richardyates wrote:I can do that too, can you dial a 14 digit phone no without looking at a phone?
Yes, because I have a keypad, and voice activation.
How long until Function overtakes Form again?
richardyates wrote:I can do that too, can you dial a 14 digit phone no without looking at a phone?
And speed dial.
trouble is, I'd need about 40 speed dials, and happily, have a good memory for phone nos - not that I've ever made anything out of that!
Separating form from function and saying one is more important than another is plain wrong. Someone made a good point several posts above - phones should not be designed by engineers. Engineers should work closely with designers instead. Software developers should also be on a team. Each party is equally important. Only this way a real winner-device that is a perfect combination of form and functionality can be developed. Apple seems to get it right - each iteration of their device/OS has more complete feature list and what's more they implement those features elegantly. As much as I like full physical keyboards I think touch is the future. It's simply more natural - we interact with things by touching them. So the key to the success is implementing touch in the most intuitive way - swiping, pinching, kinetic scrolling etc. Instead in many devices touch is a torture to use. I think the main cause of this is that development teams think of a touchscreen as an area to fill with conventional control buttons, arrows, scrollbars etc. Making good touch driven device requires departure from this approach. That's why iPhone is a benchmark interface and user experience - it wasn't just adapted for touch like S60 or WinMo. It was designed, engineered and coded with touch in mind.
Well, maybe we are in a real UI transition period concerning phones. What if touch simply is the future and will replace QWERTY on phones and computers?
The discussion reminds me of the real geeks complaining when graphical UIs began to appear and slowly replaced command line interfaces ...
haraldf wrote:Well, maybe we are in a real UI transition period concerning phones. What if touch simply is the future and will replace QWERTY on phones and computers?The discussion reminds me of the real geeks complaining when graphical UIs began to appear and slowly replaced command line interfaces ...
Absolutely. Bring back CLIs!!!!
Seriously, the future isn't touch. The future is voice. Think Star Trek. We're already half way there with Google Mobile and Vlingo. Look for a feature on this on AAS in the near future.
So we'll have primarily voice-driven units with touch and some buttons as backup for when voice isn't available.
CLI is still alive and well thank you.
As for voice, you are joking. Consider all the situations where silent operation is necessary. Imagine a train carriage with with a pile of twattish sales people all issung voice commands and trying not to cross-talk. (instead of what they usually do which is crass-talk).
There's a seed idea for a comedy sketch there.
Touchscreens, I feel, in their current form are very limited in their appeal. Functionality coupled with genuine innovation is the way forward.
I really would like phones with better engineering, better features, stable OS, better battery life and a good camera (I don't mean megapixels).
Touchscreens are bothersome and make the phone too big unnecessarily.
Aditya Singhvi
www.adityasphones.wordpress.com
Unregistered wrote:CLI is still alive and well thank you.As for voice, you are joking. Consider all the situations where silent operation is necessary. Imagine a train carriage with with a pile of twattish sales people all issung voice commands and trying not to cross-talk. (instead of what they usually do which is crass-talk).
There's a seed idea for a comedy sketch there.
I would class a train carriage as 'voice not being available'. Etc. 8-)
80% of the things I do with my smartphone could be accomplished with audio in and out, I reckon. If appropriate. Anyway, I'm just speculating here. Obviously it would need far better recognition and decent noise cancellation etc.
slitchfield wrote:I would class a train carriage as 'voice not being available'. Etc. 8-)80% of the things I do with my smartphone could be accomplished with audio in and out, I reckon. If appropriate. Anyway, I'm just speculating here. Obviously it would need far better recognition and decent noise cancellation etc.
80% maybe but you would still feel like a right knobhead when you are talking to your hand. For dextrous humans with opposable thumbs it is just so much more natural to manipulate actions with your hands.