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Steve Jobs Hates Buttons
ElvaWSJ writes "While many technology companies load their products up with buttons, Steve Jobs treats them as blemishes that add complexity and hinder their clean aesthetics.
The iPhone is Steve Jobs's attempt to crack a juicy new market for Apple Inc. But it's also part of a decades-long campaign by Mr. Jobs against a much broader target: buttons.
The new Apple cellphone famously does without the keypads that adorn its rivals. Instead, it offers a touch-sensing screen for making phone calls and tapping out emails. The resulting look is one of the sparest ever for Apple, a company known for minimalist gadgets. "
They should have had the Thing using one of the prototype iPhones in the first Fantastic Four movie when he was trying to call his girlfriend..."Damn buttons!!!"
I've seen the flashy videos, but how easy is it to type on the damn thing without tactile feedback.
I've got a little T-Mobile Dash/ HTC Excalibur and i can actually type really quickly on its tiny keyboard. I find it hard to believe that without feedback it could be better.
Buttons are intuitive.
I design high end interfaces for home theaters (where the remote it's self costs around $2500.00US or more.) and the number one thing my customers like is not the fancy graphics, cool animations or nicely laid out controls on the touchscreen.. but the VOLUME CONTROL HARD BUTTONS built into the side edge. They like being able to without looking press volume up or down or mute instead of having to look at the screen and press a non tactile feedback graphical button.
Buttons have their use, you cant get rid of them.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
He'll never push her buttons
Bite my shiny metal ass.
Similarly, CmdrTaco considers editors to be blemishes that add complexity and hinder the clean aesthetics of Slashdot. He considers them to be blemishes that add complexity and hinder the clean aesthetics of Slashdot.
--- What?
AT kleast in old Macs.
...when summaries dupe themselves "While many technology companies load their products up with buttons, Steve Jobs treats them as blemishes that add complexity and hinder their clean aesthetics... While many technology companies load their products up with buttons, Mr. Jobs treats them as blemishes that add complexity to electronics products and hinder their clean aesthetics."
From the Best Site in the Universe:
On an iPhone, you have to press an additional button that opens up an alternate keypad that will allow you to type numbers and punctuation. So typing something as simple as elipses (...) requires you to tap your finger 9 times. Enjoy your phone, losers! People like me who have shit to do will stick to a keyboard that doesn't have its lips wrapped firmly to the user-interface equivalent of a throbbing dong
Note: This is *NOT* child or work-safe material, but is funny as hell whether you like the iPhone or not. If you haven't seen it and have a sense of humor..read on:
p hone
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=i
"While many technology companies load their products up with buttons, Steve Jobs treats them as blemishes that add complexity and hinder their clean aesthetics.....While many technology companies load their products up with buttons, Steve Jobs treats them as blemishes that add complexity and hinder their clean aesthetics. "
CmdrTaco managed to break the record of fastest dupe by duping first sentence in the same headline.
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=ip hone
Read the part about buttons...actually just read the whole thing.
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
Oh, cut the bleeding heart crap will ya? We've got our switches, lights, and knobs to deal with, Striker. I mean, down here there are literally hundreds and thousands of blinking, beeping, and flashing lights, blinking, beeping and flashing - they're flashing and they're beeping. I can't stand it anymore! They're blinking and beeping and flashing! Why doesn't somebody pull the plug!
I personally like tactile feedback. Maybe I have fat fingers, but the iPhone just did not work for me.
p hone
Right click can be useful too. Maybe even center and scroll. Call me nutty, but form follows function.
Maddox agrees:
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=i
This is kind of stupid considering that the buttons are now just internal to the system. I thought it was going to be some comparison with the click wheel or something. Aaaargh I'm getting dragged into another Apple conversation on Slashdot. Why God, why!?
.. for a hardware reset on my iPod so every time the fucking thing crashed I wouldn't have to wait for the battery to die to be able to listen to music.
No, that link you posted to a web comic we've all seen a hundred times is not "obligatory."
It is interesting to note that we must now bookend our paragraphs with the same sentences at the beginning and end. I, for one, don't care much for this new trend...and lets be honest, can we even call it a trend? More of a fad, really, I should think. Either way, it just seems patently redundant, even repetitive. But who am I to question authority? I pretty much just tag along, blindly unaware of my absolute devotion to society's will. It is interesting to note that we must now bookend our paragraphs with the same sentences at the beginning and end.
I see his point, but OTOH, there are times when buttons ARE preferable. I can text a message on my cellphone without looking at the phone because there is a tactile reference to where each key is located. This is quite handy (pun intended!) Try texting a message inconspicuously at your next boring meeting.
Freak button accident when he was seven.
..."
It's no coincidence that he always wears a mock turtleneck sweater with no buttons to kill him on the front and a pair of zippered jeans.
You think Ballmer's a nut, you should see Jobs talk to his employees: "For every button I find on this interface, I shall kill you
My work here is dung.
Uh, it still has virtual buttons...
I see where he's coming from in terms of aesthetics, but i think it often makes the interfaces worse. For example, I am constantly annoyed by my inability to change the volume of a song while I'm in the menu of my ipod. We still want the extra features, even minus the buttons, so the items tend to get incorporated into the GUI. Not sure that's so great, but I suppose it takes the pressure off the industrial designers.
The best remote is the one my dear friend MKP had. That remote could obey the phone commands, turn on the fan, open the windows and put the tea kettle on the stove. It was a boy from Orissa working for some 500Rs a month. Oh! Those were the days. Mohan! Where are you!!!
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
*looks into the future*
...
How do you turn off the monitor?
It's easy, you just use the touch screen button there.
Oh, then how do you turn it back on?
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Admittedly I haven't tried the iphone yet, I may try one out but i'm not excited about the complete lack of buttons. Currently with my treo i can type out a phone number by feel while driving, or type out a text with the phone in my pocket. Also the buttons give you a confirmation that you gave input, as you can feel the button go down. Without being able to feel a keyboard it seems like typing could be a pain.
I dont mind buttons at all. In fact I think the biggest mistake with the ipod is the lack of buttons. A quick and easy way to switch tracks AND volume should be required on all mp3 devices. Having to go through a menu system to change volume is silly. (not to mention the lack of FM)
Granted, i dislike the typical A-B button and other shortcuts electronics manufacturers go through, but buttons can be done right. Its a shame no one is really trying. Softkeys can be a lot worse than buttons. Buttons should be there for basic functionality and be spaced out enough so users can click on them without looking at them.
Aesthetics arent everything. For instance, i much prefer a thumb keyboard than a virtual one.
How can sight-impaired users make use of a buttonless phone?
In the EU there is already legislation to make software, websites and devices accessible. The buttonless iPhone must score pretty low on the accessibility scale.
You may want buttons when it makes sense, gestures when it makes sense and motion-detection when it makes sense. The iPhone "soft-buttons" and multi-touch screen and orientation sensing can cover pretty much all three.
Not to say I don't like My Nokia E62 - it's great to be able to ssh myself out of a problem - and I am even considering a E61i when my phone operator is ready to give me one for free.
While very interesting, I will wait for an Apple-supported iPhone development toolchain before seriously considering jumping in.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
This is well in keeping with Apple's philosophy of often breaking convention for "minimalism," which has simply been met with mixed success.
iMac -- made the "minimalist" move of omitting the floppy. I remember thinking at the time back in the late 90's this would create a data island, and being quite uncomfortable with the decision -- today, most would feel this was a smart move, and the ubiquitous USB drive has replaced the clunky floppy. Overall, a success.
Mouse -- keeps on pushing the minimalist single button. I detest this, and know many people (linux, mac, and pc users) that feel the same. Another button simply adds to the functionality -- I right click several hundred times per day, and don't want combo presses or holding down to approximate this. Overall, I view this as a bad move.
iPhone -- we'll see the verdict regarding this. I, for one, would appreciate a "hang up" button as I tend to push this a million times when I want to hang up... it is nice to have a solid feeling as you wait for the UI to respond. With a softkey, did you really hit it? Did the UI register it? You don't know without watching the screen. I view this as a bit extreme, but we will see if people complain. Buttons have their place when well-implemented.
Can you imagine getting on a "soft-key" elevator? I think it would be cool at first, then really annoying.
I'm happy that Apple pushes technology like this, but only in ways that force adoption of a better technology.
Ah well, we can all "vote with our wallet..."
Slashdotter, ID #101. UIDs are in binary, right?
So this is why Apple isn't bothering to challenge M$ at video game consoles.
Always wearing those black, buttonless turtlenecks. All his jeans have zippers only. And button flies are completely banned on any Apple campus.
His unbridled hatred of buttons goes back to his childhood experience with a vending machine which consistently failed to deliver Andy Capp's Hot Fries, instead dropping the unwanted carrot sticks.
It's all balck, zippered Spandex for Steve!
The one big advantage with buttons is that they work the same for everyone. Touchscreens and touchpads on the other hand give different output depending on the physical characteristics (namely finger size) of the user.
I used to share Mr. Jobs' disdain for buttons. Then I went out and bought an iPod Nano. I found that the touch-wheel on the Nano was unbearably sensitive, given my somewhat larger than average thumbs. There's no real way to tune the sensitivity of the touch-wheel, either, like you can with laptop touchpads.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
It seems like the iPhone (which I'm still drooling over!) seem pretty hard to use for the blind. Some sort of non-visual feedback is pretty much required for them!
Mr. Ego said it best: iPhone vs. E70
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
While this is a great idea for entering markets when you are no longer on the bleeding edge how easy is it to have no buttons when you are right on that edge. The two devices that he's done the most design work to remove buttons are the ipod, and the iphone. Neither of these were cutting edge when they came out.If anything this aversion to buttons has proven that you can develop market space in an already saturated marked by working to simplify the interface.
Cell phones have been around a long time. People should be working to simplify them now. However I still like my cell phone with buttons from last year because I could call people before the iPhone released.
This signature would be better if I was creative.
That's why the next-generation iPod will have no user interface controls.
While many technology companies load their products up with buttons, Mr. Jobs treats them as blemishes that add complexity to electronics products and hinder their clean aesthetics.
No, really?
Yes, while many technology companies load their products up with buttons, Mr. Jobs treats them as blemishes that add complexity to electronics products and hinder their clean aesthetics.
Oh, okay.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=215930&cid=175 37796
In other news, Buttons hates Steve Jobs. Cinderella and Puss-in-boots aren't keen on him either.
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
Steve doesn't need buttons, he uses his mind.
"If you plant ice, you're gonna harvest wind."
