Phones

I just looked at the blog and realised that my blog post wasn't posted, so I 'm sending it again.

Many years a go now when I bought my first phone, I was confused by the disparity between the quality of construction and user interface in mobile phones and other products. My confusion stemming from the fact that phones were pretty crap, really.

It's only really with smartphones now that the gap in quality between mobiles and other consumer electronics has closed up. Nokia phones are sturdy as hell but their in-house UI up to this day is awful. All mid range phones from the mid 00's and before had terrible designs that buried potentially great features under catacombs of menus. LG, Motorolla and all other manufacturers had the same problem. Looking through my nokia E71 that came out maybe 2 years ago, it takes me more than 10 button presses just to get to the menu where I can change my ringtone.

It's only with the iphone (hey!) that phone manufacturers caught on to the idea that there was something to making a usable interface. That said, the UI of the iphone isn't perfect, the wall metaphor used to display apps gives the same real-estate to an app that makes fart noises as your mail client. I don't know how I'd make that better though.

I also think it is arrogant to basically port this interface onto their computer OS because moving your mouse to click on the apps just doesn't work as well. it was designed for touch screens.

Windows phone seven attempts to address this by assigning different sized panes for different apps, it feels more minimalistic but less functional I think. Even google's android, which is starting to take the place of the UI on every phone that isn't put out by microsoft or apple really just apes the iOS "wall". Also the store is really cluttered.

I feel like such a hypocrite complaining about this stuff though because I have no idea how to make it better.

-Tom Millward