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The Apple Tablet Interface Must Be Like This
kylevh writes "On one side, there are the people who think that a traditional GUI—one built on windows, folders and the old desktop metaphor—is the only way to go for a tablet. In another camp, there are the ones who are dreaming about magic 3D interfaces and other experimental stuff, thinking that Apple would come up with a wondrous new interface that nobody can imagine now, one that will bring universal love, world peace and pancakes for everyone. Both camps are wrong: The iPhone started a UI revolution, and the tablet is just step two. Here's why." There are lots of cool UI ideas in there, even if it is entirely speculation. It's worth a read just to think about what the future could be like.
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/apple_introduces_revolutionary
for the vapourware age
run linux?
I think for a tablet with detachable keyboard there might be, like this one from Always Innovating:
http://news.cnet.com/i/bto/20090302/AI-front_610x405.png
but I don't see one just for a tablet.... the form factor always seems like one of those "neat-o" ideas until you actually try to make use of it.
I get that the idea of an Apple tablet is intriguing, but is it worth all the stories popping up in the tech world? I mean, there's speculation about it showing up on gaming blogs. Lots of these articles are genuine, but I'm starting to smell a little astroturf too.
It is okay for files to go away, right up until the point that I notice I can't access some data because it is stuck in some app.
And I don't mean that files should never go away, I just mean that each time I notice it, I get confirmation that they aren't done making whatever it was that they changed work correctly yet.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
...here are the ones who are dreaming about magic 3D interfaces and other experimental stuff, thinking that Apple would come up with a wondrous new interface...
Been there, done that
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
i hereby nominate apple speculation as the most boring internet subculture
Oh, huh, I must have missed the announcement that the Apple tablet wasn't just a rumor but actually a real thing. Odd, normally I'm on top of things like that. Oh well.
In another camp, there are the ones who are dreaming about magic 3D interfaces and other experimental stuff, thinking that Apple would come up with a wondrous new interface that nobody can imagine now, one that will bring universal love, world peace and pancakes for everyone
We HAVE 3D interfaces projected onto the 2D space of a multi-touch screen, which makes for some pretty awesome experimental stuff. And who knows, maybe Apple will be the one to do it, maybe it'll be the Open Source Community.
Just because it seems unfathomable to you doesn't mean it isn't possible. I mean the whole love, peace, and pancakes is probably impossible, but not the interface part.
I prefer waffles.
From the article “For its part, Asus has netbooks and smartbooks running on Android and Chrome OS in its R&D labs, according to Shih, but is waiting until conditions are right to release them.” “Prototypes of tablet or slate PCs - touchscreen machines with no keyboards suited to watching media, reading e-books and web browsing - are sitting in Asus labs but Shih said the company is holding back on releasing any devices.” There may also be a product cycle from a hacked prototype in the R&D lab to full consumer release. The article makes it seem like they have the things in boxes ready to ship, its just that the Chairman Jonney Shih is waiting for the right time to slam his hand on the easy button and get them to market. What bothers me about this is it seems these comments are aimed at confusing investors into believing Asus is leading the way with these technologies like they did with the Eee PC. That does not seem to be the case.
It turns the center of iSlate into a heater good for making coffee or heating ramen noodles. The CPU is right under that spot. All I do it run a program that counts how much Steve Jobs is making and it heats up real quick.
netbooks have crappy margins. building a tablet where you are forced to buy "content" just to use it is a stealth way of increasing average revenue per unit
It's true enough that a tablet PC that's essentially just a scaled up iPhone would be pretty cool. If it's based on something similar to iPhone OS it'd be easy for developers to port existing apps too, so the App Store would fill up with software for it relatively quickly too. A tablet scale version of Orbital would be brilliant.
But...
It'd cost a lot. It wouldn't be particularly usable for traditional apps like email. It'd be great for watching films and stuff, but not as good as a TV. I guess it'd appeal to a narrow band of Apple nerds; even fewer than bought into the Macbook Air. While I'm sure Apple are capable of releasing something like that, and making a profit out of it, I can't help but think they're cleverer than that. Whatever is coming is going to have to be bigger (in the sense of appealing to the populace rather than a tiny subset of it) than a mere tablet even if they make it super snazzy.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
...but really it's like this
More music, fewer hits
It never ceases to amaze me how some people think that things like files
and folders are too confusing for the novice. They are a pretty intuitive
metaphor and heirarchical organization is something that humans tend to do
naturally. A lot of this seems to be mindless fear mongering and I really
don't get what the "self interest" is here.