You fool! There is nothing else worth talking about in the entire industry!
You might think people are obsessed.
I love being able to pick up my phone while half asleep and use it without opening my eyes... the handycapped / disabled is one market apple will never do well in so long as they are anti-button.
An I.T. motto in the hands of an idiot is a dangerous thing...
Steve Jobs doesn't hate buttons at all. The iPhone comes with more buttons than any other smart phone on the planet. What Jobs (and people at Apple in general) hate is "Genericy" (if that is even a word), as in buttons that aren't really tailored for any one use but serve multiple masters.
The iPhone does in fact have five physical buttons - a sleep/wake button, a home button, a volume up/down button, and a silencer (OK, technically that's a switch).
But then you are discounting the noise less real, even if lacking physical feedback, buttons that appear on the screen in each application, tailored to each task. If these are not real buttons, than neither are membrane style buttons as on the Timex-Sinclair ZX-81 of old.
That tailoring is what Apple really likes, being able to arrange input aspects just so for each task. Perhaps the best example of this is the keyboard for the web browser on the iPhone; why have a space bar when entering URL's? This is replaced by "/" and ".com" keys which makes a tremendous amount of sense.
Apple loves task focused UI, and a mostly virtual button approach allows them to get closer to that than would be otherwise possible on a smaller consumer device built to perform a number of very different tasks.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It would be more accurate to say he hates tactile buttons since the iPhone has craploads of software buttons.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
For someone to have a wreck because they were paying attention to hitting the right "buttons" on the iPhone rather than the road. Normally I would not approve of such suits, but when with every other phone on the market one can dial by feel (because, you know, there are actual BUTTONS) and the iPhone can't, and buttons truly are a logical and intuitive solution for the UI for a telephone, I would welcome a suit against Apple citing a defective design.
Yes, yes, I am all for personal responsibility, but I am also for sound design in products. Asthetics should take a back seat to functionality when it comes to appliances and gadgets. If he thinks buttons cannot be made attractive, may I point Jobs at practically every new(ish) phone on the market, particularly the Motorola Razr and the Samsung Sync.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Nine presses? Why not simply tap the "." key three times while you're in there?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Mr. Jobs' blind hatred of buttons is a mistake. Sure, appealing looking designs are important, but that has to be balanced against the function of the device. Inconspicuous looking buttons are nice, but lacking buttons altogether? Not so much.
A perfect example is cited in the article: an elevator that has no buttons and stops on every floor. It's far less fucntional than an elevator with buttons. I don't like waiting unnecessarily. And if I were going from the top floor to the bottom floor, with no one else on the elevator, I would be fuming by the time I arrived.
Another example is the iPod itself. The lack of an explicit power button, also mentioned in the article, isn't a big deal. But having no separate volume control really harms the usability of the device. While I'm listening to music, I don't want to have to look at the screen. But because volume and seeking within the track are loaded up on the same physical control, I have to watch the screen as I toggle between the two functions. It feels like a huge step back from my Rio Karma, where I could easily adjust the volume with a pair of buttons and use the thumb wheel to seek in the track. If I'm reading, walking, or watching the scenery while listening to music, it's a big inconvenience to have to move my eyes to the screen.
The amount of time you spend navigating those menus is just sick. Want to enable shuffle? Navigate up to the root, down to options, back up to the root, and back down to your songs.
Want to select a song and start playing it in a fresh on-the-go playlist and, while it's playing, add more songs to the queue? Navigate down to select the song, up to the root, down to play from the playlist, back up to the root, back down to select your next song. Fantastic!
Now, of course, they could have made a more usable interface even with limited number of "buttons" they have. But it's easy to see that a couple more buttons would have helped immensely.
... I can't ever seem to warm up to jobs.
The iPhone has loads of buttons. They may be virtual, but buttons all the same.
A quick and easy way to switch tracks AND volume should be required on all mp3 devices. Having to go through a menu system to change volume is silly. (not to mention the lack of FM)
Apple agrees with you. This is why they included two very real volume control switches on the side of the iPhone (small enough so they are not easy to accidentally change). And also why the headphones include a small clicker device that you can use to pause, play, or skip tracks.
Aesthetics arent everything. For instance, i much prefer a thumb keyboard than a virtual one.
And I greatly prefer a tailored virtual keyboard to the tiny thumb keyboards. Once you get used to it, I simply can't image why you'd prefer "real" buttons that cannot change according to task to present a better layout.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I just bought a new cell phone. It wasn't at all obvious how to turn it on. My first question, and one of the top questions in the support forums, was how to adjust the volume. They didn't bother discussing it in the user's guide. Some reviewers gave it poor reviews because of low audio level, not knowing that the volume could be adjusted. It has a display that is unreadable when the backlight is off. To turn the backlight on, you need to push a button, which is likely to do something that you don't want. You have to search through the user's guide to find out how to do basic things like turning off the ringer.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
...this is a hot button issue!
Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week. Tip your waitresses.
Favouring people that have eyes to see with and those that like to look at the device while they write, the new Apple cellphone famously does without the keypads that adorn its rivals.
The project of Minimalism always need to be taken with a grain of salt: sometimes it rides to a vain and pointless end. Contrary to aesthetically derived assumptions, less information can mean more work. Existing phones have built-in braille - the fingers do the 'seeing' so the eyes can focus on more pressing tasks (excuse the pun). An example was given by someone here a while ago: a buttonless phone meant he couldn't text his friends while at boring meetings.
This problem reminds me of an article in an auto magazine a few years ago where an engineer proclaimed this inability to hear the engine in a (particularly high-tech and quiet) model of BMW to be a terrible hazard: the cognitive connection with the machine meant the driver tended to check the speedometer far too often to guage their speed.
It also reminds me of a certain mono-buttoned mouse that required the use of two hands to achieve what other mouse do with one but I digress..
As long as the device can display intelligent context sensitive "button" screens the lack of phyisical buttons would be welcome. To do this, you have to really, really have the users concept of the gadget down.
Try the web browser keyboard when you have the device sideways, if you think the buttons are too small - it's much larger. Eventually all keyboards on the phone will probably be able to do this.
However, even if you have large fingers the key to iPhone typing is to remember only a small portion of your finger is really pressing the screen, and to learn where that is. Also I personally would argue that trying two-thumb typing first on the iPhone is more productive and you get better much quicker, I find single finger typing very slow and less accurate.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Call me old school, but I can type a lot faster then I can write, but I need buttons.
And I really resent Jobs trying to dictate what I need.
I've tried out a couple friend's iPhones and was very impressed at how fast the typing was. I've been thinking about why, and here's what I came up with:
- No pressing required - Because I didn't need to press the buttons down--just touch them--it felt easier and faster to type. It's more of a smooth easy motion from button to button.
- Predictive targetting - In the middle of common words, I was able to trigger the correct next letter even if I didn't nail the button image exactly. I even experimented with it a bit, going successively faster and sloppier (aw yeah), and it was surprising how imprecise I could be and still get the word right or mostly right.
- Easy correction - With the touch screen and "magnifying glass" cursor control, it was easy to go back and correct mistakes after typing. So I found that it was best to just plow through typing the entire thing, and then go back and make corrections if needed.
It's definitely a different style. For me, typing on phones usually works best if I get it exactly right as I type. The iPhone is more like touch-typing on a regular keyboard--just blast through and correct after the fact if needed.
And like touch-typing, there is definitely a muscle-memory aspect to the iPhone. The keys don't have a feel to them, but they are always in the same place. I was faster after about 15 minutes because my fingers were "calibrated" to where the keys are. Those with good hand-eye coordination (gamers for instance) will have an easier time with this IMO.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Why do sight-impaired users need a $600 phone with video-playback and web-browsing capabilities?
Seems like making carriers offer a phone actually targeted to the visually-impaired (maybe with text-to-speech webbrowsing and braille input) would be preferable to trying to force vendors of phones with explicitly visually-oriented features to move to accommodate a user base that would be poorly served by its useful feature/price ratio.
It should be the carriers and not every single kind of phone that should support handicapped users. Otherwise, you're deliberately stepping on innovation for people who can take advantage of a visually-oriented phone in a Harrison Bergeron-esque quest to prevent gadget envy.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I will echo many of the comments already posted...I prefer buttons on my phone primarily for text messaging, if nothing else. Having actual buttons on a phone allow me to text while driving without even looking at the phone...if I want to tell someone I am going to be there in a 20 minutes or whatever, I can pick my phone up, flip it open, and do the ENTIRE operation start to finish without looking at my phone more than once (and the one time I do glance at it is to verify that I am sedning to text to the right person)
My eyes leave the road for a grand total of 1 second.
Living With a Nerd
iPhone -- we'll see the verdict regarding this. I, for one, would appreciate a "hang up" button as I tend to push this a million times when I want to hang up... it is nice to have a solid feeling as you wait for the UI to respond. With a softkey, did you really hit it? Did the UI register it? You don't know without watching the screen. I view this as a bit extreme, but we will see if people complain. Buttons have their place when well-implemented.
Can you imagine getting on a "soft-key" elevator? I think it would be cool at first, then really annoying.
Why? Many if not most elevators already don't respond instantly to button presses. Heck, maybe it would stop all those silly people who think that pushing the "door close" button actually does something when the fireman's key isn't inserted.
The only annoyance I can see is the grungy, unattractive appearance of a public touchscreen. It's not like normal buttons are any cleaner, but the backlighting of a touchscreen really shows it.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
You're missing the point. Buttons are intuitive, until you have 85 of them, all of which do something obscure.
The problem with buttons is they take up space - physical space and cognitive space. Watch a 65 year old try and use a modern A/V system remote, and they're totally lost. It's like looking at the cockpit of a 707.
It's a problem, because while 90% of the people only use 10% of the features, you have to be able to access the other 90% of the features. How many times do you change the surround sound mode of your home stereo? I did it once per input, then never did it again. So why do those buttons still take up space on my remote?
The harmony remote is one attempt at reducing the complexity - you trade complexity up front (you need to program the remote with your devices) for simplicity later. The above mentioned 65 year old had no problem watching TV with the harmony remote - on a system an order of magnitude more complicated than his.
The higher-end models have almost no buttons; they have screens that overload. In fact, you really only need four or five for a TV remote: volume up, volume down, channel up, channel down, power, change input. Sure, the number keys are nice, but they aren't necessary.
However, a more sophisticated remote costs more money. Simplicity always costs more up front, but pays off every day because there's less aggravation. Buttons are cheap. Removing buttons is expensive.
