iPhone: First Impressions

I’ve been using an iPhone for just over a week now and just can’t resist sharing my two cents. First, a personal note. I spent three years working on mobile device software. I spent a lot of time and effort trying to dream up “the next big things” in mobile devices. To be blunt, I never even came close to imagining something as cool and amazing as the iPhone, let alone designing, building and shipping it. Honestly, this device just humbles me. Even though this device is far from perfect, it still defines the terms “Innovation” and “Revolutionary”. Webster is updating his dictionary as I type. So here’s my pros and cons after my first week of iPhone.

Pros

• The Screen—This is the brightest, clearest, most readable screen I’ve ever seen on a mobile device. It’s really just stunning, even when its smudged up.
• Finger Interface—It just works. Its natural, intuitive, and responsive. For most tasks, I don’t miss hardware buttons at all.
• One-Handed Use—I was concerned this would be an issue, but I can use the device one-handed for all my common tasks: making and receiving phone calls, checking schedule, checking email, checking voicemail and playing music.
• Cover Flow—My favorite “iPhone moment” is when I walk someone through getting to cover flow the first time. The pure delight I see on their face as they start flipping through album covers with their finger just makes me happy.
• Transitions and Animations—From the way it turns on to the way the little trash can flips open and scrunches up your email when you delete it, the animations make the device feel fluid and responsive, but also enhance the usability as they communicate what action the device is taking.
• Safari—This is THE best mobile browsing experience on the planet hands down. It has room for improvement, but its still nothing short of amazing.
• Conference Calling—This is THE easiest interface for creating a conference call that I have ever used. I hope the folks who make our desk phones are taking notes.

Cons

• Recessed Headphone Jack—My preferred Sony earbuds barely connect (fall out easily), I had to buy an adapter for my car rca jack and I can’t connect the speakers in my office. This is just dumb, lame and annoying. Its the single biggest flaw and unfortunately it can’t be fixed with a software update.
• Smart Playlist Bugs—I’m seeing lots of issues with smart playlists not working properly. Unfortunately, my music listening experience has come to rely almost exclusively on smart playlists. This is not the best iPod yet, not until this gets fixed.
• App Crashes—At first I didn’t quite realize what was happening. I’d be browsing in Safari or reading email and the screen would go black and the main menu would animate back onto screen. I thought maybe I was accidentally hitting the menu button or something, but they were in fact apps crashing.
• Keyboarding—I’m coming from a blackberry full keyboard device and I’m afraid RIM still wins on this front. I’m just not as fast and accurate as I am with the blackberry and I miss little things like the spacebar double-tap for inserting a period and space to finish a sentence. The predictive text is rarely helpful and I still make lots of mistakes. It’s certainly better than T9 on a typical mobile phone, but RIM is still the bar here.
• No PEAP on WiFi—WiFi works great at home, but not at work. Our network requires PEAP support which is missing on the iPhone. Apparently, PEAP got lost in translation when they crunched OSX down to fit on iPhone. Not cool.
• VPN no workie—I can’t get VPN to our corporate network to work either.
• AT&T/Cingular—I switched from Verizon and those ubiquitous Cingular ads about “fewest dropped calls” don’t match my experience at all. My coverage just isn’t what it was with Verizon. I much prefer the nerdy guy with the glasses and his crowd following me around.

There’s definitely some v1-ness here, especially with regards to corporate scenarios. But I still love the device and no way am I giving it up. This is classic Apple. They give you so much to love that its easy to overlook and live with the flaws. I mean who cares that Safari crashed again, I’m flipping through album covers with my finger here!

posted by tadd on Monday, Jul 09, 2007

TechTalk in Mountain View, CA

Tomorrow night, I and a few others from the LDS Church’s IT department will be delivering tech talks in Mountain View, California. Here’s the info:

Speakers

• Joel Dehlin, CIO keynote
• Pete Whiting, LDS Technology Community
• Tadd Giles, Interaction Design
• Dave Prestwich, LDS IT Infrastructure
• Rich Farr, Program Management
• Bryan Hansen, Software Development at the Church

Date & Time

Wednesday, April 25th, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Location

Microsoft Campus, 1065 La Avenida, Mountain View, CA 94043

Map

Topic

I’ll be discussing the role of Interaction Design in the Church’s IT department. I’ll discuss who we are, how we work, what we’re doing and some of the challenges we’re dealing with.

If you’re in the area and have an interest in what’s happening with design at the LDS Church, my talk is for you. Hope you can make it!

Have fun!

posted by tadd on Tuesday, Apr 24, 2007

LDS TechTalk in Provo, Tuesday Night

We’re holding another LDS TechTalk this week, this time in Provo, UT. Here’s the info:

• Tuesday, Jan 23rd, 6:30 PM
• Stake Center at 1021 S 500 W in Provo
• Topics include: CIO Keynote, Interaction Design, LDS Tech Community, Development & QA, and more.
• You can attend up to 3 different 30 minute presentations of your choosing.

I had a great time presenting last week in Salt Lake and I’m honestly really looking forward to doing it again. If you’re into Design and the LDS Church and would like to learn more about how our team works, my talk is for you.

Have fun!

Map to the Stake Center

posted by tadd on Monday, Jan 22, 2007

LDS TechTalk in Salt Lake, Thursday Night

This Thursday night our department is putting on a TechTalk.

Date: Thursday, Jan 18th
Time: 6:30PM – 8:00PM
Place: Joseph Smith Memorial Building
50 South Temple, Salt Lake City

The goal of the TechTalk is two-fold: to share information about what’s going on in our department and to get to know the LDS Tech community better. If you’re into tech and the Church, you are the target audience for this. Our CIO, Joel Dehlin, will be presenting as will several of the Directors.

I’ll be presenting on Interaction Design. I plan to cover the following topics:

• Our Interaction Design team, its purpose, its role
• Our use of rapid, iterative, high-fidelity prototyping
• Our use of web standard HTML and CSS
• How we work with dev and qa teams
• and lots of Q&A

If you’re into design and how it gets done in a large organization, my talk is for you. If you’re in the Salt Lake area Thursday night, drop on by and say hi. I’ll be one of the big chubby white guys up front. I hope you can make it.

Also, we’re holding a repeat of the event next Tuesday evening in Utah Valley for the southerners who’d like to avoid the drive. I’ll post more details on that soon. We’re also planning to do more of these outside of Utah. I’ll announce those plans when they settle.

posted by tadd on Tuesday, Jan 16, 2007

Trying vs. Using

Here’s a conclusion to Jason Fried’s post yesterday: The difference between trying something and using something. Designers must design for trying and using. As designers we want both experiences to have positive results, so we have to design for both. However, if you ever have to choose between the two, lean towards “using”.

iPod is my favorite example of this. Try handing an iPod to someone who has never used one before and ask them to find and play “I am the Walrus” by the Beatles (assuming your iPod is properly equipped with the classics). Most will fumble around for quite a bit before they get the hang of the wheel and the center button. However, once they “get it”, it’s all goodness. The experience is optimized for “using” at the expense of the “trying” experience and that makes a huge difference.

P.S. Jason’s comment about the shallow nature of most reviews today is spot on. I find most tech product reviews in the range of mildly amusing to useless. There’s a huge opportunity for a new type of reviewer or review model to come forward with in-depth, “using” reviews. I’ll be the last person to step in line to buy a Zune. The size affects the “trying” before you even pick it up. However, I have to wonder if the tone of the Zune reviews would change if all the reviewers were forced to use the device as their primary music device for 30 days before they wrote anything. I know we’d get a clearer, fairer picture of how good or bad that product really is.

posted by tadd on Thursday, Dec 07, 2006