A "normal" person can navigate Virgin Megastore but they can't do the same
thing with the same content in files and folders?
Nonsense.
People are being actively discouraged from exploring the interface and gaining
any understanding it. This is limiting even with this "revolutionary new UI"
that the iphone is supposed to be.
Even the "databases" that files get sucked into still end up being simple and
relatively flat heirarchies.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
That would be one, then? [ducks for cover]
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'll be disappointed. But if it is going to be a color eInk reader with similar friendliness as the iPhone, then there might be hope.
The "briefcase" size is the maximum transportable computer size with the most comfortable size screen, keyboard; largest battery, memories, peripherals.
The booksize computer is the smallest screen that gives you decent megapixel. So much software and webpages runs out-of-the-box for the megapixel screen and not on the one-eighth siblings- the smartphones. The book size easily fits into a daypack or handbag.
Raskin describes this idea of the interface for every task being different. The device mutates and models itself on whatever is being done. The UI CHANGES to suit the task.
This sounds remarkably like the EXACT OPPOSITE of the sort of "consistency" that's supposed to be the bedrock of "good interfaces".
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The way I see it tablet:eBook as smartphone:cell phone.
I have been looking more and more into getting an eBook reader for various reasons. The low power consumption and reflective display puts them into a completely different class of devices than laptops or notebooks in my opinion. But then the feature-creep ideas start coming. It would be really nice to be able to take notes on it as well, and keep a calendar, and browse the web, and view maps, etc. An eBook reader that had good touch screen support, and an open development environment would push me from "thinking about it" to "gotta have it". That is why the Nook and and other recent tablet designs that are more inspired by eBook/netbooks have really been catching my eye.
On a tablet? Not gonna happen. Everyone needs to do data entry.
Although I suppose if you embed RFID in everything you could do away with data entry.
Humans see in 2 dimensions, we can infer 3D data from various signals I will not go into in this post. When you are viewing something in a 2 dimensional plane, you can see the entirety of the plane at once. When looking in 3-space, you can only see a projection of that space onto a 2 dimensional plane. You will never be able to simply understand everything in that space at one point, which is why they aren't popular. They are difficult to use, and are only useful for gimmicks.
Sewage Treatment Facilities - "Our duty is clear."
Has anyone RTFA??? The author claims that the iPhone is radical because it "transforms" into various appliances.... an idea lead by the "visionary" Jef Raskins (Oh, let's forget about that stupid Canon Cat idea which kinda F'd up any idea of how much of a Nostradamus this guy was.
It's called "Maximize" in any modern GUI. Hide the start menu, make your screen black, set up "one touch" for desktop icons, and every application now magically has an iPhone interface.
The article author seems to think that the iPhone interface is going to take over everything. That the app-that-takes-over-the-whole-screen paradigm is the universal solution to all computing.
We did that, twenty years ago. As soon as we developed computers powerful enough to multitask, we did. And I don't mean playing music in the background, but running multiple programs at once and interacting with them. For a small screen mobile device the one app at a time paradigm is pretty much mandatory. For larger screens, you want to see multiple things at a time.
Yes.
At the very least, forcing users to learn something new can hardly be considered a usability improvement. Trying to represent files on a computer in anything more than two dimensions is always going to fail because it messes up the presentation to information ratio.
3D file managers are like powerpoint presentations with lots of animations and noises. The concept sounds really cool, until you actually realize that you are not adding information, but rather distracting from it.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
I've always thought that the desktop metaphor was a short sighted misstep in interface design. It doesn't scale well. It tries to duplicate a convention that is the result of the realities of storing and managing physical files, and along with that it duplicates all of it's shortcomings. I have been very pleased to see, through the iPhone and the internet, that it is finally passing away.
I too hope that the tablet mac follows this trend. Rest in peace desktop metaphor, may your days on my computer soon be ended.
There's a difference between devices that are mostly for receiving information, and those that are for doing something with it. Music players, "e-book" readers, navigation devices, and entertainment devices in general are mostly-receive. They need a much simpler interface than a creation device. Try to cram a CAD application into the iPhone interface. It's possible, but it's not happy there.
