“I was at the Steve Jobs keynote. And like everyone else in that room, I was thrilled by the iPhone demo. The UI is spectacular, but for reasons you can’t see in a photograph, or get from the online keynote video. The best part of the iPhone is simply this: the UI is alive. By implementing one of the key principles of animation, the designers have shown us the stunning power of using Dog Ears as a user experience model,” Kathy Sierra writes for Creating Passionate Users.
Sierra writes, “In the real world, we have physics. We have inertia. Things bounce and stretch and squash. We have follow through. Imagine a dog with long floppy ears sprinting for a frisbee. Now picture the dog coming to a screeching halt in front of the disc. What happens to the ears? They keep going. Then they “bounce” back. And it’s a big part of what separates a good animator from an amateur.”
“Even if you don’t notice it consciously, an animation (even of just words) feels more appealing and alive when things move in the virtual world more like things do in the real world (or even more exaggerated). It feels more lyrical, fluid… less abrupt. And that is what the iPhone UI does,” Sierra writes.
Sierra writes, “Yes the touch-screen is cool. And the multi-touch gestures are so very minority-reportish. But it wasn’t the scrolling that made my jaw drop… it was what happened when the scrolling stopped: it bounced! The thing actually bounced if you flicked it hard and fast enough to send it flying up to the very (or bottom) of the list before it had a chance to slow down and stop. It actually bounced. And until you’ve seen it slow down and bounce, you haven’t felt that visceral, life-like, fluidity.”
Sierra writes, “Someone was quoted as saying, ‘You had me at scrolling.’ Well, for me it was, ‘You had me at what happened when the scrolling stopped.'”
Full article here.
Explaining something like this to the average Joe is like explaining the difference between Mac and Windows. They’ll typically sneer and/or discount it as unimportant, but it makes all the difference in the world. Apple’s attention to detail is a very important contributor to the success of their products and Kathy Sierra does an exemplary job of describing it in her full article.
CBS News takes a closer look at Apple’s iPhone:
Related articles:
Research in Motion downgraded due to Apple iPhone competition – January 23, 2007
RealMoney: Apple just blew up the whole damn mobile-phone supply chain with its new iPhone – January 11, 2007
eWeek: Apple iPhone fallout: ‘They must be crying in Nokia-ville and other telephony towns today’ – January 10, 2007
Jefferies downgrades Motorola on fears of market share loss to Apple iPhone – January 10, 2007
The massive FUD campaign against Apple’s iPhone ramps up – January 10, 2007
Time: ‘iPhone could crush cell phone market pitilessly beneath the weight of its own superiority’ – January 09, 2007
Analyst: Apple iPhone should be given its own category – ‘brilliantphone’ – January 09, 2007
Apple debuts iPhone: touchscreen mobile phone + widescreen iPod + Internet communicator – January 09, 2007
Mmmmmmmmm, visceral, life-like, fluidity…
Finally, a link that I can click on that ISN’T RoughlyDrafted!
I just hope it’s not Really Alive. I don’t want anything that I put in my pants pocket to be thinking. But hey, that’s me.
It’s not bouncing. It’s called rubber-banding. Boobies bounce.
Scrolls like butter!
Let’s just cut to the chase and send Lord Jobs right over to Pennsylvania Avenue and move him in.
Anyone who can get this kind of response from a common device that is designed to make phone calls ought to be crowned King of the World while we simpletons just swoon at his feet and hope he will pull another toy out of his pocket and allow us to lose all sense of purpose for our lives.
It’s a phone people. Get hold of yourselves!
she also has a GREAT article about Angry/Negative people in a link on the left which I will provide here.
Think about your own behavior..
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/04/angrynegative_p.html
pr: That’s a cool link. Thanks.
We won’t know until June (maybe) if it will complete and maintain a telephone connection but the scrolling. Oh, oh, oh, the scrolling! My goodness.
“you haven’t felt that visceral, life-like, fluidity.”
Next thing you know- it’ll squirt!
“I don’t want anything that I put in my pants pocket to be thinking.”
I sure do. Better it than me.
Sure it bounces but HAL can read lips! Can the iPhone read lips? I didn’t think so.
I wonder if the rubber banding is patentable and if Apple patented it?
I wonder if we will see fluid motions like this in the Leopard GUI?
The hyperbole never ceases to amaze the ‘true believers’. Maybe it’s also got a secret transporter button that sends its users to the mother ship.
For those who are unimpressed by the user experience, there is an applicable saying:
It is a waste to cast pearls before the swine.
This reminds me of the attention to detail in Pixar’s animation.
Oops, I just deleted my handle.
MW: happened, as in:
Sh*t just happened.
You had me at boobies.
Why would I buy an iPhone when the Vista phone is just around the corner? Welcome to the social.
I just watched the CBS thing… first time I’ve seen the iPhone used properly (cant get the damn quicktime stream working…) and it is just amazing. looks a lot smaller than i thought aswell. AAAAH I CANT WAIT ITS GONNA BE SOOOO GOOD!!!
MW: ‘old’ as in the other smartphones look like slow and boring old grampas compared to this thing.
it is NOT a smartphone*!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* according to the arbitrary definition of a research firm.
Wonderful. Now release Leopard, and give me a touch-screen 30″ lcd. NOW, dammit.
CS3 w/touch
Aperture w/touch
Logic w/touch
FCP w/touch
and…
I had to take a cold shower after reading Kathy’s descriptions.
Or more correctly…Explaining this to the average Joe is like explaining the Mouse to a PC user in the 80’s and early 90’s. They ALL ridiculed it. I remember the articles and reviews and the comments from my PeeCee using friends. The mouse was a toy. No real work can be done with it. Yet, look at them now. MS Word and Excel were developed around the mouse and not even Enderle or Dvorak would tell you in this new millenium that the mouse is just a toy. But, look back and that’s exactly what they (and their peers were saying)… “There is no evidence that people want to use these things.” John “Twit” Dvorak -1984