By the time products like iPhone become ubiquitous for the general public it will probably be illegal to use a mobile phone while driving, nearly everywhere.
As for your texting with the phone in your pocket.....I'm not one to question the habits of others but that is a new one on me.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
You just can't physically feel where they are. Plus they can change positions or function on you.
Real physical tactile buttons have their uses.
(* yes, it's not a word)
The ratio of people to cake is too big
Okay, someone's a little trigger-happy eh? Double post? Sorry to burst your bubble (as excited as you are) buuut. You're a little off on that.
mods, go ahead and -1 me if ya feel like it. Offtopic and all
I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
... as a followup to the one-button mouse, they'll now make the no-button mouse!
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
"one button to rule the mall"?
What?
alias sudo="echo make it yourself #" ; # https://pipedot.org/~stderr & http://soylentnews.org/~stderr
I thought this was pretty funny: http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=ip hone
You can't take the sky from me...
does he like sweaters and pullovers instead? I guess he does not wear button fly jeans then either.. I always thought he was kind of a zipper man ... rotflol..
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
So Jobs ditches the concept of a finite, immutable set of buttons and replaces it with a potentially infinitely reconfigurable set of buttons and calls that a REDUCTION in complexity?
Seriously. Just because it's a touch-screen doesn't make it any less of a "button."
He hates these buttons! Stay away from the buttons!
How can deaf people make use of an mp3 player?
How can people with no arms play x-box?
How can quadrapalegics ride bicycles?
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
Having fewer buttons is fine, as long as that doesn't mean sticking a multitude of functions under a single button. If anything is confusing in a user interface, _that_ is. The way to reduce the complexity of the user interface is to (surprise surprise) actually reduce the complexity of what it has to do.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
The summary of this article is very informative. Lots of information is redundant and unnecessary. It manages to be heavy on word count but short on content. The summary of this article is very informative.
I think, therefore I am an Atheist.
What's the deal with three comments on one thread pointing to this juvenile spam-fest web-site and they are all modded up +3 or +5??? It's pretty clear that at least two of them are the same person, and really... how many people already out of high-school could there really be that find this funny?
Is there some slashdot rule I am just finding out about how everyone here is twelve and likes to say "cock" a lot? Are we going to be assailed with right-wing propaganda and poo-poo jokes a la South Park on a daily basis now?
If this kind of overt spamming/gaming of the thread can happen on slashdot, what's the point of even trying to moderate at all?
Nothing is stopping Apple from offering a customized keyboard that in fact includes a proper ellipse key! Or your being able to hack other other symbols (like M-dashes) onto keyboards as well.
Virtual keyboards, FTW!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Am I the only one that didn't get the department quote?
I wish he'd stop pushing my buttons....
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
I usually hate on Apple for not having "compatible" hardware. Their tight control on hardware may enforce quality user experience but it forces Apple hardware prices up. I usually hate on Apple for braking backwards compatibility forcing geeks to upgrade their OS and their software. I usually hate on apple for the horribly annoying happiness that Apple users all seem to have. They annoy me as much as Big Bird annoys Oscar the Grouch.
The dedicated physical button represents a command or concept that sits on top of the user experience. Floating over it. As the user changes computing context the button floats there un-changing and pulling the user from the context they are using in at that moment. So Jobs' answer is to eliminate all buttons.
Damn it, Jobs is right on that one. Buttons suck. And, he has just enough arrogance to believe that he can banish them. Because he's Steve Jobs he just might banish them for at least one small annoyingly happy segment of the computing community. They'll have problems of their own... like when software crashes and you can't turn the thing off because the off button is software... but they won't complain because they'll all be shiny happy people holding hands. No one dare disagree in happy Apple land.
Curse you Steve and all your annoyingly happy followers. Oscar and I like our button-y mess.
[signature]
I can already type for short stretches with the iPhone keyboard without looking. That's because touch typing is a muscle memory action, and does not rely on tactile feedback - it relies on positional muscle memory.
Think of how you type on a real keyboard. My fingers hit the keys but usually not other keys around - so how is touch typing down? It's obviously based on the position of the keys, not being able to feel other keys around they keys. I could also touch-type on a Timex Sinclair ZX-81 which had a membrane keyboard, with absolutely zero tactile feedback of buttons being pressed.
What real keys offer, is a little easier way to train yourself where the keys are. But once you learn they are not necessary for touch typing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Soon to be followed by the no button mouse.
I guess you don't use the '.' key much.
Yes I do. And that's why this hint is so useful, as it makes typing "." or "," almost as easy as any other letter.
But of course, the other thing I have to point out is that if it were really a problem, since the keyboard is virtual Apple could simply move it to the main keyboard (or let you customize the keyboard yourself). That's the advantage of not shipping with buttons you cannot change via update! I have used plenty of other small-keyboard devices where I cursed some choice they had made on key or symbol access, and those devices were never going to get better.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Operator: I'm sorry. Thing fingers you are dialing with are too fat. To obtain a special 'dialing wand', please mash the keyboard now.
(if that is the content of the link, I'm behind a Websense filter at work)
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
You'd think so, but ask any woman who has breastfed a newborn baby, and she'll tell you that you have to teach them to get it right...It's just that it's a...hem..."one button" interface, so it's pretty easy to learn.
Pretty much every interface is a learned interface, but the simpler the interface, the easier it is to learn.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Unless you can provide fMRI evidence that you can concentrate just fine while carrying on a conversation, I'm going to have to assume you're delusional and completely full of shit.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
You won't use buttons on the next iPod, it hooks up to your brain via a neural interface you install at home.
Hopefully you'll hit a garbage truck instead of a cyclist, then.
http://bicycleuniverse.info/cars/cellphones.html
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-6090342-7.html
One of my pet peeves with my Gen3 iPod is that it is hard to hold on to. Unless you constantly move the hold switch to turn the sensors on and off, you can't wrap your hand around it without accidently pressing things. (In my case, usually the ff which is close to the right edge.) While accidently shifting the volume due to touch isn't that big of a problem (you have to slide your touch for it to change anyway), what is annoying is when you keep changing the song because you happened to brush the ff sensor area. Because the click wheel (or other buttons) require you to actually apply some amount of pressure to activate the switch, this becomes less of a problem; one can hold the device without inadvertant presses, as long as you don't squeeze it.
I don't remember how the iPhone gets around this, as I have only played with it for 10 minutes at the AT&T store, but I suppose that gaining the ability to have everything in one device would outweigh this problem, as much of the time the device would be in a different mode anyway.
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
Shouldn't be too difficult. Just have it trigger when the built in GPS indicates a speed of, say, higher than 20kph.
What?
So those of us who are able to drive and talk safely should suffer with the rest of you?
Yes.
Most people can drive safely under normal conditions on the phone. Most people can drive safely under normal conditions with a BAC up to 0.15 or even 0.20. Most people can drive safely at 20-30mph over the posted speed limit.
Driving laws exist for the "not most" situations, however. Some people can't safely drive a monotonously straight road on a clear day while sober and well-slept. Roads occasionally get icy (in the North). Kids (or deer) sometimes jump out in front of your car with no warning (hey, I'd call that "Evolution", but the pesky legal system tends to call it "involuntary manslaughter"). People age and their eyes and reflexes get worse.
Put bluntly, we cripple the majority rather than take away the licenses of the 10% or so who should never get behind the wheel in the first place.
To elaborate on geoffspear, studies have shown that cell phone conversation (hands free or not) significantly impairs your ability to drive. From what I remember the same impairment did was not as significant for conversation within the vehicle for reasons I can't remember.
The problem is even if some people can use a cell phone safely, most people can't. And those most people will always see people who can drive and talk safely and think "MEEE TOOO!".
For another angle, think about building a house. I hope to raise kids that aren't stupid enough to suffocate themselves by sticking their head in between stair banisters. But that doesnt matter because building codes require me to put the banister supports close enough together that a kid can't put his head between them, and all because some idiots somewhere managed to kill themselves and screw it up for everyone else. Is it fair that I have my freedom to build banisters limited by morons? Nope, but life ain't fair. Deal with it.
Long ago and far away, IBM thought it would be simpler to add buttons above a keyboard to act as commands when the intuition of a "mode" for existing keys was not polling well in tests. So, the designer of the the keyboard layout at that time placed F1 to F12 along the top - more in certain situations. As the amoeba of OS's and apps crawl to now, we're still dealing with those, PLUS the various PC manufacturer's "helpful" buttons for instant internet, instant presentation mode, etc.
Buttons are not entirely bad, but they certain a bad habit. In the end, a product cannot determine the popularity of certain functions or patterns of use. So, building a button set is doomed in its relation to the machine being single-use or multi-use. For the iPhone there's a certain reaching for multi-use instrument - so I can agree with their current design. However, certain functions are simply unavoidable: disc eject, power, volume are all pretty standard PC buttons that I welcome. The rest are just clutter and I enjoy reprogramming them on a whim. I would expect the iPhone to have something similar: battery eject (Steve also doesn't like replacing batteries, I've noticed), power and volume.
does anyone know where he got BASH for nokias from and how it's installed?
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
Yeah, and with no tactile feedback because it's a touchscreen. It's one thing to clean up the UI because of too many single-function buttons and displays (look at an old school 747 cockpit). However, I want a few dedicated buttons for important functions like volume, power, and send/hang up.
Interesting articles (particularly the item that it takes 15 minutes after finishing the call before the effect on driving reduces) but there are more recent studies that show that talking with ANYONE, even a passenger in the car, is just as bad as using a handsfree cell phone.
So while it is obvious that having a handsfree device is better than occupying your hand with the cellphone (don't get me started about people who smoke while driving), unless you completly separate the driver from the passengers you haven't solved the problem. Even then, I often talk with my wife (in person or on the handsfree cellphone) to help keep myself awake on cross country drives, so I am not sure that would be an improvement.
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
I actually get more distracted talking to a person sitting next to me than using a cellphone. I'll admit i try to talk on hte phone as little as possible while driving and i stopped sending text messages (except at stop lights or stop and go traffic).
You constantly struggle for self improvement - and it shows.
Hooray for bad Engrish on fortune cookies
If those things are true, will "I drive better on the phone than most people drive not on the phone" soon be treated like "I drive better drunk than most people do sober."?
>...those of us who are able to drive and talk safely...
scientific studies have proven that talking on a phone while driving is dangerous even when completely hands free. even more so than a real life conversation because the lower quality signal requires more concentration to process.
these are scientifically proven facts. I notice that you, on the other hand, only seem to offer the fact that you haven't killed anyone yet as evidence of your super-human brain functions.
