Doggdot has referenced a post that points to (like all those levels of indirection) a critique of the iPhone by Edward Tufte. It is quite good and if you are patient he discusses some HCI design principles at the end (e.g., "to clarify, add detail").
The only part I dislike is that he uses a jailbreak phone.
BTW doggdot is a great information aggregator that I use daily.
Later!
I purchased my iPhone on July 9th, 2007, so I probably could qualify as an early adopter. After living with my iphone for six months I have these observations:
1) I use my iPhone now more than I did in the beginning - it is one of the most useful devices I have ever purchased.
2) I did not buy a case for my iPhone. I do keep it in my pocket and I am not all that careful (keys and coins in my pocket), yet the iPhone screen is not scratched and the case is in great shape. If I had the case I probably would not keep it in my pocket all the time and that would affect point 1. Potentially useful information if you are deciding whether to buy a case
3) Applications I use frequently - Google traffic, Safari (google search and wikipedia are right up there), weather - what is the current temperature?, I use wifi much more than phone EDGE and when there is just EDGE the speed is fine.
4) Typical day: wake-up start coffee, use to browse mail and web, NY Times headlines and Pittsburgh Post Gazette sports -- use all day -- it is in my pocket at night when reading or watching TV and either google search or wikipedia several times a night.
5) I use Notes much more than I ever used comparable things on my Palm Pilot.
6) I use the camera several times per week.
7) The latest software release is great - cannot wait for external apps.
8) Most annoying thing, many iPod accessories do not work with iPhone
A snapshot of my first six months. What do you use frequently on your iPhone?
Later!
I received my XO, the one laptop per child PC before Christmas and have had a bit of time to play with it. I am very impressed. It is very easy to do simple things with it. I attached to my home wireless network in about two minutes. The trick was to have my 128 bit password in hex. The cool thing was that it located my network graphically and after mousing over it all I had to supply was my hex password. This is much faster than getting there with a PC which is a much longer process to navigate through the software. Of course this capability is important if you want to have children communicate easily with each other. I also am very impressed with the built in camera - amazing that they can do this for $200! The unix terminal is nice and aside from the absence of man pages, it is great.
I am monitoring the mailing lists sporadically and will report gems here as I find them. Two first hints are a pictorial quickstart that you can browse in ten minutes can be found here. A more detailed description of some of the programs with additional pointers for detailed instruction can be found here. This second link has a lot more descriptive text and will take a while to get through especially if you follow the links.
That is it for now - later!
(Note this is a copy of a post on my other blog. I thought it was important enough to share with as wide an audience as possible, thanks!)
It is fitting that my 100th post on this blog be about One Laptop Per Child. I have discussed OLPC in many of my classes, both as an intriquing concept and an example of focused design and Human Computer Interaction principles. You can read much more about OLPC here.
All of this is great, but the real reason I ma posting on this yet again is to encourage you to buy an OLPC. Yes you can buy one in a special 1 for 2 deal! Yes I said a ! for 2 deal. For a very limited time you can buy one OLPC machine for the price of two. The second one will be given to a child in a third world country an dyou will get a $200 dollar tax deduction. I have already ordered and, with shipping, my total came to $423.95.
I encourage anyone who thinks this is a neat idea and can afford it to do the same. You can begin the process at this site. This special offer i sfor 15 days from November 12th to November 26th, 2007. Get a great piece of technology and give a child in the world a very special gift for the price of a stripped down Playstation 3.
When I get my OLPC I will post my impressions here and on my other blog.
If you do order one, I would appreciate adding a comment to this post. Thanks!
Later!
I purchased my iPhone on July 9th so have been working with it for two weeks. My overall analysis is that it is hard now to imagine being without it. It is really great. Dan Stanzione used to ask folks to gauge technology by asking, "Is it CB radio or color TV?" The iPhone is definitely color TV!
I hope in a series of posts to discuss my experience with each of the major modules, Listing what I like and what I do not like. The first module under the microsocpe is iPhone mail.
I like the fact that mail only downlaods 25 messages at a time, this seems sensible. I also like the delete feature when you are triaging mail - one sweep of the finger and then touch confirmation. I like the clarity of the screeen, the ease of scroling and the interface to mail folders. I use the mail application a lot. Viewing word attachements is very easy.
Things that could be improved:
1) I use TextEdit a lot on OS X. I was unpleasantly surprised to discover if you attach a TextEdit rtf file to an email iPhone mail can not read it. The only way I can read the rtf file using iPhone mail is to load it into Word an dcreate a new file in word format, then attach that new file. Not cool.
2) Many emails have embedded html. Although the html renders well, if you turn the iPhone to lanscape mode, it does not swap the display to landscape mode, unlike the Safari browser.
3) I tried to forward a large email to another system (a picture) and the system would not accept it because of the size. Unfortunately, there is no outbox on my iPhone mail system so I cannot cancel it!
If the above are just operator errors - please correct me and tell me how to do it with the existing iPhone. Also it would be great if you would add what you like and would like to see added or changed in the iPhone's mail system. Later!
Welcome to iThinkThereforeiPhone, a weblog devoted to my passions associated with gadgets, especially apple gadgets and user experience. I am a proud owner of the iPhone and will provide hints on iPhone use and general experiences but this site is not limited to the iPhone. I will discuss gadgets that I own, acquired or experience and also chat about general user experience issues.
This site complements my Software Universe blog. For those who are regular visitors to the software universe, they may wonder how a person who averages one post a month on that blog is launching yet another one! My only rationale is that I needed a broader outlet for some of my comments that does not necessarily have to be so academic. I do hope readers of the Software Universe, especially those who have taken my Human Computer Interaction and Design courses, will enjoy this blog and actively participate.
Now for the first iPhone tip. I discovered this link to Apple's iPhone battery care advice from Ars Technica, a great site for hardware junkies. Basically a bunch of common sense battery extending tips that amount to a checklist of setting states enhancing battery life.
Well that closes my first post of this new adventure. I encourage you to add your own tips and discoveries on this site. Later!
--Gregg
