Offtopic: While it doesn’t have too much to do with the usual topics in the blog, but as a Finn, it still touches me. Oh, wait. Actually, it has something to do with usability.

Anssi Vanjoki, the head of Nokia Markets unit, gave a speech today in Helsinki (Nokia exec: phones to make system cameras obsolete – Reuters) where he told that the camera phones would revolutionize the SLR (Single Lens Reflex – Wikipedia) market in near future. “There will be no need to carry around those heavy lenses“, Vanjoki said while pointing towards professional photographer.

Now, what gives? Could this somehow be possible? Are Nikon and Canon heading towards their impending doom? To answer that, we first have to figure out what does make SLR a SLR (apart from the definition, of course)?

What makes SLR a SLR?

Interchangeable lenses
The most obvious thing about SLR are interchangeable lenses. You might have wondered why is that so? Well, turns out there is a method in the madness: The simple reason is that because there is no such thing as a lens that can do everything (zoom, macro, low-light, wide-angle etc.). And, if there would be, the cost would be astronomical – we would probably be talking about tens of thousands of euros. Thus, not only it’s cheaper to get only the lenses you actually need BUT you actually can customize your camera to YOUR needs, which usually means something that’s a lot lighter to carry around.

Continue reading “Offtopic of the Day – Nokia: Camera phones will make SLRs obsolete”

Good news everybody! Apple’s iPhone OS is (some would say finally) getting into the multitasking game. Well, they are about to get into the game, the new OS was just announced today.

I was following the event via Engadget and saw something that caught my eye. Here’s a quote from the QA session in the iPhone OS 4 event (from Engadget):

“Q: How do you close applications when multitasking? A: (Scott Forstall) You don’t have to. The user just uses things and doesn’t ever have to worry about it. A: (Steve Jobs) It’s like we said on the iPad, if you see a stylus, they blew it. In multitasking, if you see a task manager… they blew it. Users shouldn’t ever have to think about it.”

Now, this is why I have a serious love-hate relationship with open source as a whole: It just seems to be unable (as a process) to provide good UX or usability. Lately I’ve been following the Android camp a lot, and I’ve even became quite giddy about the new HTC Desire: The way it (Android 2.1) handles multitasking, notifications etc. is just amazing. Same couldn’t be said about iPhone, at least so far, until the Android-like multitasking arrives.

However, the problem with Android is that it’s open source, which inherently means that anyone can pitch in, even if they have no experience in the matter. Good example is that some Android developers even keep saying that Android needs a task manager, because it’s a multitasking platform. Which, no matter what way you look at it, is just the wrong way to look at the problem. Or, one could even say that the first step is admitting that you have a problem… Meanwhile, UX/usability experts are trying to tell people that if the most downloaded program in Android Market is a task manager, something is inherently off. When it comes to good UX, the user shouldn’t be worrying about these things, rather than just use the damn thing.

This, is something that open source process has, so far, been unable to deliver. However, commercial projects realize this, just because they do focus group testing, they do UX/usability evaluations etc. I’ve talked this lot before and I will say it again – Open source, as in it’s current form, is just not capable of providing products that deliver good UX. Good UX (like good usability) needs designers and testing, neither of which are present in open source projects. Or, if they are, their voices can’t be heard from all the other opinions making themselves heard.

So tip of my hat to Apple. This might actually be enough to get me into the iPad game, since for me the no. 1 problem, hands down, was the lack of multitasking. If I can’t run for example IM messaging, Spotify and a browser at the same time, the device is as good as dead weight for me. “It has the best browsing experience, ever! Boom!” – Well, it doesn’t matter to me if that’s ALL you are going to do with the device. Besides, my main browsing experience is not going anywhere from my desktop and full size real keyboard (and hopefully soon new big screen). But now, with multitasking, the device just got a whole lot interesting!

Now, if they would just let me use it properly without iTunes, I would be a happy camper. But, knowing S. Jobs, that is never going to happen. Which just makes me a sad panda.

PS. I have to say that, I think Steve was wrong saying “stylus is just making it wrong“, as I have bunch of designer/artist friends who would just looove this thing with pressure sensitive stylus.

Yesterday I launched new web application – Coco Tracker (www.thecocotracker.com), an application which tracks and aggregates all the various Conan O’Brien themed twitter accounts out there.

The idea was born when, as a Conan fan, started following all these new Conan themed twitter accounts (like @ConansSquirrel), which seemed to spawn to life whenever “The Big Red” tweeted about something (ConansSquirrel became live when Conan tweeted about him interviewing a squirrel). When I was following all these accounts, the became quickly clear that most of the interesting interactions these accounts have together, is lost into the jungle of non-related tweets, thus the Coco Tracker was born.