I always also drive with the radio off because I find that distracting. I think others should also be compelled by law to drive without music.
And kids.
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
>> It's a problem, because while 90% of the people only use 10% of the features
I hear this a lot. This is not what usability studies say. What they say (about feature-bloated software) is that there is a core feature group used by everyone one, but that every feature is used by some non-trivial portion of the users. If you have 20 features, and 20 users, then all 20 users use 10 of the features, and any five users use some subset of the remaining features. Thus, removing any one feature alienates a nontrivial portion of your customer base.
One point here is that cel phone conversations are pretty much the same whether or not they're being monitored. I know (and yes, this is personal anecdote time) plenty of people who, while driving, will do things like turn to face the person they're talking to. Drives me batty to see that - when you're behind the wheel you should be driving first, chatting second. But anyway, I would suspect that those people would not keep their behavior the same while being monitored.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Honestly, what a load of sycophantic Jobsian voodooism.
There are quite a few examples of button free interfaces out there and this reporter only sees it when Steve Jobs allows him to see it.
The Garmin Nuvi 660 has 2 physical buttons on it - a power button and a reset button in the back. Neither button is really used during normal operation - everything is through the touchscreen and this device has been available on Amazon since September 2006. Oh and it's an mp3 player, Bluetooth phone interface and radio so it's just as complex as the iPhone.
TomTom seems to have a similar design philosophy with its devices.
This reporter must be living under a rock as these GPS devices are showing up everywhere.
Agreed--we've gone through many universal remotes, before finding the Logitech Harmony 890. The best feature of it apropos to your comment is that the screen has a row of 4-5 buttons down either side of it, with the button 'labels' appearing onscreen, so that each time there's a modal change, the display changes to tell you each button's function. It's also scene-capable, and maps the controls to each scene, so that if you're in, say Home Theater mode, the volume controls will adjust your receiver's volume, but when you're in TV mode, it will adjust the TV's volume. It's also programmable via computer/usb cable--some people say programming it is hard, but my wife (who, to be fair, is a geek), has found it to work pretty well.
a touch screen is just a very complex button
so jobs is doing away wiht buttons by making them more complex?
back in the day we didnt have no old school
I think talking on the phone requires much more concentration than talking in person. I have kids and I know that, when I'm on the phone, the noise they generate makes it very hard to carry on a conversation. When I'm talking to someone in person you get visual cues back from the person that makes it much easier to ignore the noise.
Your mind looks a little cramped. Why don't you stretch it a little?
Activation delays, gifts, and such would account for ... let's be generous, maybe twenty per cent. It didn't meet market expectations (sales, that is, don't worry, I'm not bashing the precious iPhone).
Call me old fashioned but I love buttons and the click sounds they make when you press them. My keyboard is noisy when I type and I like that. Also, like others mentioned I can find the proper keys/buttons by feeling for them.
--George
It's very popular to compare things to drunk drivers because everyone knows and has already accepted that all "drunk" drivers are evil people and should be thrown off from the surface of the Earth into space.
Except...the data doesn't actually support the notion that someone is actually "drunk" at 0.08. If you can get your hands on raw data (and it's very difficult), you will find that, statistically, drivers found with 0.08 up to 0.xx (no one's sure of this number because no studies are allowed to be done to determine it) are no more likely to be in an accident than drivers between 0.00 and 0.08, and no more likely to have more costly accidents (in fact, for some reason, around 0.04-0.05, drivers seem to be statistically better than average drivers). What we do know is that cost and injuries to all parties involved does start increasing around by the 0.15 mark.
Do I support raising the limit, then? Personally, no. I think we should discourage drinking and driving...I wouldn't even necessarily be against lowering it further. However, I think the punishment should fit the crime. If you're pulled over and incidentally found to have been drinking with a "low" (needs to be defined by science) amount of alcohol in your system, then you should probably get a ticket and a mandatory tow home. The hassle of having to pay a few hundred dollars in fines and tow fees and having a moving violation on your record will take care of the casual drink'n'drivers. No need to threaten basically good citizens with loss of Constitutional freedoms like voting.
Once you get up into the range of drivers that are drunk enough that stats say they actually are dangerous, then lay the smack down. You put me and my family in danger capriciously? Then you get a felony, sir.
Unfortunately, the system we have now was set into motion primarily by the histrionics of those who are understandably foggy with emotion, having lost one or more family members to a drunk. Politically, a crying mother trumps rationality (just look how far Cindy Sheehan took her absurdity). The result is that, even if you are below 0.08, if an officer finds you to be driving "erratically" and detects any amount of alcohol on your breath, you could be smacked with the full force of a felony. The outcome of your particular case mostly depends on your age, ethnic background, financial resources, etc...a whole host of things that have nothing to do with the severity of your slight against fellow humans. On the other hand, many who actually are over the legal limit get handled with kid gloves because everyone responsible for holding that person to account knows that drunk driving laws are overly harsh, and what we're dealing with here is a fine, upstanding member of society—we can't hit him with a felony!
So drunk driving laws are now used as a legal catch-all in some parts. If you happen to be driving in an area defined by federal law, the limit could be as low as 0.02. This is something that is not advertised and most people don't know. But no worries—most people don't have cause to fear it...you only need be concerned if the authorities want to selectively prosecute you for something else that won't stand up. I'm pretty sure, judging from regimes like North Korea, Iran, etc, capricious prosecution is the opposite of freedom.
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
This guy hates cans... er I mean buttons!
Well, I'm sure the people doing peer-reviewed studies on this sort of thing (and the people doing the peer-reviewing) were probably all a lot dumber than you and never thought of that.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
"I want a few dedicated buttons for important functions like volume, power, and send/hang up"
The iPhone has dedicated buttons for volume and power.... and the send hang up buttons are big and large when you're using those functions that require them.
Let's just make a power glove for everything! Oh wait that had buttons too...
AFAIK, Michael Schumacher could drive his F1 car and win races while chatting about random stuff with the pit crew (he's been known to do F1 test drives in twilight and still only have his lap times slower by a second).
So, personally I think there should be an extra license grade for people who can drive safely while talking on the phone etc. After all there are different licenses for different sorts of vehicles, so just have licenses for "driving passenger car while using phone of choice" and a more general "able to drive passenger car while using phone of choice and also standard phone".
The tests shouldn't be easy of course - question and answer, comprehension, recall, take phone out of pocket etc. I'd probably fail unless I practiced a lot. But brains get better with practice and training - so it should be possible for a fair proportion to drive safely while using their phones.
Then after 5 years or so, we do a study to see whether those with the licenses are actually doing worse or better than those without, and whether this extra license thing is actually a good idea in practice and should be continued/discontinued.
I cant wait for the day someone realy make an intuitive button. 1 button, press it and it always does what you wanted it to do.
The key is conversation. A conversation that requires the driver to listen and think is as dangerous as driving while intoxicated, on the phone or with a passenger. Having a one way conversation where the driver's side consists of "uh huh, yeah, yep, ok, really? wow, ok, great, bye" is not what the study is talking about.
One reason cited for passengers being safer than phone calls is that passengers can see when to STFU when the driver is concentrating on driving.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
I think a rumble motor ala Wiimote would work a little better than the godawful system in place now. A short rumble as you move over each virtual number key I think would make all the difference in the world when you are dialing without looking.
This wouldn't fix any of the other problems, but it would be nice at least for the blind and for in the car. (Perhaps the phone should also have a 'blind mode' where you are automatically taken to the dialing screen when you wake up the phone.)
Well another day at Slashdot.
How about instead of spewing garbage, try coming up with a point and then backing it up with fact to strengthen your previous point.
Oh and by the way last time I checked Steve Jobs hasn't "developed" anything hardware or software in many many years, this is why his job title says CEO instead of developer, engineer or something similar.
As far as the buttons are concerned. I think the idea of the iPhone being buttonless (physically) is pretty good. I don't think we have seen if this idea will pan out over the long term and be dependable enough for the market, but I am pretty sure that the dependability question has been raised of many inventions over the years (early automobiles, light bulb, you name it).
I personally will not buy an iPhone. One reason is price. The second reason is that I want a phone that can call other phones. I don't need a phone that can access the internet (although if it had ssh access I might consider that feature), play music, play games, watch movies, download shit, or rub my balls. None of that stuff is necessary for me, so it is not worth my time.
$diff terrorists hippies
$
$rm -rf *terrorists *hippies
Hard buttons - and usually their effects - can't be broken by malware.
webcam covers, volume and mute buttons, wifi and bluetooth antenna cutoffs.
Plus, I've been pissed off by slow machines for so long, I don't trust software controls to react in time. Sometimes, systems break due to bugs, not just malware.
It's just that he worked this really awful job as a teenager where his boss forced him to wear buttons and insisted on calling them "flair"...
I generally agree with you, but I have a counterargument. (Unrelated to the issue of driving while on the phone, which is a whole other can of worms.)
My current phone has a weak '9' button. More than once I have dialed a number quickly and hit send before realizing "d'oh, it didn't register the 9". So in the case of my phone, the tactile feel of the buttons gives a false sense of security. Having to look at the screen anyway would help with that problem.
Peter Molyneux, of "Black and White" fame, from Lionhead Studios.
He created Black and White with great acclaim and praise, a game that relied heavily on mouse gestures and a total lack of buttons. It was a development "focus" to rid the UI of buttons. The game was brilliant in its AI, in its development, and its graphics. It was a technical marvel.
The people started to play it. Go look up at Amazon.com's reviews of the game. The sheer number of people complaining of pained hands after playing the game, the annoying control schemes and never getting the gestures 'quite right' were all great issues.
So a great game with lots of promise became a game that was tedious and annoying to play, even if it was fun underneath all the irritation.
No buttons, is not always a good thing. BMW's iDrive is another great example of trying to take buttons 'out' of the equation and replace them with something simple.... didn't work out well there either. Jobs should be keen to keep these reminders that simplistic is great to a point, but sometimes it hinders rather than helps.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Also, when you're using the stereo headset, you can click and double-click the microphone button to answer, hang up, pause and jump to the next track.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
Over all, I agree with much of your posts...the degree of penalty should match the impairment. However, you mentioned "if an officer finds you to be driving "erratically" and detects any amount of alcohol on your breath, you could be smacked with the full force of a felony". I don't think DWI, in and of itself is a felony....I think it is a misdemeanor in most cases. I don't think it could be a felony unless someone was killed and it was a contributing factor...vehicular homicide and all.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
No, it isn't the speed difference, it is the impatient asshole gabbing on his cellphone while driving that causes the accidents. Oh yeah, and holding a cell phone to you head definitely blocks your vision and restricts your range of motion, so of course you can't see the motor/bi-cyclist.
