“Today, pretty much everything we use has been designed for many more purposes than we ever use it for,” Willy Trolove writes for The New Zealand Herald.
Trolove writes, “Home entertainment systems come with all sorts of extra features. Look at the remote control for your TV or your stereo or your DVD player and ask yourself how many of its buttons you ever push. Chances are the answer will be three or four, and the number of buttons on the thing will be 187.”
“Your home entertainment system is hopelessly over-designed for the simple tasks it most often performs,” Trolove writes. “Likewise, my laptop has enough computing power to send mankind to the moon and run the stock exchange. It is more intelligent than I am, but all I ever ask it to do is remember the silly words I type into its keyboard and not self-destruct out of sheer boredom.”
Trolove writes, “Your bog standard mobile phone comes with all sorts of extra features which, if you are anything like me, you completely fail to understand. My phone, for example, hosts pages of stuff mysteriously referred to as applications, and something called a minibrowser which I have no idea how to use.”
“But even the most sophisticated phones, with their cameras and their ringtones, are not a patch on the new iPhone unveiled by Apple. The iPhone will be able to do almost anything you can imagine a phone might do for you,” Trolove writes. “It can screen videos and record your conversations. It can do your banking and organise your birthday party. It can break up with your girlfriend while ordering you a pizza.”
“And yet, all of these extra features mean that the iPhone will be the most over-designed device in the history of humanity,” Trolove writes. “This is because, by and large, it will be used for the one simple task that almost every single mobile phone ever sold has been used for – helping its owner believe they are cooler than they actually are.”
Full article here.
Apple’s iPhone’s revolutionary user interface brings myriad features that other so-called “smartphones” are supposed to offer to (but instead hide from) their users due to badly conceived, ill-designed user interfaces, and Trolove criticizes Apple for fixing exactly what irks him? Trolove is right, his laptop – a lowly Windows laptop, no doubt – is easily more intelligent than him.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Glenn” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Tognazzini: Glorious iPhone embodies the genius of Steve Jobs’ Apple – January 19, 2007
Researchers have bigger plans for ‘multi-touch’ beyond Apple’s iPhone – January 19, 2007
Ihnatko: Hands-on with Apple’s iPhone (which runs Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard) – January 18, 2007
Apple could potentially sell 30 million iPhones in 2007 – January 18, 2007
Reactions to iPhone highlight competitors’ inability to understand Apple’s success – January 17, 2007
ZDNet online poll shows overwhelming Apple iPhone lust – January 17, 2007
Apple iPhone tops Amazon’s bestselling electronics list in Germany – January 13, 2007
BusinessWeek explores ‘the real genius of Apple’s iPhone’ – January 12, 2007
Wired News: Steve Jobs’ iPhone shows the future – January 12, 2007
Apple’s Phil Schiller gives CBS News hands-on tour of iPhone – January 12, 2007
David Pogue: hands on preview of Apple’s iPhone, ‘gorgeous and so packed with possibilities’ – January 11, 2007
PC Magazine hands-on test of Apple iPhone: multi-touch UI ‘takes the breath away’ – January 11, 2007
Mossberg’s initial take on Apple iPhone: ‘radical and gorgeous’ with ‘brilliant new user interface’ – January 11, 2007
NewsWeek’s Levy interviews Apple CEO Steve Jobs about iPhone – January 11, 2007
RealMoney: Apple just blew up the whole damn mobile-phone supply chain with its new iPhone – January 11, 2007
ZDNet: Hands on with Apple’s iPhone: ‘elegant, ravishing, simple, sleek; impeccable & intuitive UI’ – January 11, 2007
Apple iPhone FUD campaign begins – January 10, 2007
Nine ways Apple changed the face of consumer electronics yesterday – January 10, 2007
Analysts and investors applaud arrival of Apple iPhone – January 10, 2007
Hands-on with Apple’s iPhone – January 10, 2007
The only thing really wrong with Apple’s iPhone is its name – January 09, 2007
Is Apple building ‘The Device?’ [revisited] – January 09, 2007
Analyst Bajarin: Apple’s iPhone and Apple TV are industry game changers – January 09, 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
Enderle: Apple’s iPhone is going to do very well – January 09, 2007
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I already know I’m cooler than everyone else…this will just be icing on the cake.