It’s still in it’s beta stage (as most web apps) but I’m hoping it’ll become better as I’ll keep working on it (release early, release often. Right?). Oh, and if I’m missing an account, or two, let me know.

Hello there, internet. Time for a bit of an update.

After Austria, and back in Finland, things have been hectic as hell (writing thesis, thesis project, seminar, two to four simultaneous projects at the same time – all this in 6-8 months) and finally, yesterday we got one of our big projects done. Freedom!? Well…

That (big) project was a concept design for real-estate business, revolving around future solutions. And yes, it is now done (for now, at least). The whole job was for big Finnish media corporation, and as such it was really interesting project to work on, specially the future aspect of it, which enabled us to fully go outside the box. Also, a demo platform was created, which was somewhat of a mad rush.

However… Lately I’ve also gotten myself involved as user interface designer, in a startup working on a social mobile platform. This is going to be interesting as it is the first time I’m properly involved with mobile platform UI design.

Today Apple unveiled the much rumored iTablet called iPad. The abilities of the device (or lack of) have already caused lots of conversation out there. I naturally decided to concentrate just on user interface of the device. So, how does the Apple’s new toy go around the bends? I’ve made a quick analysis via Engadget’s hands-on video, and the pictures I’ve seen since the launch. The pictures in the article are also from that same video.

Now, granted, I do not have an iPhone here and do not possess the greatest of memories, so some of this stuff might have been already on current version of iPhone OS but, nevertheless, I’m addressing the issues still.

The Groundwork

The iPad is running new version of  iPhone OS, version 3.2, so for iPhone owner the basic UI should be rather simplistic experience: few desktops, side by side, full of icons and few “permanent” icons down at the tray. Tap any icon and the application launches, simple as apple pie. Since it has no multitasking, the application handling is also as easy as it gets – There simply is no such thing. You’re either in or out from the application.

The Basics

The basic navigation within applications is simple enough – if you drill down within an application (think of artist -> songs) by tapping the top left corner of the screen, the OS always takes you back one level, to the state where you were earlier. Simple enough. This is the basics of tried and true iPhone OS. However, it’s after this foundation where the things start to get hairier.

Continue reading “Quick analysis of Apple iPad’s User Interface”

Just to clarify, I mean Google Crome and here’s why: I was poking around in the Internets, clicked a link and was greeted with “Access Forbidden – You’ve been temporarily banned.. because you were hitting the site too quickly.” Now, I know Google Chrome is quite swift of a beast but to be so fast that sites mistake you as a bot and ban you? (even being very temporarily)

Ok. So, it’s fast. Now, if it only would work. Case in point: Can’t seem to be able to add the screenshot to this very post, of the “Access Forbidden” -page, in Wordpress, as the Add an Image -button is only giving me an empty frame. And it’s hardly the first time it fumbles and fails, as I would think other heavy Chrome users would know. Does all the speed justify the fact that it’s still a spork; awkward tool that kinda does many things but just fails. I guess it does since I’m still using it, it’s just too frustrating to find yourself in situations where the tool of your choice just doesn’t cut it. …nor even nibble.

Aaaaand, there we go. Fired up Firefox and successfully added the picture.

This article goes about to paint a hypothetical future where megacorporations rule the world, plus just how that might happen. Today’s subject is Apple (includes some speculation of new product release).

First things first, what is a Megacorporation?

According Wikipedia,

“It refers to a fictional corporation that is a massive conglomerate, holding monopolistic or near-monopolistic control over multiple markets (thus exhibiting both a horizontal and a vertical monopoly). Megacorps are so powerful that they can ignore the law, possess their own heavily-armed (often military-sized) private armies, hold ’sovereign’ territory, and possibly even act as outright governments. They often exercise a large degree of control over their employees, taking the idea of ‘corporate culture’ to an extreme.”

While the private armies are bit of a stretch still, the rest of it just could be possible.

Why Apple?

For all of you haters out there, even though I tend to criticize Apple a lot, this isn’t personal. The whole thing started when I was thinking about a product concept and came to conclusion that there are couple of things that are vital to the concept, and all of those Apple has a stranglehold. Thus, the idea was scrapped and morphed to Megacorporations article.

First of all, Apple has bunch of special traits that tend to tint it towards possible Megacorporation:

Continue reading “Cyberpunk Megacorporations – Apple”