer van mijn blog op zijn of haar telefoon? Wat jammer dat al die Apps niet met elkaar praten! Ik wacht al een tijdje op integratie van Shazam in Spotify. Welke apps zou jij graag met elkaar zien praten?

A headshot of Marnix

Socials

All posts