“It can break up with your girlfriend while ordering you a pizza.”
Priceless!
don’t worry New Zealand, by the time an iPhone gets to your islands, it will be in its 3rd or 4th generation.
So many of them just don’t get it. As MDN says, 50% are below average. Unfortunatly, the lower half is the most vocal.
He’s right about one thing. His computer is smarter than he is…and it’s a PC
“Trolove writes, ‘Your bog standard mobile phone comes with all sorts of extra features which, if you are anything like me, you completely fail to understand. My phone, for example, hosts pages of stuff mysteriously referred to as applications, and something called a minibrowser which I have no idea how to use.'”
That’s pretty sad. However, some matches, a few logs and a blanket might be all the phone he needs.
Isn’t time to end all of the iPhone FUD articles? They really are tedious, do not say anything new and are simply worthless. It makes me wish Apple launched this thing already, I am sick of hearing about it. Now I have to wait until June to get through this, then they start up again with the “reviews” which will follow this formula:
a) The reviewer will call it cool
b) Say its well designed
c) Then ding it for the: perceived lack of keyboard, cant swap out the battery, bitch about EDGE, Cant import Office documents, and then complain about the price.
I never hear Mac folks talk about something making them look cool. The ones who are concerned with the “coolness” factor are the ones who are always measuring themselves up against everyone else; then, not recognizing their own envy, project their inadequacies on us, like we’re the ones lording our shiny gold-plated a$$holes over them or something.
I use products because I like what they do for me, not what Mr. Dumba$$ down the street thinks of me. With his logic, we should all be using abicuses because to use a calculator means you think you’re better than you really are.
Sheesh. I guess New Zealand has dopes there, too.
Sheesh. If the iPhone is 5 years ahead of the industry, then it must be 15 years ahead of New Zealand.
Willy could just tie a note to a sheep’s neck, slap it on the rump and wait it out.
He’ll get better battery life.
How is it that there are so many “tech” pundits who just don’t understand that there is a big difference between just cramming functions into a product vs. “overdesigning” something so that you can actually use those functions.
man..this guy is such an ignorant idiot and truly thinks that most people are like him..well maybe he is right but there are millions of people who will appreciate every little designed feature the iPhone will offer. This guy is a fool for missing out on the possibilities we have today…
Ego. What’s wrong with it? We purchase cars, Hummers, clothes, electronics, organic food, housewares, etc all for the sakes of what it says about ourselves. In a word… “Ego”. So what wrong with that?
I have 6 Newtons, how cool can you get?
By the way: Are the newtons already released in New Zuneland?
rwinters: “don’t worry New Zealand, by the time an iPhone gets to your islands, it will be in its 3rd or 4th generation”.
Just think of what it could do for us down here by then. Maybe it could break up a pizza, while ordering a new girlfriend.
Windows Vista will have >50,000,000 lines of code and the iPhone is OVER-designed?
I laugh, for 5.5 months, while I get my savings in order to buy an iPhone.
Trolove writes, “Home entertainment systems come with all sorts of extra features. Look at the remote control for your TV or your stereo or your DVD player and ask yourself how many of its buttons you ever push. Chances are the answer will be three or four, and the number of buttons on the thing will be 187.”
Head-up his ass. He’s proving himself that Apple’s design is necessary, useful and innovative.
The iPhone’s face has exactly zero buttons. That’s the beauty of it. There are no buttons until you need them. Contrast that to any common phone, or better yet, any common smartphones that these companies are panicking to sell off before the iPhone arrives. They all are bristling with buttons that, if you aren’t using that exact feature, just get in the way and waste space.
FUD machines are cranking away…can’t wait to see how bad this gets.
You need no iPhone to tend to your sheep!
Hes right though, all I want in a phone that texts and calls properly, everything else is just expensive clutter.
But if its going to make me cooler…
Why would anyone ever want a personal computer with more than a gigabyte HD? Why would anyone want to edit photographs on a computer? Who could ever need more than 128 mb ram
Just reminds me of the old joke:
What’s the response if you ask the time in New Zealand? About 1950.
