iPad

I am a great fan of Jakob Nielsen. He always talks a great deal of sense about usability and has been around long enough to witness all of the cycles of fashion in design in user interfaces. He very kindly is making available, for zilch, a really detailed report about iPad usability.

When I was in Dublin I had a TV interview about all of this ‘i’ stuff and why it is such an important development for older people.

Having watched it again I think it covers most of the points, however, I must stop repeating myself. Put it down to age.

If you’re a Flipboard user like me, you probably appreciate the ability of this remarkable iPad application to turn Twitter and Facebook feeds into a quite readable magazine. But you may also have wondered how you can tweak it to become even more relevant. 

After all, subscribing to a list of Tweeters with an interest in vintage clothing, does get you updates on that rare outfit by Chanel, yet also about the fact that a Tweeter’s dog has done doodoo on the carpet.

I wrote about this article when it was first published. I agreed with the conclusion but thought the rationale was somewhat banal and patronising.

I found this short video clip far more amusing as three hot shot tech sons give their views about the suitability of the iPad for their mums/moms.

The iPad is cool, almost as cool as the ACE Hotel. I really like this place and it is becoming the place to stay for me in NYC. Forget the W, it is so boring. They were running out of room on my last day of stay so they switched me to this special room with bunk bed. Very cool.

The fact that the thinking for the iPad came before the iPhone is interesting. What is much, much, much more interesting is what Mr Jobs says towards the end of this interview about the where goeth the PC. “PCs will be like trucks”. I think he is right. What do you think?

This is first detailed look at the usability of using apps – in this case on the iPad not the iPhone.

Jakob Nielsen has many detailed criticisms of the initial releases of apps but his overall comments seem to me to be bang on. I quote.

Courtesy of my dear friend Peer Munck (Founder of MunckMix, a music distributor), I just had my first ride in a Tesla Roadster, the $129,000 electric sports car. It blew me away, because I was reminded what can happen when innovators lovingly create something that has design integrity — by which I mean the solution (e.g., the Roadster’s total reliance on battery power) does not compromise on critical dimensions (e.g., speed, handling and range).

The video says it all.

Recently, there has been a lot of buzz on the Internet about two similar events. What happened was basically this; The Masters of the Universe had proclaimed their decrees like dictators and the only thing the rest of the world could do was, for a lack of a better phrase, gnash their teeth in frustration.