This is a bigger distinction than the form factor. Mostly-receive devices can get along with a blunt interface of big buttons.
Once the Wall Street Journal starts publishing details, you know that they are using a purposeful leak. They wouldn't put their reputation on a rumor, and Apple has to keep their secretive product development intact to preserve their brand identity.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703405704575015362653644260.html
Is the next big step, ie. Cyberbrains....
Turn everyone with one into a info savant and idiot. Only then will we be able to reach the holy grail of computing, "LOL cats IN yur head, messin' up yur mew-ons"
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Can someone please SERIOUSLY ( no pro or anti apple fanaticism please) explain what exactly is so revolutionary about iPhone interface?
They have pages of icons - kind of like desktop UI, but pretty much EXACLY like 90's PalmOS and many other portable OS's.
They added gestures on OS level (scroll bar everywhere, instead of certain part of the screen), which was also available on PC and some advanced PalmOS apps - although it was a nice touch to make it part of OS. Multi-touch is cute, but hardly a revolution (except maybe literally)
They removed many standard UI components like date pickers and replaced them with clunky wheels - that was probably a step back.
They added a software repository- the kind Linux world was using for a decade.
They added extra sensors to the OS - which were nice, but also been available on other devices for a while.
There is nothing new here except for putting bunch of existing things all together, for which they certainly deserve praise, but all in all it seems like a great evolutionary work, hardly a revolutionary one.
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
vi v. emacs
or even
vi v. vim
Prepare to eat your words, sir. 80 columns at a time.
Here are the facts - if Apple releases what is just a big iPhone it will be boring. If they do something really new, it will be buggy, and if they use OSX, then it will be more of the same. And no matter what they release, it will cost too much for anyone to spend too much time caring about...
Can someone please SERIOUSLY (no pro or anti apple fanaticism please) explain what exactly is so revolutionary about iPhone interface?
Nothing. It's just the next evolutionary step of the model Palm introduced in the '90s. It doesn't make sense for a tablet.
Now if they were to bring back the Newton scroll, that would be interesting.
What is so magical about the iPhone interface? The same people I see struggle with windows or OS X struggle with the iPhone when they get it. The difference is they tend to use the iphone more on a daily basis than their desktop and are therefore more proficient at specific tasks. Ask them to do something they are unfamiliar with and they struggle. Heck I knew one guy that had an iphone for 3 months and still didn't know how to install an app. I'd guess its more of a generational thing than anything else. My experience has shown that anyone over 55 or so is more likely to struggle when it comes to anything computer related. Under that usually are more proficient with computers (and/or specific programs). So I believe the "iphone ui revolution" had more to do with the timing being right with a large percentage of the population being more computer friendly.
You mean I'm not getting my pancakes?!! Screw this, back to Linux for me...
This is the sixth article this month on Slashdot directly relating to a apple {vaporware} tablet...
The netbook craze has shown one thing: average users no longer care about speed or enormous screen size. Honestly, I would have never believed anyone if they said I could buy a gigahertz phone in 2010, I'm not sure I would have believed them. If it can play MP3s, 720p, and requires little maintenance, most users are going to be happy.
Pretty soon the only thing the user is going to care about is the size of the screen. They'll want it to dock to a keyboard and mouse when they sit down to write a paper. Otherwise, they'd like to drag it around the house. It won't be a computer, so much as an interface to their data - as the article states, a true information appliance.
The Apple product may suck, but it will probably sell people on the idea that tablets are "cool." And in a way, that may be the most important thing to go to the next level of interaction with computers.
Think about the iMacs that were just released: wireless keyboard and mouse, enormous display with a stand that only requires a power cable. Exchange the stand with a dock and make it smaller with a touch interface. Hopefully they will provide some good hardware I/O on the dock, but again, for the regular users, they won't care if it has every sort of port in the world. As long as they can get on youtube and facebook without having to fuss with a traditional computer, they will be fine.
I hate posting negatively, even more so about the dead, but it really is time the legend was buried with the man.
Back when it was still possible I was in a fortunate position which gave me access to many of the Valley's elite.
Raskin still sticks out in my mind as far and away the least credible.