MDN Magic word – ‘industry’, as in NZ doesn’t have any. Baaaa!
Standard Apple apologist responses:
If the Apple product lacks features that many competitors have:
“Those features aren’t needed. Apple is simplifying the product by eliminating the ability to do certain tasks or functions that many people are willing to do without. In fact, Apple is a genius for simplifying the product.”
If the Apple product includes features that many competitors already have:
“Apple makes it easier to do required functions. This is true even if many people do not actually have problems using competitor product.”
If the Apple product includes features that many competitors don’t have:
“Apple is many years ahead of the competition. This is true because more functions mean more advanced technology. If the majority of consumers don’t actually use 90% of the functions, it is because they are stupid and not because those functions aren’t really that important.”
ZZZ
fuck off , bill
I like the bottom line here: “I am a ludite. My crappy phone has stuff on it that I do not understand. Even if I knew what it was, I would not be able to
use it. The only way to make my crappy cell phone better is to make it crappier.”
An strange analogy to use too many buttons to represent too many functions, since the iPhone has one button on the front.
How is this specific to the iPhone over other smartphones? Oh, that’s right, the functions are easier to use!
One underlying reason for part of his cell phone example: many functions go unused because users cannot figure out how to use them.
The irony that underdesigned cell phone interfaces are responsible for problems cited while the iPhone interface attempts
to make function easier to access is lost on the writer.
The iPhone doesn’t make you want to use functions you do not need, but for people that want a smartphone, it makes the functions
easier to use. Implicit in that (apparently the writer needs this kind of thing said): if you do not need a smartphone, don’t buy one.
I do not need a smartphone, but I hope the visual voicemail system makes it onto every cell phone.
Hey Guys ,, on to this.. Dont worry,, I am from NZ ,,,, Will be calling them ,
We will see this change.
Don’t blame NZ for this WINker, they exist all over the world. For real news from NZ try Scoop.
New iPhone To Shake Up Mobile Content Business http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0701/S00017.htm
http://www.scoop.co.nz/
Hmmm.
I do think he’s partially right. At this time there are phones that do all sorts of things. My phone has a camera -it stinks, it his a web browser – never used it, text messaging – no thanks. It also has a useless calendar, a music player that I have never figured out, etc.
Where I differ with him is in that the programs would be great if they were useable. Thats where the iPhone will (hopefully) make a difference. Real web browsing, a usable music player, etc., etc.
No I am not ,, NZ is COOL many Mac and tech stuff.
anyway he is not anti the iphone,,, he is cool he is generaly making comments.
I know what he is saying…
Herald is normally a High Quality Paper
Another idiot who doesn’t know what he’s talking about! More FUD on the iphone. At least you will understand how to use it unlike that blackberry or Treo you’re carrying around.
I am so much cooler than almost everyone in New Zeland.
MDN: “his laptop – a lowly Windows laptop, no doubt – is easily more intelligent than him.”
While making fun of someone else’s intelligence, it is often best to use correct grammar. That should read, “it is easily more intelligent than he.”
It’s the exact same as saying, “more intelligent than he is.” Except the final “is” is dropped for brevity.
MW: side. As in, this is just a side note.
From what I could see on the MW quicktime presentation, iPhone seems to offer less than most phones in terms of all those extra features which hardly anybody uses.
My audiovox/winmobile has all kinds of stuff which I never use and the one thing I liked about the iPhone was that it didn’t stuff in all kinds of things I’d likely never use. iPhone seemed refreshingly clean of all that clutter and made it amazingly easy to find the functions I do want.
I still won’t buy one because it’s way too expensive but Apple seems to be on the right track, functionality wise.
When we export our sheep to the US it raises both our countrys average IQ
HAHAHA!
I will never understand the incessant defense of mediocrity. Thanks to MS its gotten to be kind of cult thing to do – Ah its good enough… It works… Don’t need it to do any more than that… That’s all I use it for, etc. etc..
What a bunch of whiney underachievers.
hes a aussie anyway LOL, anyway will email him now…..