Fuck you, asshole, I pay taxes, too.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
From what I remember the same impairment did was not as significant for conversation within the vehicle for reasons I can't remember.
IIRC it's because when two people in a car are talking they are both looking out of the windows. The conversation instantly stops when either person sees something wrong. I bet that if you repeated the experiment but had the passenger blindfolded, you would find the same amount of driver distraction as with cell phone use, because the passenger would keep talking regardless of anything going on outside the vehicle.
If you're getting visual cues while you're driving, you're not paying attention to driving - thus you're more distracted by the passenger than you could possibly be by the cell phone.
Apple make keyboards, the iPod has buttons.
I dont understand what is wrong with a good keyboard. Sure, on a phone you dont have much space, but tactile feedback is important. Spongey keys or worse still membrane keys are poor for typing.
Steve's obsession with minimalism does turn off many users. It also tarnishes the reputation of Apple, people always go on about their one button mouse.
I bought a bluetooth Mighty mouse and the right click ability drives you mad, its simply unusable. Not to mention very heavy.
Actually, I think the percentage of iPhone purchases for purposes of resale (ebay, etc.) was a lot more than 20%. From an informal survey I did at the line at the Pasadena Apple Store, I'd put the figure at 40% for resale and 10% was "for someone else", but not for the purposes of making a profit. So I don't find AT&T's figure troubling for the iPhone.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Stupid comparisons. It is a phone. Why shouldn't someone who is blind be able to use it? Why should a phone offer more of an obsticle than a computer?
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
The iPhone has no buttons... except that it does. Every screen has buttons that need to be pressed. The only differences between those "soft" buttons and real buttons are:
1) You need to look directly at the screen to press them, like while driving.
2) You have to take the phone/mp3 player out of your pocket, activate the screen, and sometimes navigate menus if you want to adjust the volume, skip a song, etc.
3) You waste power every time you need to find and press these buttons.
I'm all for reducing clutter and making interfaces intuitive, but there's a point when ideology surpasses practicality.
Technology should be about removing barriers, not creating artificial ones! There exists plenty of technology that allows people who are blind to use computers and phones. Apple has a decent screen reader. IMHO they have no excuse. One reasonable way to judge governments, and people, is to see how they take care of those with disadvantages. Anyone, including you, can join the disable minority group at anytime, and it is pretty much guaranteed with age. It is not about being politically correct, it is about being enlightened.
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
AMX with NetLinx Studio is the shit.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I'm officially ready for people like the parent who can't stand criticism of their favorite brands or pet technologies to shut their wordholes with all due speed.
It's like you can't see through the thinly veiled sarcasm, or getting riled up by Steven Colbert.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Too bad Apple didn't come up with the rather elegant and intuitive solution of the iRiver Clix:
d ex.aspx
http://www.iriveramerica.com/prod/ultra/clix/
http://www.iriveramerica.com/prod/s_series/s10/in
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Exactly.... Steve apparently hasn't considered the vast number of Apple-ites who will now commence to work with the buttonless iPhone WHILE DRIVING...... With buttons, I can learn the locations and dial/type away without taking my eyes off of more important things. Touchscreens and glide stroke pads have their uses --- but clicky buttons *definitely* have their uses as well. Voice control addresses the issue a bit but we're talking to that large crowd of "more money than brains" monkeys we have to maneuver around in life.
the buttons are just rendered on screen and they are tiny, meaning harder to target and press and as a side effect you leave greasy finger prints on your screen. Oh the progress...
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
I've had my iPhone now for 2 weeks. And, I can tell you it is the hardest to use iPod ever invented. Having to unlock and then figure out how to advance a track while driving or just sitting with it is a nightmare.
Apple does MANY stupid things along these line (right clicking their crappy "wonder mouse" is an exercise in finger agility..you have to lift your left finger).
Apple does a lot of things very well, but the campaign against buttons is crap from a usability perspective.
Because when I drive anywhere with others in the car, we all sit silently and never attempt conversation, just on the odd chance that the small amount of attention used to hold a conversation will be needed for a task that is, after a few years of practice, so automatic as to require little conscious though.
Lose: misplace or fail || Loose: not bound together
What about passengers? Buses? Trains? Bicycles? (ok, talking on the phone on a bicycle is pretty difficult/dangerous)
sigfault. core dumped.
Yep. This is why I never check my speedometer or mirrors or shoulder check when changing lanes. Lord knows there's not a second that your eyes can't be focused on the road.
Also through training, I've nearly eliminated my peripheral vision -- far too much sensory input comes in from that to allow me to function on the road.
-30-
Considering the number of YOUNG people I encounter who can't handle even modest technology - I always find it somewhat annoying when someone uses "the old guy looking at a 707 cockpit" sort of analogy (especially when there's a lot of airline pilots in that age range). I'm 50 ...yeah, a lot of my peers are incompetent at modern tech.... but then I find about the same number of younglings are incompetent as technologies or the side-effects of using them as well (e.g. well, Suzy --- who did you THINK would visit you after you plastered all your personal data on MySpace, hmmm? Bob, go get adaware, install it, and follow the....... okay, pull up your browse...... okay, get your INTERNET started, eh?)
I spend way too much time sysadmin'ing young people who can't figure out baseline technologies (computers, basic tool software, gadgets, electronics) to use the "old guy" metaphor.
Its more like the 80/20 model --- 80% of the population were too busy throwing poop at each other down at the waterhole rather than attending the monolith meeting.
As a result, the 20% of the monkeys who did attend still have to carry the load for the those 80% monkeys.
No, it isn't the speed difference, it is the impatient asshole gabbing on his cellphone while driving that causes the accidents. Oh yeah, and holding a cell phone to you head definitely blocks your vision and restricts your range of motion, so of course you can't see the motor/bi-cyclist."
I'll give you that cell phones in the hands of most drivers are a problem. But, I still say bicycles on most roads are a danger. They cannot go fast enough to keep with the flow of traffic. I don't know many on a normal bike that can keep it at 35-40mph which is easily the speed limits on most city and neighborhood streets. A motorcycle and most scooters can indeed do that, but, I've had situations where cars got stacked up behind 1 or more bikes on a road....and then you get into the situation of people getting impatient, while waiting to get a chance to pass them.
Motorized and non-motorized vehicles do not belong on the same roadways...IMHO. I mean, we don't let horses ride around on our streets with cars today, do we? What about skateboarders? It just isn't realistically safe these days.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Yeah... and with all the wing to wing traffic they have to deal with up there, it's a wonder there haven't been more fuselage-benders.
-30-
But they're more likely than not to be Apple users. Ergo...
Where has it been established that iPhone owners are more likely to be using other Apple products? I've seen plenty of posts from Apple OS X users stating they have no desire for an iPhone. Right now I would not hazard a guess as to what operating systems iPhone users generally have, except that it's most likley more windows users than mac just based on percentages and wide mainstream appeal of the device.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But not a peep when it's revealed that the Apple iPhone launch is now widely considered in the industry (outside of Apple and its zealots) a failure. 160,000 units in two days on launch, when even the conservative analysts were calling for 400,000 units in two days and stating that anything else would have to be considered a failure given the hype.
We have no numbers on actual sales during the last quarter. Most of us are aware that AT&T were having trouble activating phones which they did not resolve until the beginning of July. The number you are quoting is the number of successful activations, not the number of purchased iPhones. Even so, that 160,000 figure would work out to one activation every 1.08 seconds during a full 48 hour period. Wait until Apple releases the sales figures for the end of the quarter today before jumping to conclusions. Where are the articles in Slashdot pointing this out? Where are the Apple zealots who were claiming a million units would be sold over the weekend and they would be asking for I told you sos when it happened? See above. Nobody knows how many were sold in the month of June or how many have sold since the last quarter. You don't have any numbers to prove the opposite pal.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
So you draw a bunch of buttons? or have one giant button (touch screen)?
I have fewer button presses to go through to make calls on an iPhone because it handles contacts really well. Being able just to glance down, see a contact name, and press that is much quicker and safer than full number entry on any phone with "real" buttons.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Babies most certainly do have a reflex for breastfeeding.
n g
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucking_reflex#Rooti
The problem you seem to be having is that you're confusing the compulsion to behave in a certain way (the reflex) with the ability to physically perform the action. The problems you describe are much more likely a result of the limited motor control of newborn infants.
"But really, I'm just full of it, and these are problems that no one has."
No, you're just confused.
The rooting reflex is very well established empirically.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
This does not bode well for the literacy of America's youth. It was bad enough when IM began bringing lol, omfg, roflcopter, brb, ttyl, and other such abbreviations into common language. Now the iPhone makes it such that if you decide to type out "I'm laughing quite hard right now" you don't even have to type it correctly, ala "im lafphing quiet hrd rite nw" and the iPhone will correct your abysmal spelling.
As noted, the iPhone corrects only poor typing, not poor spelling (because the character mistakes you make are in a pattern close to the word you meant to type).
But let's say for a second it were correcting spelling. How can this be worse in any way that the shorthand we see today? Isn't it fantastic that the intent would have been to type "I'm laughing quite hard right now" instead of the usual gibberish?
And think of the reader; that is a future grownup who already early on is reading full text instead of gibberish. Do I care by hat process this well-form text arrived to the reader? No I do not, I care only that the person get used to real conversation and full words.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'd like to see what his safety record would be like if you replaced all of the other F1 drivers on the course with average drivers and let pedestrians run across the road at will. Knowing what the other drivers you're racing against are likely to do makes things quite a bit easier (although obviously not easy enough or there'd never be crashes in auto racing and everyone would stop watching it.)
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
I have a wireless mighty mouse, and honestly, I'm disappointed in the right click performance. And yes I do lift off my left finger. Sometimes it doesn't work, and I end up clicking half a dozen times and end up just hitting Ctrl-click. I'm thinking about making it a one-button mouse again, cause it's annoying that it does right-click when I want it to.
We also included control groups who either listened to the radio or listened to a book on tape while performing the simulated driving task.
The thing that is missing from this study is a "having a conversation with a passenger" control group. Show me a study showing that talking on a cell phone is more significantly dangerous than talking with a passenger. Oh, and while you're at it, we'll need a study that compares the dangers of cell phone talking vs crossing multiple lanes of traffic to exit the highway, and then re-entering traffic afterwards.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Unless the iPhone is some Nobel-prize worthy, civilization-changing jump in technology, sounds like it would drive me crazy. I've yet to encounter the machine I trust to think for me. Process the key I hit, not the key you guess I meant to hit.
