Killer Application

[Richard Franks]

I think it's vital to be able to fiddle with a system, but especially
in Windows applications, the UI design often seems to represent the
features which the developer wants to show off the most, rather than
being directed by how a user interacts with a system.

There is a misconception that you develop a UI for either Geeks or
Grandmothers, but not both at the same time. But reformulated, does
this not simply state that UI design is still an infant science?

Think of it like the VHS vs Betamax 'war', and how many people care
about this now we have downloads and dvds? Yet we have the opportunity
to take the best UI design elements from *anywhere*, we're not stuck
upon one format... Usability and Configurability won't be mutually
exclusive concepts forever -- the Neo1973 is looking like a great
platform to start solving this problem with.

Richard


On 12/18/06, Terrence Barr - Evangelist, Java Mobile & Embedded
Community <Terrence.Barr at sun.com> wrote:
> Gabriel,
>
> Sorry, but I can't leave this undisputed. I agree there is definitely
> a line at which a UI is so dumbed-down that it is inflexible and doesn't
> accommodate anything but the most basic operations. That is the case
> for many "consumer" applications (including some of the Apple i* apps).
> The audience for those applications is very specific and if one needs
> more feature-richs apps you can simply install something better.
>
> However, the case of "stubborn, lowest common denominator" can certainly
> *not* be made for OS X. Have you actually ever used OS X? I am a computer
> engineer and I do *everything* on my Mac, including hard-core engineering
> work. Over the last 15 years I've used most versions Windows, various
> flavors of UNIX, and various embedded OSes. I find that OS X gives me
> by far the greatest productivity of all systems pretty much regardless
> of the task. And at the end of the day that is what counts for me, not
> the degree to which I can *fiddle* with a system.
>
> Just wanted to set that straight (and get that flame-war started ;-)
>
> -- Terrence
>
> Gabriel Ambuehl wrote:
> > On Friday 15 December 2006 19:53, Richard Franks wrote:
> >> Apple doesn't have 'killer applications' as such, but each application
> >> which comes close draws upon a consistent coherent interface - the
> >> 'just works' philosophy. I'd say this is even more crucial for a
> >> mobile phone as you have less opportunity to 'fix' things without
> >> ready access to a keyboard.
> >
> > Not meaning to start a flamewar, but if your idea of just works is the same as
> > the one on OSX, i.e only the lowest common denominator features with a GUI
> > that allows one way to do it and one only (i.e. very stubborn) then I'll
> > gladly pass on OpenMoko. The one reason I'm not using OSX is exactly the fact
> > that it wont allow me to chose how I want to work...
> >
> > We have enough dumb phones (even most so called smart phones), why not make a
> > smart one for a change...
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > OpenMoko community mailing list
> > community at lists.openmoko.org
> > http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> OpenMoko community mailing list
> community at lists.openmoko.org
> http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
>
>
>
>