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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.
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?
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.
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!?
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.
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)
He's still going to insist that the interface responds the way he wants it to when he touches it.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
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.
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?
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.
Like it says on the Apple support page for the iPod and in the manual: hold menu + select for five seconds and the device will reboot.
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!
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.
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
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
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.
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'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").
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're obviously not blind.
I'm not normally one to kvetch if some device isn't perfectly tailored to the disabled - and the iPhone is a perfect example. No, a blind person can't effectively use it, but that same blind person can acquire another device that mimics the essential functionality.
With an elevator, though, if you get rid of braille and tactile buttons, you've essentially prevented a blind person from reaching the upper floors of the building. There isn't a feasible alternative to the elevator to get from the lobby to the 20th floor.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
He hates these buttons! Stay away from the buttons!
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?
Isn't one a month inconvenient enough?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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?
I didn't use it extensively, but I did use it. I tried to figure out how to type on it for a good 30 minutes, and I was never able to get above maybe 70% accuracy. That said, I really liked the way everything else worked, and how fast and easy it was to launch and switch applications.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
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.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
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
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
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.
No, in fact, you are missing the point. People have lots of reflexes. Having a reflex is not the same as being able to perform a task that depends on that reflex. They most certainly do not have a reflex for breastfeeding...They have a reflex for suckling, which is not the same thing at all.
As you are clearly speaking from zero experience, and just as clearly, have never breastfed anything, I'm going to treat your Wikipedia knowledge with the contempt it deserves, doubly so, because you didn't even bother to look up the correct article. Read down to the "Conditions that interfere with breastfeeding" section, then have a nice big glass of STFU on me.
I suggest you inform yourself before you talk to an actual girl.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I call bullshit. You've got no credentials to put on the table in this forum, so the fallacious appeal to authority, is, as usual, trumped by the "appeal to actual sources"...Your claims that there are never problems with breastfeeding are trumped by tens of thousands of pages saying you're wrong.
Even if you have the experience you claim, which I find highly unlikely, the only other possibility is that you're one of those La Leche style breastfeeding nazi's who refuse to accept that there could ever be a problem with breastfeeding...Equally deluded on the other side of the fence.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
"... 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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.