“What’s the response if you ask the time in New Zealand? About 1950.”
the actual time in New Zealand right now is tomorrow afternoon…
HEY NO ANTI NZ STUFF HERE ,
Arsee.. Most NZs a Hig Tech savey., Use more macs Tha n UK etc per P. SO.
He is a tallking about loosers with notebooks who have not idea what they are….
If this dude had half a brain, he should know Apple’s design philosophy: simplicity. “Over design” ? Ba… ha ha ha ha ROTFLOL!! Stupid moron!
Have you guys ever heard of the phrase “tounge in cheek”?
We may be a couple of years behind the rest of the world with technology but at least we have a sense of humour!
quote “My phone, for example, hosts pages of stuff mysteriously referred to as applications, and something called a minibrowser which I have no idea how to use.”
Isn’t that exactly what Jobs said in the intro? People have their phones with stuff they don’t know how to use. Apple makes it simple to understand and use. And this guy sites that as a negative.
WTF is this guy? Imbecile is the first word to my mind.
I’m sure if a product was produced that performed just the “normal” or basic functions that people typically use it would be criticized for lacking features and it would be compared to other products that offer more. It would be ripped apart. Come to think of it, it kind of sounds like the iPod. How long have we heard people bitch that “it doesn’t have an FM tuner” or “it doesn’t have a built in voice recorder”, etc., etc when it’s main function that it performs oh so well is to play music?
The moron also hasn’t figured out that computers or only as smart as their operators. Computers have no intelligence- they do exactly as they are told.
This is because, by and large, it will be used for the one simple task that almost every single mobile phone ever sold has been used for – helping its owner believe they are cooler than they actually are
—
If you choose to view the world with such a negative perspective, I’m not gonna stop you.
PS. anyway THE Folly::
Pple Get used to a Product as crap.. Iphone Rules Go away. lovewilly hahahhhhhah Need More PC users here to hassel…..
PS : Tell me webcams!!!! They suck huh
can anyone say why and what!!!
Dang, what a bunch of tree sloths. None of you got the poor guy’s point. Read the article again, the fellow is using HYPERBOLE to make a simple (though over YOUR heads) observation. And he’s right, in large part. Few of us really understand very much of what these gadgets can do, these devices that took food off our tables. But we drain our bank accounts to get them anyway, in hopes they will improve our looks a little.
The guy was actually sort of funny. But–starting with the MDN take–nearly everybody missed it, right down the line.
You’re all so busy thinking “different” you can’t tell when somebody actually DOES it.
Wankers.
MW = “sense,” as in “You’re going to need a little common SENSE if you wanna find a LIFE someday.” Idiots.
New Zealand, the land of luddites, satirists, and malcontents.
Maczealot,
There are windows biggots all over the world. If the article came from the US, people wouldnt make brazen generalizations about the country. Dvorak, Enderlie, the list goes on, when these guys talk shit do you jump on America? Didn’t think so.
Don’t judge NZ based on this guy any more than you want the US judged by those that write here. Or by those that run our country.
I’m sure there were folks that were scared to let go of the dial phone for the right-outta-Buck-Rogers touchtone phone.
But, technology and humanity evolved, regardless.
I’m sure this guy’s VCR is still flashing 12:00pm. My mom’s does too but she’s 75 and has f*cking Alzheimer’s. What’s his excuse?
m
Just another dork without a clue. I agree with him about today’s electronic gadgets sporting a bewildering array of extra features that are hardly ever used. But the iPhone is not about heaping more features on the dunghill. Apple is in the process of birthing an entirely new category of electronic device that, over time, will come to be as indispensable to us as the humble cell phone is today. Many of the individual pieces that make up the iPhone are out there today, but nobody is better at connecting the dots than the master himself, Steve Jobs.
Snot Bender
some ppl here know he makes sences of New gaditz etc I hate most of them I have binned many 3g phones,,,, BIN lol
Also Bloggers get over it he is making some Points and Not slagging the Phone , He just though it woul be like all the others OK. Hes fine..
OVER
PS: MS: is Poo.
Computers were designed by geeks, to be used by geeks, until Apple made the technology accessible, first with the Apple II and then (to a greater extent) with Macintosh. Microsoft copied (badly) the Mac OS to the point where all personal computer users today are essentially Mac users.
