In June 1998, Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and Psion formed Symbian Ltd. in an attempt to keep the smartphone hardware business from becoming a commodity just like the PC hardware business where the majority of profits goes to the operating system developer (Microsoft). The idea is that smartphone manufacturers should be able to easily create their own user experience in order to differentiate themselves from other manufacturers and create added value for their customers. Google’s Android …
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Top 10 iPhone Problems from Boy Genius
The Boy Genius report has posted their top 10 list of things they hate about the iPhone. We had 55 things last year, but some of those may have changed. Here’s the BGR’s list: 1. You can’t use custom sounds for email notifications, SMS, etc. 2. Copy and paste. Sorry, but it’s ridiculous at this point. 3. When forwarding an email with an attachment, the iPhone sends it out locally. That means if you have …
Continue readingIs the Palm Web OS Really Special?
Or is it just another Newbie OS trying to pull an Apple? If you’ve seen some of the demonstrations and commentary around on the net (CES Keynote), you may notice a few cool things that the Palm Web OS will bring to us, but what’s missing now? Larry Dignan says, “Palm gets in the Game, doesn’t change it; Reality Lurks” on his ZDnet post, and Om Malik of Gigaom is also skeptical. I think Palm’s …
Continue readingTouch: the Most Evil Technology in Modern Computing
Here’s an interesting opinion piece from the ZDNet iGeneration Blog. Zack Whittaker thinks touch screens are bad for a variety of reasons. If you’ve seen some of the leaked road maps and rumors for the future smartphone releases of 2009, you’ll see that practically everything is touch-screen based. Windows Mobile Pro phones have been touch-screen based since the turn of the century. Most people were clamoring for a more hardware-button friendly user interface for Windows …
Continue readingSurprised by Gartner’s iPhone Sales Numbers?
Surprised by Gartner’s iPhone sales numbers for Q3 2008? So is Matthew Miller of ZDNET: It is pretty shocking to me that the iPhone/Mac OS X operating system sales are greater than Windows Mobile given that there are so many different Windows Mobile devices and only two models of iPhones. Windows Mobile has also been around for quite some time. It looks like usability may be winning out over functionality and specifications. I disagree a …
Continue readingSimple vs. Easy in Computer Interfaces
Paul Thurrott has posted an article regarding Windows 7’s new taskbar design and user interface enhancements. The “Simple vs. Easy” article also references some comparisons between Apple’s iPhone user interface design and Windows Mobile’s user interface. While the iPhone is “simple”, Windows Mobile tends to be “easier to use” in many aspects. Many of Paul’s comments are similar to my series of commentary on The Truth About Intuitiveness regarding “Easy to Learn” vs. “Easy to …
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