Why the Apple iPad has no Java or Flash

Apple iPad is the first complete, general purpose, computer DRM platform and all people complain about is plugins. Music DRM went away because it was stupid. Idiot users pirate everything not bolted down and you end up with Bluray, Xbox, Playstation, Kindle, iPhone and now the Apple iPad. There has never been more DRM and people think they are winning. No, because Internet piracy and hardware piracy has given birth to yet another locked down platform. Because companies need to make money and do what is required.

The iPad exists because you wanted it. Blame yourself if you don't like it. Personally, I might buy one for my mom. Because it's probably a great piece of web surfing, picture browsing, hardware. And OMG do I need one of those.

At first that read like a rant, but Jan ended up wanting one for his mom.

We've been saying this for a decade: if you make music and video easy enough, users will pay for it. Pirating is hard, but pirating is because users want to consume media on their terms: when they want, and on the device they want.

Users' sense of ownership was formed by physical things. Buy a book, share a book, get the book back. Copy a CD you play on the stereo to a cassette you pop in the car. Excessive restriction fosters circumvention so people can use the media they consider theirs. Follow iTunes' lead to work with users. Let them share in the home, and have 5 copies on 5 devices. Maybe even give them a way to loan or share with a few friends. The iPad itself is sharable, like a comic book or an LP.

Make life easy enough, and users don't actually care about the DRM. They just want to watch and listen their way.

An information appliance for the caveman in us

This past weekend, I overheard all too many conversations about the iPad, echoing complaints friends read online.  The most common was "Why do I need one when I already have an iPhone and a laptop?"

Stop right there.  

If you already have an iPhone and a laptop, you're among the technology elite, and a minority.  Put your iPhone back in your pocket, close your laptop lid, and look around you.  What are other people using?  If you're at a Starbucks or Panera Bread, or an office that supports the iPhone, the people you see are the minority too, so you'll have to look farther afield.

Most Americans aren't laptop and iPhone toting early adopter creatives commenting on blogs, emailing business plans, designing marketing materials or coding a startup.  Most Americans are consumers.  Most Americans spend their time on passive leisure that makes them feel happy.  

Instead of observing fellow laptop users at Starbucks, go find how "most Americans" use computers.  Watch people at a public library or even at the computer aisle in a Best Buy store.

When confronted with a keyboard (invented 1867), people don't touch type, they eyeball and poke at one key at a time.  Given a mouse (invented 1972), their gestures are tentative. They look at the screen, then look at their hand on the mouse, move it, and look back at the screen.  They want something from the computer, but the tediousness of telling it what they want frustrates them.

Why is a tool designed in 1867 for people creating office documents, and the esoteric skill required to operate that tool efficiently, still getting in the way of people just wanting to read an email, find a book or song, watch a video, or browse friends and family pictures on Facebook?  Why does it take a Steve Jobs to imagine most Americans don't want an electric typewriter with a nicer screen?

Who wants to have to learn this:

To do this:

Photo via Flickr/Scott Chang

Engineers should get out more.  This decade's netbook form factor is still dictated by vestiges of the typewriter age and the "data input" daily routines of academia and corporate America.  Regular folk don't type.  Regular folk poke, prod, and ogle.  How ironic, then, that regular folk may better appreciate than the technorati what the liberal elitist New York Times calls a triumph of taste?

Great products, according to Mr. Jobs, are triumphs of “taste.” And taste, he explains, is a byproduct of study, observation and being steeped in the culture of the past and present, of “trying to expose yourself to the best things humans have done and then bring those things into what you are doing.”

The iPad is an information appliance designed the way humans have seen and shared images and writing for millennia.  See what you want. Touch what you want.  If you can trace lines in the sand, you can use the iPad to imagine, create, and consume.

Usability week ending January 31st

Friday, 29th January, 8:48 PM
Counterpoint on iPad angst: usability makes tech geeks nervous http://post.ly/LGR8

Friday, 29th January, 1:20 PM
Every single action with iPad's books is animated for natural human interaction: http://j.mp/bQMzPf #ux #ui #usability #iPad

Friday, 29th January, 12:39 PM
Snark on iPad "missing" Flash, from surprising source http://post.ly/LCbd

Thursday, 28th January, 12:28 PM
Apple's 0.7 megapixel 4:3 EDTV media viewer http://post.ly/L1NM

Wednesday, 27th January, 11:27 AM
Users faster, more successful, less error-prone, more satisfied using forms with inline validation: http://j.mp/aYlH99 #ux #ui #ia

Tuesday, 26th January, 8:45 AM
Even new @Twitter users need priming and context. Web design should give needed guidance through ‘usability’: http://j.mp/6JFaV8 #ux #ia

Monday, 25th January, 3:54 PM
#Usability lessons--short menus, top nav, blue links, clickable buttons, less graphics, calls to action, fewer buttons: http://j.mp/68kmdS

Monday, 25th January, 9:41 AM
24 hours of video player UIs. Which do you prefer? http://j.mp/6Y6msw + Silverlight Player to compare: http://j.mp/6tj1SJ #ui #ux #ovp

via twitter.com/terretta

Counterpoint on iPad angst: usability makes tech geeks nervous

For years we've all held to the belief that computing had to be made simpler for the 'average person'. We have totally failed in this effort...

Real Work is not formatting the margins, installing the printer driver, uploading the document, finishing the PowerPoint slides, running the software update or reinstalling the OS.

Real Work is teaching the child, healing the patient, selling the house, logging the road defects, fixing the car at the roadside, capturing the table's order, designing the house and organising the party.

If the iPad frees people to focus on what they do best, it will dramatically change people's perceptions of computing from something to fear to something to engage with enthusiastically.

This isn't a computer for geeks. It's a tool for humans.