I too generally despise auto-correction.
But what the iPhone is doing, is saying "this word I know to be mispelled, the keys were hit in a pattern that the user may well have meant to hit these other keys, just adjacent". And that is what works really well, is that the guess is based on what you actually did, not on the software's perceived interpretation of what you might be interested in - plus you don't even have to respond to what the iPhone is suggesting, just keep typing if you disagree. So it's not like a thing that interrupts you so much as augments you ability to type quickly in a small space.
Augmentation of human ability is something computers have traditionally done much better than pure AI tasks where the system has to try and think like a human.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No, because then at least you can feel the space between the buttons. On the iPhone/iPod touch interface, there is only a single surface, and you can't feel where one button ends and the next one begins.
But you can see just that by typing. And just like with video games, you learn where the edges of the keys are. Physical buttons help with training, not with actual long-term use.
No matter how fat your fingers are, they are still round - and that means a more limited area pressing on the screen than you would think. It's knowing where that small portion of thumb is actually hitting that is key.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is what makes the problem so complex with any feature rich device and it's also why it's been frustrating that so little attention has been paid to the problem. Take a camera or camcorder as an example. Many models have a plethora of features, but most of those features are buried in the menu system, which actually makes the features worse than dysfucntional. You could miss an opportunity because you're distracted by the menu system. OTOH, too many buttons and control surfaces are also a problem, especially on small cameras. I've even seen some digital cameras that have similar controls to the old film cameras for some of the most basic functions. (notably the Panasonic/Leica Lumix series. A Zeiss lens! Yum!).
Anyway, it's a very challenging problem and there is not one size fits all solution for either the devices or the users. Apple might not have the best solution for everyone, but they're at least (one of the companies) setting an example of how to approach the problem.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
If you think AMX > Crestron.
I told some of our designers what you said, and their derision is not something I can share in mixed company.
Having installed and programmed both systems myself, I have to say, I agree with them.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
It's context sensitive and it depends on whether your call is file or a mountable volume. =)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Simply insanity.
... yes its misspelled on purpoooose.
The next Mac Mini will be a seamless, featureless white 4-inch sphere. All input and output will all be through Bluetooth and Wi-fi, and power will come from either an induction charger or by placing the Mini in a dish of hot water.
I'm totally ripping this off from someone, but I don't remember where.
blah blah blah. What you say is scientifically proven statistics not facts. Not everyone who gets on a cell phone while driving will pose a grave threat to mankind. I personally make sure to use a hands-free set and if perhaps I am making a especially interesting maneuver I will tell the person I'm talking to, to hold on a sec while I do my driving. No ifs ands or buts. Driving and talking on a cell phone isn't illegal in my state so I'm well within my rights to do so. I know you hate it when you see some asshat cut you off when he's talking on a cell phone and you really want someone to blame. Everybody does.
Really this is like if someone is to cross the street in the middle of the block(Jay walking). If they started walking and they happened to do it in front of you, that would be dangerous and it really is illegal to do so. However what if noone was there and that same person decided to jay walk. It would be ridiculous to punish that person for something that was quite innocent. Same thing here. Jay walking as a law is insane though, you're not really harming anybodies rights. You shouldn't be punished for something you may do, only be punished if you actually do something that harmed someone.
Legally speaking, a bicycle is a vehicle and thus belongs in the road, and for safety reasons should actually ride in the center of the lane like any other vehicle. In many locations it is, in fact, illegal to ride a bicycle on the sidewalk (which is reserved for pedestrians, not vehicles). Again, as far as the law is concerned, motorists can suck it up and deal. Just pass the bike like you would a slow-moving car, when traffic allows.
What causes accidents isn't speed differences, it's incompetent motorists.
"They most certainly do not have a reflex for breastfeeding...They have a reflex for suckling, which is not the same thing at all."
Read the link and see why you're wrong.
"As you are clearly speaking from zero experience"
I was independently responsible for feeding and caring for disabled newborns for 6 years. You are extremely presumptive for assuming like you did.
You are wrong about the rooting/sucking reflex, and you are wrong about me.
"because you didn't even bother to look up the correct article."
Ok let's see from MY link
"The Rooting Reflex assists in breastfeeding, and thus is present at birth"
"The sucking reflex seems to belong with the Rooting reflex. It is present before birth, and also aids in breastfeeding. It causes the child to instinctively begin to suck on anything that touches the roof of their mouth. This reflex is common to mammals, and specifically adapted to express milk through the breastfeeding process."
Hmm, seems you're wrong.
From YOUR link
"When babies' cheeks are stroked, the rooting instinct makes them move their face towards the stroking and open their mouth."
Hey look, YOUR ARTICLE AGREES WITH ME.
"then have a nice big glass of STFU on me."
Seems like you'll have a bigger need for that than me.
"I suggest you inform yourself before you talk to an actual girl."
I suggest that you stop arguing with someone who devoted 12 years to the discipline of caring for and feeding infants as ap profession. Or if you do, prepare yourself with correct information.
You're wrong about everything you said and you link proves me right.
If you're going to be a asshole like you were, being right about what you're discussing would help.
But you weren't so fuck off.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Sure apple has a phone that has no buttons but what about Microsoft Surface?
... Offical Site
Wiki
----------
Trying to fix or change something only guarantees and perpetuates it's existence
I pay taxes, too.
In most municipalities, road maintenance is paid for by fuel taxes. You may be paying taxes, but as a cyclist you are generally not contributing to road maintenance.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Our preferred solution is a custom web-enabled scenario mgmt/routing system with wireless tablets for room control (double as laptops for doing presentations).
We deal with both AMX and Crestron and I loathe them both.
With the amount of work and money you can spend on getting people to program them it's 10 times easier to provide a toolkit for some intern web designer to generate a shitty web-2.0 interface around; built on top of a state machine and device control abstraction.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
The treo also has the wonderful "don't make a freaking sound" slider on the top... that's the one feature I really miss having gone to the blackberry and dash.
Ok well you go on eating your Big Mac and tuning the radio while driving, and i'll dial my phone without taking my eyes off the road.
Ask the designers of BMW's iDrive. Every iteration of iDrive seems to have more buttons than the last. Any idea why?
Because they work better than menus (or soft-buttons).
There is a reason my washer and dryer do not have a command line interface (or a touchscreen menu-driven interface).
I love the QWERTY keyboard (made of real buttons) on my Treo and until the iPhone gets one, the iPhone will remain iUseless to me.
-ted
How am I missing the point when it's you who restated exactly what I wrote?
I said: "The problem you seem to be having is that you're confusing the compulsion to behave in a certain way (the reflex) with the ability to physically perform the action."
To which your reply was: "Having a reflex is not the same as being able to perform a task that depends on that reflex."
Thanks for so clearly reinforcing my point by restating it nearly exactly, but what point do you think that proves I'm missing?
I have no idea why you decided to be such a twit in your reply, but telling me I'm wrong then repeating what I say doesn't go very far in proving your point. Unless your point is that you'll needlessly argue while being wrong, in which case, well done! Nicely proven!
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Your still distracted by the conversation youre having. Without a doubt every single asshole driving 10kmh under the speedlimit, not signalling and generally not paying attention is on a cel phone. Every time. It should be the same level offence as drinking and driving. Take away their license for a year. Second offence, jailtime.
If your driving in a car, you should be 100% focused on the road. period.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
Because I'm pretty sure it is.
"Your claims that there are never problems with breastfeeding are trumped by tens of thousands of pages saying you're wrong."
I NEVER claimed that, nor anything that resembles that.
Post a quote or admit you were wrong.
"I call bullshit."
I don't care. It's clear now your contentiousness is the result of your limited reading ability, and not the subject at hand.
Please post a quote from m saying what you claim I said, or admit you were wrong and apologize.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
> We don't need no stinkin' buttons!
Damn straight! Oh, wait... how does Steve Jobs keep his pants from falling down?
Solomon
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
You're he one who questioned my background. Don't be a twat about my answer when it was YOU who brought it up.
"As you are clearly speaking from zero experience"
YOU said that. YOU made the claim that I was speaking from "zero experience". YOU were wrong.
Save that appeal to authority shit for when you're actually right about it and not propping up a faulty argument based on your assumptions and misunderstandings.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
I mean, we don't let horses ride around on our streets with cars today, do we?
Yes, though not on the freeway. On the other hand, it's a lot easier to see a horse in front of you than it is a tiny bicycle. A horse can also typically achieve faster speeds than a typical bicyclist.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
"... play music, play games, watch movies, download shit, or rub my balls."
Ummm... that last point. Is there a phone... ah, never mind.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
"However, I want a few dedicated buttons for important functions like volume, power, and send/hang up."
You're in luck. There's a sleep/wake button, a home button, volume up/down buttons, and (in the headset) an answer/hangup switch.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Idiot.
A horse can't be sick, you know, even if he wants to.
You just can't get enough ball rubbing IMHO.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Iirc, in the study I read, they address the pilot issue by saying that pilot conversations are half-duplex, push-to-talk, instead of full-duplex, both people talking at once. Apparently, the two have very different psychological effects, with full-duplex conversations somehow being much more distracting, and causing you to focus on the "world" of the conversation much more.
I know I shouldn't be, but I am still amazed that they give mod points to retards. I've drunk the koolaid since 1992 (I think. The early 90s are a haze of drugs, booze, hookers, and quadras), and I've got the fucking right (dammit) to make fun of Steve Jobs, Apple, and the Macintosh.
I'd like to think this is just WMF fucking with me in a friendly way, or that I'm important enough to have a mod troll stalking me, but the sad truth is that some Mac users are Mac users because they're mentally deficient.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
A good example is how the ipod auto pauses when the audio jack is removed. One would think that this would be configurable seeing as how EVERYONE removes their headphones eventually. But no. Apple forces you to behave the way THEY want. They make decisions for you and then are so brainwashed by their "innovation" that they never think to make those innovations configurable.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
In your post, you almost never use the second or third person, it's almost always "I". There is nothing in your post - which makes some interesting points, but loses it because you fail to include others in your observations - which indicates that your point of view is in any way representative, and I somehow don't see anyone making devices just to suit you personally. Not yet, anyway. Try to see what others are thinking. You might learn something.