Put simply, he suffered problems I've seen afflict other failed would-be futurists in other places. His ideas were all grounded on a past that had never existed. And when the world didn't turn out to match his dreams, it was everybody else's fault.
On a more positive note, I'm looking forward to forming an opinion of the tablet next Thursday (my time) but don't have over-inflated expectations. At launch, the Touch was clearly the most important user interface innovation since 1984 and the only product in recent years I both ordered and received on the first possible day. But applying Stuart Kauffman's analysis of navigation strategies for rugged fitness landscapes, there is ever less scope for radical innovation and more likelihood of gain from incremental strategies, the bleedingly obvious double click on a word resolution of the supposed problem of a selection interface being a case in point.
Leaving aside the media capabilities that we can safely assume, my judgment of the tablet will be based on whether it looks likely that it will eventually run a few litmus test applications well enough: Bento, OmniGraffle, Keynote, TextWrangler and Perl 6. I won't need all of them, but might find it harder to justify without at least a couple.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
The GP is arguing that Photoshop should have the same interface as Excel. Not very convincing.
Having endured through tons of interfaces that required a stylus to properly operate, the iPhone was the first that combined a "finger friendly" environment with sleek hardware and the ability to plug into the apple ecosystem.
I lived through various early versions of Windows Mobile, Palm OS, Windows Mobile on Palm, blackberry, and Good Technology (exchange connectivity many years ago before Microsoft built it into the product).
At the time they were all great since that was the best we had. Once iPhone came out, all those other solutions felt like ancient technology.
A similar phenomenon happened with the iPod. MP3 players were around long before iPod, and they were cool, since that is all we had. Once iPod came out, all prior MP3 players looked clunky and old.
Apple has a habit of setting the bar for design, and a couple of years later, once everyone else catches up, people think that the state of the art always used to be this way. In reality, many technologies did exist before Apple did their version, but Apple has a way of raising the design standard, and forcing others to raise theirs.
-ted
Okay slashdotters, deadline is Jan 27 to think up some good quotes based on "No X. Less Y than a Z. Lame." Winner whores beaucoup karma. Or not.
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
am I still going to be reading Apple Tablet might-have stories on /. in 2015
Of course not! By then, you'll be reading them on your iPad.
The WSJ spreads rumors about Iraq to protect it's interests. The WSJ doesn't spread rumors about Apple to protect it's interests. If this seems like a moral inconsistency, it is. That would presuppose the staff of the WSJ had any values.
They do. They value the proper use of the apostrophe!
People who are writing that the iPhone OS will do for everyday computer use obviously have a skewed view of "everyday computer use". For basic information repository, communication, and entertainment, the iPhone is ideal, but for production and management of "projects", the iPhone is entirely inadequate, as it should be. But a tablet is essentially a laptop in portability, which means that it needs to take over those responsibilities. A laptop can manage workflow, therefore a tablet must also. The iPhone OS can not do this.
Conclusion: tablet will not survive on an iPhone OS. It can not compete with the iPhone due to decreased portability, and it will not compete with a laptop due to lack of workflow management.
Apple isn't blind enough to see past this. Will it run a convention "desktop" style window structure? Possibly not, but it will likely have much more sophisticated content management and workflow than what this article is suggesting. I have a lot more faith in Apple at this point than to think they will release a cool but ultimately pointless device.
The comment about whether or not people like "files" is entirely irrelevant. People may not like files and folders, but they still use them. No one likes organizing their cabinets, or cleaning the house, but they have to do it anyway because it's necessary to function in a efficient manner. The "grab bag" model only works for so long before things get complicated.
And for those of you who are saying, "this won't be a business computer," that isn't the point. Even while at home, we all have our projects and hobbies that essentially use similar workflow to those of a professional nature. If we didn't, we probably wouldn't even own a computer. Unless this thing is just for games and entertainment, in which it will have a very tough time competing with the Xbox and Wii.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
I know speculating is really fun and I've seen some pretty handy suggestions of what the iWhatever might look like, everything from a big iPhone to something far more exotic. It is a bit ridiculous, though, that so many people are so damned excited over something I don't think has even been admitted to be "in the works" and really is just One More Thing.
Most companies don't even get half the rave over revolutionary creations that Apple does before the shit's even revolutionary.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Hmm the best interface Apple could put in the "iPad" would be the standard MacOS X one, with a nice gesture to bring up the On screen keyboard. The best things for the "App" devs would be OSX as well. best for the consumer(best==most choice) is again OSX.
