“Tampering with a winning user interface is a tricky thing. People don’t generally like drastic user interface changes and yet, there are times early on in a new device cycle, where reinvention from within is necessary to keep the competition on the run,” Jack Purcher writes for Patently Apple.
“Apple’s iPhone user interface led the way in 2007 and the copycats do what they do best: they copied it,” Purcher writes. “Well, Apple appears to be at it again and sending out signals that change is in the wind. Both in September and December of 2010, Apple hinted that they were considering the use of a new UI element called ‘Spirals,’ an interesting UI that could be used for media, especially photos.”
Purcher reports, “Today, Apple introduces us to something they simply refer to as ‘Segmented Graphical Representations.’ It’s a new Graphical User Interface element that presents one larger graphic, such as album art, and then segments it into a series of smart interactive tiles. The idea may begin with the iTunes Store, but Apple shows us that it could very well spill over to other iOS elements like the address book and beyond.”
Much more in the full article, including Apple’s patent application illustrations, here.
“It’s a new Graphical User Interface element that presents one larger graphic, such as album art, and then segments it into a series of smart interactive tiles.”
New like Microsoft TILES New??? Say it ain’t so Apple… Say it ain’t so.
Please we haven’t een seen it used in products and you’re already saying they copied it from Microsoft.
What is the value of it?
Don’t even compare the King of copycats to Apple’s design work. Patents are a concept. Once we see Apple’s real ui element we’ll love it. It makes a lot of sense and it cleans up the UI. Why they didn’t replicate what they already had for the iPod touch’s library, is beyond me. Better late than never. I think on an iPad it’ll be really cool.
I think you are confused by the term tiles just because MS uses that term does not mean that the interface elements are similar as the images in the article show. If 2 people use the term wallpaper it doesn’t mean that both will be using flock on their walls .
I think you are confused! If you think apple does not take ideas from the best software company in the world! Haha! The timing of this change comes at the time of windows phone 7! Android has widgets and windows phone has tiles and iphone has a tile grid of dumb apps. I am not saying I dont like the iphone it just needs a UI upgrade!
I just noticed an update to this report. The guy makes a good point about the address book in block tiles resembling a following-block on Twitter. It’s an easy way to visually look at your address book and tap on the contact you want quickly without as much scrolling. Good thinking.
Pity the poor putz with a paltry partition of past contacts consisting of empty tiles. Oh, the humanity!