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July 25, 2007

steve_jobs

Jobs’s finger not on the button

Posted Jul. 25, ’07, 8:42 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Apple » Steve Jobs

Apple RemoteSteve Jobs hates buttons. Loathes them with a furor usually reserved for Microsoft and people who talk at the theater. Nowhere is that personality trait more evident than in the minimal buttons of the iPhone, but it’s a trend that Jobs has long embraced, the Wall Street Journal points out.

Bruce Tognazzini, a former user-interface expert at Apple who joined the company in 1978, says Mr. Jobs was adamant that the keyboard for the original Macintosh not include “up,” “down,” “right” and “left” keys that allow users to move the cursor around their computer screens, giving it a sleeker appearance than other personal computers have. Mr. Jobs’s reasoning, says Mr. Tognazzini: Omitting the cursor keys would force independent software developers to create programs that used the Mac’s mouse — a novel technology at the time.
Follow that with the infamous one-button mouse and the sparsity of the Apple Remote and iPod—hey, even Steve’s usual black turtleneck attire lacks buttons (and we bet he doesn’t go for button fly jeans; but we digress).

The root of the issue, as far as Jobs is concerned, is elegance and simplicity: qualities for which Apple’s designers are well known. And while the iPhone is more than just a one-button phone, the controls are designed with a purpose. Granted, there are missteps: the touch-sensitive buttons of the 3G iPod is a great example of Apple design gone wrong, though I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the failure of that fed back into the design process for the truly excellent Click Wheel and even the iPhone’s interface.

[Thanks, Kate!]


2 Comments

Wes Harden said:

what do you mean by "the 3G iPod is a great example of Apple design gone wrong"? I don't agree with you in the slightest way. That was Apple's second swipe at making touch sensitive controls on the iPod and I think they did it beautifully with the 3Gs. That iPod put iPods on the map for alot of people, not to mention the PC users. It was a beautiful iPod! My first iPod in fact. Backlit buttons, matte touch sensitive scroll wheel? I mean comon Dan. ( i say that alot, don't i?)

My proof is that many a symbol representing the ipod created after that generation of iPod continued to bear the four buttons above the wheel. That design stuck with people for a while.

While i'm at it, are you guys going to post a story about how the Duke network crashing and what not was NOT actually caused by iPhone, but by all devices trying to use that network?

The incident is detailed in an article on Macworld
http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/07/24/cisco/index.php

thank you

July 25, 2007 9:33 AM
Dan Moren Author Profile Page said:

@Wes: Still, I think the fact that Apple decided to return to a control scheme that was closer to the 1G and 2G iPods says that that design was a misstep.

My criticisms, which I leveled at the time as well, was that the touch-sensitive controls were way too twitchy: you could easily hit the wrong one and not know what you'd done. While the backlighting was a cool idea, it was a solution in search of a problem. With both earlier and subsequent iPods, you don't need backlighting because the controls are distinguishable by touch alone. Finally, a horizontal row of buttons is not an intuitive way of organizing controls; it's very un-Apple like. The current Click Wheel interface is vastly superior in all of those regards.

I think you'll find that layout was copied by other makers more because it was from the iPod than because it was good on its own.

But hey, I understand having a soft spot for it. People call the G4 Cube a failure: I happen to think it was merely overpriced and ahead of its time. Oh well, different strokes. :)

July 25, 2007 10:03 AM

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