Here's an interesting speed comparison of: A full-size QWERTY keyboard, the Apple iPhone 3G’s software QWERTY keyboard (2009), the Palm Treo 650’s hardware QWERTY keyboard (2004), pen and paper, the Apple Newton MessagePad 2100’s handwriting recognition (1997), and the Palm Vx’s Graffiti (1999).
The full-size keyboard was fastest, the iPhone keyboard (in portrait orientation) was second (about one third slower), than came the rest (order as above). At least in this test the iPhone keyboard was faster than both the Palm Treo hardware keyboard *and* pen and paper.
http://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2010/01/18/input.php
So here we are a week in advance of the announcement, and I'm starting to wish I had the guts to short Apple's stock based on the way all the rumors are starting to converge.
The device Apple can sell zillions of will be one that professionals and students will want to have with them every moment of every day. It will *not* be some sort of family shared assistant, since this is an incredibly hard market to sell to. In fact it's a market that doesn't actually exist as quite a few people have discovered over the years (can you say "Audrey"?). Apple has to do better than, say, Segway in terms of having a cool product *and* actually selling them to someone.
I just don't see a "big iPhone" as appealing to enough people for Apple to make any profit on it. It's probably going to be expensive and maybe will require another $100/month to AT&T on top of the iPhone you have now? A very clever route would have been if the slate would tether to your existing iPhone (via bluetooth perhaps) and AT&T would allow unlimited data tethering with the device.
Today's iPhone is the worst smartphone ever invented except for all other smartphones that have ever been invented. It's just not that revolutionary, and will not be as effective when scaled up to a non-pocket-sized device.
The iSlate probably won't run Windows apps and it probably won't run MacOS desktop apps. Well, guess what, after their phone, people are going to want something that runs standard commercial desktop applications if they are going to carry another physical device around. Or at least something that provides all the functionality and connectivity to their existing systems, and that's asking an awful lot out of the AppStore I think.
Could make a cool VNC/Remote Desktop client, but again that's not a market that will sell millions.
If you think back to the original 128KB Mac, it was basically an antique iPhone. A sealed proprietary box that only ran software from Apple and a few blessed 3rd party developers. Steve Jobs has a long history of thinking he knows everything the users need and how they're going to like doing everything only the way he imagines them being used. This sort of logic works ok for a phone, but for a general purpose computer I think it will cause them problems.
Apple's stock is at about $208 now. I predict that in 6-9 months it will be lower than this. We'll see whether I have to eat my words or not.
Or maybe I'll be lining up with everyone else to pre-order one on Wednesday. Who knows.
But I sure hope they have something more to show than a big iPhone with scaled up iPhone apps. I don't need another AAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!! moment in technology marketing (the way General Magic, Transmeta, and a few other were) where it's instantly obvious that the entire thing is going to be a complete disaster.
G.
Indeed. Speculation on future UIs can be interesting, but what has that got to do with any potential Apple product? There are plenty of companies who have and are making tablets (actually ones, not vaporware like the istale).
I might as well make up a long list of what I'd like to see in a computer, and then post a story saying "The New Amiga Must Be Like This".
If this was an Apple site, I could understand, but otherwise, why not keep it generic? Oh wait, there's my answer - this is an Apple site. (There are only three stories mentioning the Iphone today! The joke about the Daily Iphone story is obviously old hat...)
I agree entirely - the Apple IsLate is the new Duke Nukem Forever.
To be honest I just wish Slashot would get it over with, rename to Appledot. I wouldn't complain about this coverage on an Apple site, it's the pretence that this is still a general geek site (or indeed, one geared towards open source - remember those days?) that's misleading.
It's true enough that a tablet PC that's essentially just a scaled up iPhone would be pretty cool.
Would it though? I mean, for the last ten years people mocked phones that were "huge", even if they were only a few years old. Yet we're now supposed to praise an increase in size, that's like a throwback to the 80s?
But indeed, as you say, cost is the point. I can see tablets working if they were cheap, but anything running a phone OS, at the price of a laptop, isn't going to compete as a computer. Like the current tablets (e.g., Fujitsu Flepia), it'll be a niche product for people who want an expensive e-book reader that does colour and video.
