A few technologies is and will be interesting. Attention should be on them:

• Augmented reality mobile apps
• Multitouch/gesture device
• New hardware using flexible OLED for content
• New batteries

These hardware will make a difference. How? I am not able put my finger on one PRODUCT that may make a big difference. Will it have the effect of iPod/iTunes/iPhone/AppStore software-hardware combination that transforms the status quo. Will see.

The media has been fixated on the would-be netbook and Kindle killer. Apple table / slate. If history is anything, this piece really help you to put yourself in a new perspective.

The Speculative Prehistory of the iPhone by Technologizer.

Nice

What are the ‘big’ things in the very near future?

• Magazine in digital form
• Publishing ‘industry’ in iTunes market style
• Web productive apps in free/subscription mode (Google, MS, Apple)
• Educational web apps and portal
• Music Album

Simply put – reorganization of the old in the not-too-new.

Great apps for mobile device should be operating on one page. What is the need for second page anyway? Use old and simple computer model – input and output – unlike common webpage/app – is done on one page.

The second page is for setting and help. No more – even help is unnecessary. If a user don’t get the app instantly, it is either the app is too complicate or too complex for a mobile platform. Extremely smaller percentage dump users? Should we spend hours write and design help – only very small number of people used? If many users need to read the help, your app is a failure – go back the drawing board and rethink!

Very impressive gesture applications. However, organization is too literal of everyday life lacks the metaphorical aspects. Yes, this is way we organize our desktop everyday. In the computer environment, do we really want to organize everything physically (with gestures)? Do not the computer do the tedious jobs for us, and show it to me when I want it.

Simply, many people love to operate computer like those in Star Trek. May be, may be not. I have definitely love the regularity and expectedness of pressing buttons.

Until now, all voice recognition program is a great hobby. However, the only one useful use comes to iPhone voice recognition, “call John” – the only voice command I used when on the move – walking on a busy street – too busy doing something else.

Any Star Trek interface in the future ? may be, wait until the centennial of Personal Computer.

148 Apps limit on the number of apps “displayable” is arbratry, I have seen no reason that must be so. May be, the nine dots between the dock and the apps look best, not 12 dots, not 7 dots, and with that spacing between and beside them. It gotta to Steve Jobs’ arsfectic – his strong sense of “middle balance”. The first ipod has the phone jack right in the middle. The 9 dots has the middle dot and 4 dots beside it; and nine dots just fill 2 icon column nicely. Anyway, to the marketing nine home screen page limit is —  Dear customer, “you have spent about $200 on apps, you should spend another $2oo something for an new iPod touch” if you like to house your additional investment.

Practically, nine pages of apps make search reasonably fast enough for human eyes. I have no scientific data to support that. However, one page home screen would be perfect. How can this be done?

A billion iPhone apps download is approaching. People definitely downloading the apps (I have some freebies) and soon page after pages added to the home screen. Until one day, I found out the app I have downloaded didn’t show up. Gee, there is a limit on the number of apps I can install in my iPhone! 9 home screen pages or 148 apps.

Why did Apple care about that and a limits needs to be set? Does Apple consider about how messy the home screen would become once the App Store opened (especially with so many free apps)? Is this a flaw in the home screen design? Alternative? Dose a solution exist but Apple solve it for later updates? Is there a way to solve this mess? Certainly, my answer is “stack”. In this series of posts, I will explore how stack is the answer to current mess in light with other methods, I didn’t think it will work.

“Seeing is believing” in software interface should be amended as “seeing is using”. You see a interface control element (a hind of a control), you remember to use that function that element brings. This almost is as basic as it could consider the first pillar of graphic user interface. The graphic user interface was to replace the text command line with an average user found implenarable. The graphic user interface take the necessary daily operation make the visusable and hence reveal itself to the users, as supposed to hidden from them.

However, this is exactly what many interface is doing. The irony is that the limited space really restricted the presentation of UI elements. A flat land total layout of element is as bad as hiding the elements. A good interface is cleverly presenting the elements in a limited space. The statement, hence, is “seeing the clue is using”.

The cover flow view is like a virus spreading from iTunes to now Safari. Coverflow is a great way to waste time when you have plenty. This interface is analogous to flipping vinyl records in music store shelves of the good old day. It was a great experience to choose music when browsing nicely designed cover arts one by one. Apple is right trying to duplicate this experience (the idea was not Apple brain child, but invented by Andrew Coulter Enright) in iTunes or iPhone. It was fun to play with, waste time on and feel the concreteness of musics. But as interface (especially for small computer screen) is ineffective.

Coverflow does have one good use for people with bad memory. When you don’t remember the name of a document read or webpage visited, search is no use. Visually browse through the huge thumbnails one by one, slowly, could finally help you reach the target. A very slow and ineffective search method – a last resort.

What made the Coverflow so ineffective is the animation and limited viewing ability of number of files together. A previewed icons view – that is, the icons in a given windows show all their contents – far superior for visual searching. This view show all they have at once, you can go after the suspected target by Quick Look. Previewed icons plus Quick Look is 100 times greater then Coverflow. Apple is losing its edge on UI innovation.  

P.S. Coverflow does let people admire their own “creation” one by one. people need that – a space to think.