There are a number of comments in here about how you cannot get rid of buttons because then how would we [press this button]? The posters neglect to imagine the innovation that comes from necessity. If you RTFA, it mentions that Jobs forbade arrow keys on the original Macintosh because he wanted to force developers to accommodate the mouse. You know what? It worked.
With the iPhone, he's forcing developers to think of new ways to use a tactile screen. He's sprinkled the creative field with some suggestions. Touch to click, drag to scroll, flick to page. I'm sure there will be others. One poster wanted to know how you could turn volume up or down without a knob. Why not just draw a clockwise or counter-clockwise circle on the screen? Software can determine that motion from key presses. It's innovation waiting to happen.
This sort of innovation through change and design is a good thing. It doesn't always work, but when it does, it's spectacular. Jobs is great because he keeps hitting this ball despite his failures. In time, we'll regard the iPhone as a success or failure, as a Mac or a Lisa, as an iPod or a Newton. But until then, try to remember that Jobs brings both to the table with regularity.
These opinions guaranteed or your money back.
Sounds like you wish your phone came with one of these...
www.clarke.ca
Remember the LARCS system from StarTrek. It was basically an iPhone interface.
This sort of thing is good for keyboards where you are entering a known language and can check for mistakes before sending. Buttons are useful for more critical things though... Clearly, you don't want "prediction" or "AI" on the phasers stun/kill button. It would be nice if there was some tactile feedback on the trigger icon too, especially when the bridge is exploding around you and some Klingon is trying to wedge a batleth up your ass.
That's why the iPhone still has buttons for volume. You need to adjust volume mid-conversation without looking at the phone, so they have to be tactile.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Why do we have needless seats dominating the interior space of most vehicles? Beds don't have seats. Why do cars need them? Your clothes should have a rigid mode built into them so you can create and adjust your seat when and where you want, or stand if you please.
Hello Cruel World
It has been many, many years now that OS X has supported multi-button mice, and a couple of years simce Apple produces multi-touch mice itself, which work just like the fucking iphone. I'm using one right now. Normally, I wouldn't give a fuck, but man, this is getting fucking old, and all the fucking iMacs have had CD-burners etc since the second edition, like 7 yeras ago.
Physical buttons are also *alyways there* ... and in a consistent location. So if there is any frequently used functionality, having an actual button ultimately lets you blindly use some of these basic functions by virtue of consistent placement and the all-important tactile feedback.
Blog
Yes. Indeed. Now tell me, are those buttons configurable? Or am I trusting steve jobs to know what the focus of my tasks should be
That is a separate issue. While theoretically they could be they are not; and you have to admit the likelihood is high that Apple has put a lot of thought into the placement things have currently. While you or I might be better served by some slight adjustments, in general the device works better overall because they have laid things out according to the research they have done.
That's also where hacking comes into play, to let truly advanced users tweak what they like - I am pretty sure before too long I will be able to modify key layouts if I wanted to. So all audiences are well served, the general population getting a well-tuned interface and the hackers getting to customize beyond that.
I find it far nicer though to start with an application that is well tuned and I don't HAVE to alter to make usable. That is why I moved to OS X from Linux, because default choices were good enough I could focus on work instead of OS tuning. Similarily while I might want a few keys rearranged on the iPhone keyboard the fundamental truth is that it's so much more usable than other keyboards - I don't care if I don't have that ability today.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"we don't let horses ride around on our streets with cars today, do we?" Yes, actually, we do. Where I live it is not uncommon to see an amish buggy being pulled by a horse or two.
There's a UI design spec that calls for all buttons to be named as verbs. Sound silly? Your word buttons become:
Continue with Save?
Save Cancel
Or your other example:
Convert this document to plain text?
If you convert this document, you will lose all text
styles (such as fonts and colors) and document
properties.
Don't Convert Convert
A little wordier, but even in the muddiness of the the bad verbage, the choices are at least clear. Apple is notorious for following this simple little dictum, whereas no one at MS has any idea about usability.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Zap 'em all. Let god sort 'em out :-) But seriously, considering their lack of etiquette, I don't care to hear people screaming into their phones on the bus or train anymore I do in the restaurant.
What?
In the future, we should deprecate all widgets, both on screen and physical. When I want to tune my radio, I should be able to just point my arm out in a particular direction and keep it there as long as I want to listen to that radio station. I also want cheery doors to open for me automatically.
Steve hates docking stations, colored LEDs, and ergonomic keyboards as well. Steve hates ugly monitors on nice Macs. Steve hates user-upgradable and user-repairable devices. Steve hates DRM.
Well, he's not all bad. I hate DRM too.
That's why he's always wearing a turtleneck. Duh.
You know what? So Fucking What! I could care less. That's like Bill Gates saying he only likes Borg.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
I wish I was a stupid as Steve Jobs, then I, too, could have a that personal jet plane that I've always wanted.
Yeah, he's all turtleneck and trousers, alright.
I still want a phone where I can connect a standard keyboard to it (minus the Function/ESC grid, the number pad, and the arrow keys imbedded in the QWERTY slots normally taken up with CTRL-WINDWS-ALT and the, at least for me, useless Caps Lock key. Or heck, the CTRL-WINDS-MENUOPTIONS-ALT bar could be replaced with ARROWUP-ARROWDWN-ARROWRIGHT-ARROWLEFT. The keyboard itself takes less space than an 8.5/11 sheet of paper (ignoring width) and can easily attach to a binder or slide into my bag/backpack...
But I'm one of those crazy people who carries a deck of cards, ipod, phone, wallet, keys, notebook, camera, pencil, extra non-notebook paper, a comb, chopsticks, change, a fortune cookie or two and deoderant and/or perfume with me wherever I go...not to mention a good book.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
The original poster was accurate. Talking about oneself in the third person doesn't improve accuracy. And it doesn't include others in the observation, but hides that fact. You are better informed because the poster used the correct pronoun.
Better ban passengers as well while your at it then, huh ?
All these studies on talking while driving aimed at mobiles neglected the control groups.
Is there a vibrate mode on the iPhone? There is on my phone, and sometimes I call myself just for fun!
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
I can usually manage getting the phone down my pants, but I can't get the "vibrate" function to go indefinitely!
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Jobs hates buttons, Carmack hates threads, Stallman hates Linux.
What are us geeks to do when our beloved mentors go loco?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
And I do too. That's why I have The Clapper, I "type" with an onscreen keyboard which senses which letter I'm looking at, and all my clothing has zippers. I'm also developing a mind-reading interface, which is working well, except that it's difficult to distinguish actual instructions from random thoughts, so occasionally the computer does something unexpeSteve Jobs is an idiot. Well, maybe not an idiot.. after all, he manages to convince people that his ridiculous ideas are revolutionary instead of discarded ideas from the trashbins of real product designers. Aww, see? Goddamn it. Anyway, I've got to get back to using my iPhone in public.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
No it's definitely speed differences. Not with bicycles necessarily but with cars in general. That's why roads have minimum speeds as well as maximum speeds. If a car pulls onto the highway and starts going 35 mph, there's a good chance of an accident.
I've never thought of bicycles as a safety hazard (except for the bicyclist maybe) but they certainly are annoying.. especially going up a long hill. Gah.
Just keep calling yourself. But hey, forget about it, the iPhone gets too hot anyway.
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
I guess this phone is not for the blind, with no buttons there is no way to know what you are doing, on top of not needing to watch youtube.
If he eats up almost the entire lane then you should probably leave him alone. He can really use that workout.
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
Didn't you hear they're all high on Testosterone and EPO these days? I would never have thought to see some sports cyclists and think to myself, 'Damn junkies!'
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
I hate touchscreens.
Over long distances, a decent cyclist will always go faster than a horse and rider. Certainly when it comes to leisurely trail riding, cyclists go much faster (10-17mph) than horses (5mph). Even the Kentucky Derby winners are only going about 37.5mph (for two minutes), which a cyclist can easily top on a downhill stretch. (And that's not even considering what a recumbent bike can do.)
Also, horses are much more dangerous near motor vehicles because of their tendency to spook. That far outweighs any visibility benefit (which, considering the styling of modern bike jerseys, is probably small).
Call myself with what? My phone is down my pants--and when I call myself on it, I just get my own voicemail.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
It looks like there are still plenty of iPhones available on ebay, so I wouldn't read too much into the resale purchases.
And I'm guessing that Steve Jobs does as well. The thing is that buttons provide tactile feedback, which makes develops neurological connections between "what you want" and "what you do to get it done", with tactile feedback, the mind is much more able to learn what to do when it wants to perform a specfic action. On the other hand, too many buttons, especially if they all provide the same kind of tactile feedback, becomes very clunky. I think the "1 button" tyrade was pointless, as the mind can just as easily map functionality for one button on one side of a unit, as two. But depending upon their setup, many more buttons can become very problematic.
On the flipside, as a graphic designer, and as someone interested in aesthetic design philosophy in general, buttons are attrocios little mother fuckers. They're entirely unattractive, and they ruin the form of a piece of equipment.
Another problem with buttons is that they're not always well suited for the job. The iPod demonstrated that a jog wheel is MUCH better for scrolling huge lists quickly than a button ever would be. It's fairly "button-less" interface proved a hit with people of all demographics, because it came up with the right interface device for the job. Buttons are the status-quo, and sometimes they're exactly what you want... but if you're creating a piece of propriatary hardware, many times there are other interfaces that make much more sense.
On one hand, as an admirer of aesthetic design, the iPhone seems like a gem. But from someone interested in interface philosophy, it feels like they've abandoned the best route for something slightly less so, which runs counter to Apple's usual interface philosophy.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
This is a small pet peeve of mine.
I used to have a cheap laptop - something manufactured and branded by a relatively small local company, I think it was based on a generic Toshiba. Anyway, it had a very simple and effective analog wheel on the front. Very easy to use and convenient.
Now I have the latest and greatest laptop and for sound I have two fancy +/- buttons that are not in the right place, that give me no clue on the current setting and that I must click repeatedly to set the correct sound, so more often than not I just right-click on the sound icon in the taskbar (yes I use XP; I'll switch to Linux the same day Adobe releases their creative suite for Linux).
Speaking of buttons (or the lack of them), I bought some years ago a fancy microwave owen with a touch-screen panel with lots of settings and presets. The damn thing is so difficult to use in the dark or when in a hurry, it's become annoying. I always need to be careful to press in the right place as there's zero feedback. By contrast, the cheapest owens have it right: two big knobs (time & power) that even a blind person could use, plus they provide instant visual feedback on their settings.