Snark on iPad "missing" Flash, from surprising source

Okay, the source isn't that surprising. Adobe's Flash Platform Blog calls Apple out for "continuing to impose restrictions that limit both content publishers and consumers." Then, with no sense of irony whatsoever, Adobe offers a screenshot of the technology that web usability guru Jakob Nielsen called 99% bad:

Although multimedia has its role on the Web, current Flash technology tends to discourage usability for three reasons: it makes bad design more likely, it breaks with the Web's fundamental interaction style, and it consumes resources that would be better spent enhancing a site's core value.

Adobe's screenshot showing a broken plugin icon where content should be proves Nielsen's—and Apple's—point. Having content locked up so it can only be "originated" by designers with Adobe's (expensive) tools, and only viewed by users with Adobe's player, is the very definition of a restriction that limits both publishers and consumers.

As a picture posted on Engadget shows (below), and many others have reported, there's something important missing from Apple's approach to connecting consumers to content.

iPad Flash Plugin Error

Yes, Adobe, your screenshot shows something missing, but it's not Apple's approach, it's yours, that is missing open creation and consumption.

Without Flash support, iPad/iPod Touch/iPhone users may be an interesting enough audience for publishers that they shift momentum back to web standards, so anyone from the New York Times to a child in Chile can freely publish their say.

Visual realism in UI design: just enough, but no more

Lukas Mathis's ignore the code blog offers illustrations of—and explanations for—the user interface sweet spot between visual realism and conceptual shapes.  His conclusion?  Designers should convey the essence of a symbol.  Any more detail distracts, while any less loses the symbol's intent.

Let’s look at a symbol we actually see in user interfaces, the home button. Typically, this button uses a little house as its symbol.

The thing on the left is a house. The thing on the right means «home». Somewhere between the two, the meaning switches from «a specific house» to «home as a concept». The more realistic something is, the harder it is to figure out the meaning. Again, if the image is simplified too much, it’s not clearly and immediately recognizable anymore.

The thing on the left is a home button. The thing on the right might as well be an arrow pointing up; or perhaps it’s the ⇧ key. Let me explain this concept using an entirely unscientific graph:

People are confused by symbols if they have too many or too few details. They will recognize UI elements which are somewhere in the middle.

As an aside, I keep Coda's icon on my dock because it's so uniquely refreshing.

Usability week ending January 24th

Friday, 22nd January, 6:29 PM
To see beyond today’s limits of the web, all we need to do is see what is needed. What's next in #web #design: http://j.mp/6HNHNu #ia #ux

Thursday, 21st January, 4:40 PM
People are confused by symbols with too many or too few details, but recognize UI elements somewhere in the middle: http://j.mp/6YrAAg #ui

Wednesday, 20th January, 11:55 AM
For pleasant usability, ensure a consistent continuous flow of design ideas in your entire software house: http://j.mp/5bn1jJ #ux #ui #ia

Tuesday, 19th January, 2:33 PM
#Design in the computing biz is too often confused with #technology, something entirely different: http://j.mp/4yIBpT #ux #ui #pc #mac

Tuesday, 19th January, 8:18 AM
For consumer web apps today, #design matters more than technology. You can't just engineer any more: http://j.mp/4OBnaN #ux #ui

Monday, 18th January, 6:55 PM
Choose usable UI components based on key principles of affordance and intuitiveness: http://j.mp/4tTGGL #ux #ui #usability

via twitter.com/terretta

SkypeOut "Start Conference" Usability

It's a great to be able to start a SkypeOut conference by just adding the participants. Just be sure nobody you're calling has more than one phone number.

And no, there's no tool tip or mouse-over telling you the number, and dragging the window wider doesn't reveal a number column. The app knows it's a phone number as shown by the icon, so putting the actual number in parentheses after the name would be a quick fix.

Usability week ending January 17th

Friday, 15th January, 11:03 PM
Use diagramming tools to "hand-sketch" #wireframes for faster expression of ideas, perception of fluidity: http://j.mp/7imLg4 #ia #ui

Thursday, 14th January, 11:41 AM
Shopping for bedsheets–how hard could it be? A survey of challenges in #ecommerce #usability: http://j.mp/4HRnfY #ux

Wednesday, 13th January, 4:12 PM
As the virtual and the ambient are integrated into our lives, we can start to live in more minimalist environments: http://j.mp/8JqlRh #ux

Tuesday, 12th January, 11:38 PM
Don't use words that suck all the meaning out. Language is how we know each other: http://j.mp/83h0ut #marketing #language #usability

Monday, 11th January, 9:25 PM
If your personality could be translated into a typeface, what type are you? http://j.mp/8Y5PrV #font #design #personality #quiz #typography

Monday, 11th January, 5:02 PM
Droid doesn't. Have touchscreen accuracy, that is... http://post.ly/IAru

via twitter.com/terretta

Droid's touchscreen can't keep your intentions straight

Touchscreen accuracy of the iPhone is much better than that of Verizon's Droid or Google Nexus One. When you're trying to tap a link, chances are you're going to be successful on the iPhone, and not on Android phones.

iPhones showed straight lines in tests with both light and medium finger pressure, while the Android phones showed zig-zag wavy lines across the screen.

"On inferior touchscreens, it's basically impossible to draw straight lines. Instead, the lines look jagged or zig-zag, no matter how slowly you go, because the sensor size is too big, the touch-sampling rate is too low, and/or the algorithms that convert gestures into images are too non-linear to faithfully represent user inputs. This is important because quick keyboard use and light flicks on the screen really push the limits of the touch panel's ability to sense."

Once again, comparing phones "feature for feature" doesn't tell the whole story.

Apple's uncompromising commitment to usability drives their engineering choices in ways that might not be obvious to engineers or even consumers seeing an ad, but are painfully obvious after you've experienced how the thing should work.