I guess it'd appeal to a narrow band of Apple nerds; even fewer than bought into the Macbook Air.
Heh, I remember that (most people don't). Tonnes of hype, because it was 1mm smaller than the smallest laptop (as if anyone cared). Then along came netbooks, much smaller at a tenth of the price, and no one mentioned the Air again.
I can't help but think they're cleverer than that. Whatever is coming is going to have to be bigger (in the sense of appealing to the populace rather than a tiny subset of it) than a mere tablet even if they make it super snazzy.
They're cleverer in their marketing. I mean, they released an expensive phone that didn't even have basic features like 3G, Java, MMS, copy/paste, nor did it have smartphone features like multitasking or running any apps from a 3rd party, and it followed years after when most other bog standard phones could already run apps and access the Internet. But it still got hyped endlessly - and does to this day - with people convinced that it sparked some kind of revolution. Apple's total market share in phones today is just a few percent, yet you have people - even on geek forums like Slashdot (indeed, especially here) - who seriously believe that Apple are the market leader, with only Google for competition.
We have Iphone stories at least once a day. Even if it's bog standard and nothing special, look forward to having daily istale stories too.
I agree with TFA that the iPhone OS is the best choice of OS for Apple. Not because it is the best possible OS for a tablet, but because it is a great OS that people like. It has an interface that keeps people buying apps and songs and whatnot
Well indeed, this says it all - it's a "good OS" that let's people buy apps and songs. I do find it interesting that a computer sized and priced device will still be running their phone OS, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if they ditch the Mac altogether within the next 5 years.
They've previously shown they have no attachment to particular to technology when they realise it's no good - classic MacOS, PowerPC, so why not OS X too? Even "Mac" itself is just a trademark for what's basically an Apple PC these days. Since they've gone without the trademark for the Ipod, Iphone, and now the Islate, they may well just let it go altogether.
It seems Apple are better off making money from music and gadgets, not computers. Personally though, I do want to see a world where we still have general computers, in the form of small devices too (netbooks, and phones that aren't locked down like Apple's).
"At any rate, bookmark this post. You may want to come back later and compare it to what actually happened... ;)"
Is Skynet involved?
"It never ceases to amaze me how some people think that things like files
and folders are too confusing for the novice."
It's not hierarchy that people don't understand. It's that files and folders don't scale well especially in this era of Terabyte drives. It takes an amount of disciple most don't want to invest to make the metaphor work at that level.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
yes. exactly. It's not so much about a better UI, that's just a crutch, a work around. Tablet sensors on the market today just are not fast or accurate enough, well ok, I don't know about those $5000 ones for artists. Writing with your hand on a tablet is like using a fat crayon, and in till it can interpret the center of my finger as a fine line with no input lag, it's a problem. On the silly drawing program on my tablet I can run 2 fingers across the screen and it takes half a second for the paint lines on the screen to catch up and draw it. Not just hand writing, but hand writing requisition. I've seen improvements with pressure sensoring and improvements with finger centering, but it's not good enough.
Screw talking about some hypothetical gadget - what we should really be discussing is the huge number of people who are being forced to read and comment on articles they don't want to read. Why isn't the government doing something about this?!!
And you are complaining about being forced to read his comment you didn't want to read?
I hereby make a formal complaint of being forced to read complaints about about being forced to read complaints about being forced to read stories.
If only someone could implement a web site where people could rate stories and comments so we were not forced to read all of them...
PS: I loved reading your comments. Both of them.
I lost my sig.
Consistency in user interface isn't an end unto itself. Consistency is a means to making the UI easier for users to understand.
I develop software that runs on Windows. I follow Microsoft's conventions for button size and placement because the majority of our users are accustomed to those conventions. When I give them a button that looks familiar and does in my application what it does in others, I'm able to tap into previous Windows experience to make my software easier to use.
I'm at best an average user interface designer. I need things like this to cheat and make a more usable product.
Apple has UI designers that are significantly better than that. Many third party iPhone application developers are also extremely good. A good enough UI designer can come up with an interface that is both intuitive and perfectly suited to the task at hand without looking like the other UIs out there.
The fact that they aren't being consistent isn't bad if the end result is simple to use for both beginning and experienced developers.