Digital media technology was already available when iPod and iTunes (without he store) first came along. Apple simply made the technology usable and enjoyable for the typical consumer.
Today, there are dozens of useful mobile phone technologies out there. The author is correct that most people use their powerful mobile phones to make phone calls and not much else. He is justifying Apple’s proposition. Apple is simply moving forward to make those other wireless technologies accessible to non-geeks. This may be the most complex challenge attempted by Apple, but there is no reason to believe Apple cannot succeed.
Trolove.
Enderle.
Peas.
Pod.
Ummm, I’m going to actually wait for reviews from people who actually have tested it.
He’s right, the world would be a better place if everything was designed for and by mindless lemmings. Drrr. I just want my computer to remember what I punch in. Drrr. You don’t need a computer to do that, the cavemen were writing on walls a hundred thousand years ago. Drrr. And his relatives probably still do. Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
hi one thing i noted is..whenever they put something about iphone ZUNE TANG mysteriously disappears…..
“Home entertainment systems come with all sorts of extra features. Look at the remote control for your TV or your stereo or your DVD player and ask yourself how many of its buttons you ever push. Chances are the answer will be three or four, and the number of buttons on the thing will be 187.”
—
I’ll bet this guy still puts electrical tape over the “blinking numbers” on his VCR.
After a fashion, I kind of agree with Trolove, although I think he’s really off about the iPhone. And not because I want one. Not likely to happen. Don’t need what the iPhone is.
My phone also has all kinds of features I don’t use. Mostly because it’s a Verizon phone, so doing almost anything other than using it just as a phone, costs me more money. I’m already paying more than I care to, just for phone use. But, it’s the ceapest and best available.
Camera…yep, but picture quality is crap and it costs me money to get them to my computer. I have to email them to myself. Direct downloading to my computer isn’t allowed.
Texting messaging…yep, but IMHO (outside of an emergency situation where I’ve lost my voice and I’m unable to talk) this has got to be the most all time stupid feature ever offered on cell phones.
Ringtomes…nice idea, but (again) they cost money. Can’t make or sample my own…gotta download them at absurdly rediculous prices. Forget it!
Web browsing…yep, but (again) this feature costs me money. Even if it didn’t, I wouldn’t bother. All things considered, it’s rediculous, too.
I could go on…and on…and on, but I think you get the picture. FWIW, I think my issues with my cell phone are similar to those of most cell phone users.
I think most of us just want a simple and reliable phone with service that’s just as simple and reliable.
chill out guys!!!
i have lived in nooo zeeeeeland for long enough to know that this guy is writing his article with a tongue in cheek sense of humor.
he is NOT taking a SERIOUS look at the ApplePhone technology.
he’s taking the piss of gadgetry in genral.
take it easy.
boogie
I agree with boogle!!!!
The guys is just making a joke!!!! It’s pretty rough how many MDN readers are taking this opportunity to bag New Zealanders. I must make sure I hammer Americans next time Dvorak writes a column!!!!!
(Do you get my point or are you thinking I’m being serious?)
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What’s with all the NZ bashing? Should the rest of the world judge Americans by the words of Steve Ballmer?
PLEASE tell me this guys didnt get paid for this article… its TOTAL and COMPLETE fluff…
Razor, boogie, Lighten Up!!!, mindpower:
You’re right, not “all” New Zealanders are luddites, satirists, and malcontents. I’m sure that a few New Zealanders are actually savvy and discriminating consumers who are quite adept with using televisions and toothbrushes, despite of Willie’s own comments to the contrary.
Sounds like The New Zealand Herald is an anti Apple orginisation. What the writer clearly indicates to his readers is his complete lack of ability to understand or use technology, so why is he writing a column about a device he has yet to even use, and most likely never be able to understand. The New Zealand Herald should employ technolgy writers with a bit more of a clue or an editor who can see the writings of an complete idiot.
i was just wondering, when does the iphone actually come out in new zealand? i really need to know =P. pls tell me if u have any information.
thnx =)
Ha ha losser you dont have one so you are only going on what you hope it wont do etc. I have one you dont. My business runs better. Yours dosent.
go to toshcomputers.co.nz to buy
you and your employers one
over and out