I think that most controls on an airplane are still analog (at least in their appearance) - and with good reason.
Don't see the point.
;). Plus he's rolled over at least one person (ok just the foot).
His safety record isn't very good as it is. He has crashed his cars many more times than I have
Look at the average smartphone. Understand that Apple wants a wide-screen iPod and a web browser, e-mail, etc. All of it good size. Touchscreen. Usable. Cover Flow. Motion sensor for horizontal or vertical page layout.
Where do you put the friggin' keys? Lot easier to put them on the touch screen when you need them. It solves all the problems, as long as the typing goes well. My friends tell me they can type about 15 words a minute, after using it for a couple of weeks. Good enough?
Yes, Jobs is a design freak. But he doesn't make monstrosities like the old Citroen 2CV -- cool but weird design -- but in Apple devices, form follows function. Don't know, for myself, if it works, except I was typing better than on my stupid Moto RAZR in five minutes in the Apple Store. For that little adaptation, you get movies, full-screen web, etc., and no keyboard that takes up valuable handheld real estate. Good enough for me. How many sentences do you write on a phone? Aren't mobile message something like. "Got yr message. Go ahead. Meet U at 4:00." It would be rotten trying to write a screenplay on, but uh--
Now look at all the smartphones with keys. Type an e-mail, the keys are handy. (Though they don't go to horizontal when you turn a Blackberry, do they?) Surf the web, watch a movie, they shrink the available screen. Fold them up inside the phone and you've got thickness and heat problems. Go ahead, call him weird and a cultist. I think hating buttons is a good move.
If it could do that, the iPhone would be touching all the right buttons.
...the iBox? No buttons, no plugs, no batteries, no wifi, no nothing; just a box, the simplest type of entertainment and technology you can find.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
And this is what I absolutely hate. I hate to be forced to remember every programs layout and behavior when button positions and functionalities move from window to window. Currently I'm writing terribly designed web app where Edit, Save and Close buttons change places on every form and sometimes Close button changes name to Cancel and so on. I would be far more cleaner if they we're always at the bottom right part of the form, in exact same order, so you can find them easily. What would make it worse would be that if keyboard layout changes according to selected input control! (Like remove space bar when user selects date-field)
And besides it's prefectly valid to have spaces in URL's. They are encoded to %20.
You don't know what you don't know.
Most people can drive safely under normal conditions on the phone...
Most people think they can drive safely, quite like how most people think they are above average intelligence.
A good example is how the ipod auto pauses when the audio jack is removed. One would think that this would be configurable seeing as how EVERYONE removes their headphones eventually. But no. Apple forces you to behave the way THEY want. They make decisions for you and then are so brainwashed by their "innovation" that they never think to make those innovations configurable.
What is the point of continuing to play a song (and running down your battery) when you can't hear it?
People think driving fast causes more accidents, because you're more likely to drift out of your lane, or something else stupid. I've always looked at it differently. If you're not capable of keeping your car in a straight line on the freeway in your own lane at 85 mph, you probably shouldn't be driving. Because it's really not that hard.....
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Let's assume for a second that EVERYBODY is as skilled behind the wheel as yourself. Even if that were the case, driving 65mph is as still safer than driving 85mph. It's not necissarily that the faster speed increases the chances of an accident -- it's that your ability to react to/recover from an accident is significantly diminished while driving at higher speeds. That's true no matter how good a driver you are.
Here's an extreme example: If a tire blows at 55mph, it's usually no big deal. At 100mph, blowing a tire can be lethal.
It's not stupid. No buttons means a cheaper product all around, and probably a more marketable one too. It's a very smart thing to design -- and a very stupid thing to use.
I can't stand the lack of human interface these days. Back when I was a youth, not so long ago, there were two versions of just about every system -- normal mode and expert mode. The learning curves were different, and the final speeds were different.
Hey Steve! How do you expect me to dial your phone while driving?! Are we waiting for tactile-responsive touch-screens now?
I want buttons -- but not just buttons. I want switches and toggles and knobs. Silencing my mobile phone requires three buttons -- I want a friggin' recessed switch. I don't want to have to pick up the phone, touch something to engage the back-light and bring it out of sleep mode, and then squint to read that it's in silent mode -- I want to look at the little black thing on the edge and know. By all means, make everything soft and mappable, but the intereface elements need to be there.
Otherwise, every step of every human action requires two eyes -- that's just nuts.
And this is what I absolutely hate. I hate to be forced to remember every programs layout and behavior when button positions and functionalities move from window to window
Fine but it still works better in the long run for an application to have a tailored UI. Photoshop is proof of this, truly sucessful applications are ones that offer a refined and distinct UI.
And besides it's prefectly valid to have spaces in URL's. They are encoded to %20.
Yes, that is valid. But hardly ever used. Optimize for the common case. As a web designer, would you honestly tolerate URL's with spaces that might have to be typed? I would not, indeed I have gotten rid of a few cases in the past where that happened and I realized how annoying it was. Not to mention how ugly it looks when the URL has %20 (or other escaped characters) in it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
The iPhone has dedicated buttons for volume and power.... and the send hang up buttons are big and large when you're using those functions that require them. Not to mention the "Ring/Silent switch" to change between ring and silent modes.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Remember, the 270,000 do not include Sunday.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
I presume you're talking about one of these, most likely the Harmony 1000 since all the rest look as complicated as other remotes. The reason the designers were able to take away so many buttons from the device is that they stuck a giant full-color LCD screen on it and gave it an intuitive-looking GUI (sounds something like how the iPhone was designed, doesn't it?).
the JoshMeister on Security
I am replying because you seem generally interested in this, but I am at a bit of a loss what to say. To me saying that South Park has a (generally) right-wing point of view is just stating the obvious. All you have to do is watch anything those guys have put out. Discerning and decoding meaning in media productions, books, movies, etc. is an exercise in communication theory and not easy to describe in black and white terms, but .. come on! You have to be joking thinking that these guys are "unbiased." Just because the average joe may not detect a bias in a particular show, doesn't mean that it isn't there.
It's arguable that all social and political commentary (humorous or otherwise), has a bias and no one would expect South Park to be an exception. The question is only what kind of bias or how prevalent the bias is in the show. I'm arguing it's right-wing and prevalent in almost every scene and conversation.
Probably the easiest way to test for bias (other than studying some communication theory), is to simply watch a bunch of South Parks in a row, (or better yet a single movie like "Team America"), and write down the nasty comments they make about this person or that group etc. You will quickly see that while they do in fact make jokes about both left and right-wing types, by far the most, as well as the nastiest comments is directed at the left wing types like Jane Fonda, (or pretty much any intellectuals, actors, environmentalists, scientists, or anyone supporting any politically "left" or environmental causes). The indicators of someone's belief system is in their words and their actions. These guys betray themselves at every turn and in every show.
The article you yourself point to, brands them as "Republicans" by their own words (one is even a card carrying member), even though they also state that they are "Libertarians." You might be interested to know however, that a Libertarian is (originally), what the Wiki definition refers to as a "Consequential Libertarian." American Libertarians are more usually "Rights Libertarians" (definitely the only kind of Libertarian these guys could even dream of justifying themselves as), but a "Rights Libertarian" is really much closer to what the rest of the world calls an anarchist.
"Real" Libertarianism (the original kind), is about morals, tolerance, ethical behaviour and above all self-responsibility. Does that sound like these guys world view to you? How many South Parks are there where the message is ethical behaviour and responsibility? Those are like alien concepts to these guys.
The caveat to all this is that I am not an American, so you can safely discount everything I have said if that is your bent. You have to understand that to many of us not blessed with American blood however, almost everyone in the states is "right-wing." For example, the United States' most extreme "left-wing, practically a commie, never win in a million years Presidential candidate" (Kucinich) is pretty much a "middle of the road" candidate to a Canadian or a European, at most he is "centre-left." Even a guy like Barack Obama is a probably a bit too far to the right for many non-Americans being as he is pro-life, in favour of the Patriot Act and the Homeland Security system, he is against same sex marriage, he is in favour of fencing out those pesky Mexicans and he has yet to come out against the practice of torture.
This whole discussion is off-topic anyway and I made it further so by talking about politicians, but the idea that "South Park" is somehow not a right-wing show just because they give the tiniest of digs in the ribs to a republican or two now and then is ludicrous. The original SNL made fun of a few Liberal politicians also, but that didn't stop them being basically a basically "progressive" show that was aimed squarely at the establishment and not at Liberals and environmentalists like South Park.
An interesting challenge and one that I think I might undertake (at worst I can laugh for a few hours :). My guess is that you may even be right about the "nastiest" comments being directed at left wing figures. My general response would be that what is "nasty" is subjective and if the comment is directed at your own belief, you're more likely to find it offensive. Secondly, if for the sake of argument we take Parker's and Stone's opinion(s) as the "correct" one (as they are certainly likely to believe) and there are more cracks against liberals, might it also follow that the liberals are more full of shit, at least from their eyes?
I have a different theory, however. My guess is that while yes, one is a card-carrying Republican, both describe themselves as "libertarian" because of their belief in the rights of the individual. It's a belief I share as well, so I can understand and enjoy jokes attacking both Republicans and Democrats. If you look at the ways conservatives handle suppression of rights as compared to the techniques of liberals, you might see how someone in mine or Parker's and Stone's position might find the liberal method more offensive. Conservatives typically come at it by attacking the action, calling it immoral or whatever (e.g. pre-marital sex). Liberals typically take a "high-minded" approach, trying to suppress the behavior to prevent us from hurting ourselves (e.g. gun laws). The first is foolish and difficult to argue against because they can lean on an arbitrary column of support in the form of religion or tradition. The latter is foolish and difficult to argue against because any rational human being must admit that yes, there is a possible danger in the action. That is to say, they are difficult to argue against in the sense of bringing your opponent around to your side; they're not likely to listen in either case. So while I personally oppose any unnecessary infringement on my rights, I can tell you which I find more offensive: the liberal's case. Both sides tell me the suppression of my rights is necessary and for my own good, but the liberal tells me it's because I am not capable to handle the right. I'm not trying to make a case for rights here, but hopefully you can see how a strong individualist might find the liberal attitude more offensive? If I am correct in my estimation of Parker's and Stone's beliefs, this theory might account for the perceived ferocity of attacks against liberal thought.
Seriously, this argument that you can dial while you drive is ludicrous. People talking on cell phones while driving are a hazard. Plain and simple. Shut up, put the phone down and drive. If you need to talk that badly, pull over, stop the car and dial.
Pooty tweet
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!