Comments on: Buttonphobia, UI Friction, and the iPhone http://stealthisidea.com/articles/buttonphobia/ Philip Haine's articles on Product Vision, Innovation and Design Tue, 06 Dec 2011 23:38:16 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Philip Haine http://stealthisidea.com/articles/buttonphobia/comment-page-1/#comment-3716 Philip Haine Thu, 23 Sep 2010 05:30:48 +0000 http://stealthisidea.com/articles/buttonphobia/#comment-3716 It's now 2010, 3+ years after this article was written, and still, this: "The really bad news: bizarrely, the earbuds supplied with all of this year’s iPods no longer have playback controls on the cord. [..] But on the new Nano and Touch, you can’t pause or change songs without stopping your run, looking down, waking the screen and tapping buttons on the glass (or yanking out the earbuds). Bad Apple!" Sigh. It’s now 2010, 3+ years after this article was written, and still, this:

“The really bad news: bizarrely, the earbuds supplied with all of this year’s iPods no longer have playback controls on the cord. [..] But on the new Nano and Touch, you can’t pause or change songs without stopping your run, looking down, waking the screen and tapping buttons on the glass (or yanking out the earbuds). Bad Apple!”

Sigh.

]]> By: Philip Haine http://stealthisidea.com/articles/buttonphobia/comment-page-1/#comment-3035 Philip Haine Wed, 21 Oct 2009 05:51:24 +0000 http://stealthisidea.com/articles/buttonphobia/#comment-3035 There is a reference to Apple's buttonphobia at Wall Street Journal, cited by this <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/25/the_skinny/main3095726.shtml" rel="nofollow">CBS News article</a>: "Apple mogul [Steve Jobs] has a pathological fear and loathing of buttons. And it goes way beyond the sleekly buttonless iPhone. The elevator in Apple's Tokyo stores has no floor buttons, forcing vistors to stop at every floor." Is that a good design for an elevator? You be the judge. There is a reference to Apple’s buttonphobia at Wall Street Journal, cited by this CBS News article:
“Apple mogul [Steve Jobs] has a pathological fear and loathing of buttons.

And it goes way beyond the sleekly buttonless iPhone. The elevator in Apple’s Tokyo stores has no floor buttons, forcing vistors to stop at every floor.”

Is that a good design for an elevator? You be the judge.

]]> By: Apple bans keyboards from iPhones | The Product Vision blog http://stealthisidea.com/articles/buttonphobia/comment-page-1/#comment-2877 Apple bans keyboards from iPhones | The Product Vision blog Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:50:50 +0000 http://stealthisidea.com/articles/buttonphobia/#comment-2877 [...] has a long standing button-phobia.  But their recent declarations that iPhone are a no-keyboard zone are disheartening: Apple said [...] [...] has a long standing button-phobia.  But their recent declarations that iPhone are a no-keyboard zone are disheartening: Apple said [...]

]]> By: michelangelo http://stealthisidea.com/articles/buttonphobia/comment-page-1/#comment-2127 michelangelo Thu, 05 Jul 2007 19:49:46 +0000 http://stealthisidea.com/articles/buttonphobia/#comment-2127 hey there philip! i totally agree. i think for a first foray into phones, it's a great effort. but the iphone falls short in a few areas and the buttons (or lack thereof) is one of them. i think some of the recent, smaller htc devices come really close in terms of button balance. unfortunately, they aren't yet investing the kind of effort needed to tweak the windows mobile experience enough to make it shine. seems there is a hybrid waiting to be designed: the delightfulness of the iphone user interface, with the easy, minimal-tap experience for the major functions found in some of the competing phones (treo, htc touch, htc p3600, etc). man, you just have to go back 10 years to the palmpilot 1000 and steal that design and you're pretty darn close! ;) hey there philip! i totally agree. i think for a first foray into phones, it’s a great effort. but the iphone falls short in a few areas and the buttons (or lack thereof) is one of them. i think some of the recent, smaller htc devices come really close in terms of button balance. unfortunately, they aren’t yet investing the kind of effort needed to tweak the windows mobile experience enough to make it shine. seems there is a hybrid waiting to be designed: the delightfulness of the iphone user interface, with the easy, minimal-tap experience for the major functions found in some of the competing phones (treo, htc touch, htc p3600, etc). man, you just have to go back 10 years to the palmpilot 1000 and steal that design and you’re pretty darn close! ;)

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