Provisionally Untitled

On the topic of ecosystems, Marco said it best:

It’s not just a matter of interface design. Apple has built an entire ecosystem to support and enrich the iPad for both customers and developers. To be competitive, a newcomer to the tablet software market needs to replicate or sidestep the need for nearly all of Apple’s major efforts, including synchronization of media and data with Windows PCs and Macs, integration with popular web services, an integrated payment system that customers will actually use at a reasonable rate, a well-stocked music and video storefront, plenty of high-quality third-party apps and fun games, a sophisticated SDK and development environment, widespread retail availability and customer support, and an assortment of good first- and third-party accessories to fulfill common needs (cases, chargers, docks, screen protectors, extended batteries) and give the device new uses (tripods, speakers, styluses, input and output adapters, wall and car mounts).

Because when normal people — not gadget bloggers and geeks like us — need to consider an alternative to the iPad, they’re not just thinking of Apple’s lack of “openness” (as Google so vaguely and poorly defines it in relation to Android) or the iPad’s lack of some individual hardware feature. Buying an alternative means giving up Apple’s entire ecosystem. That’s worth it to some buyers, but it’s incredibly impractical for many.

Andy Ihnatko:

2) You will indeed need to copy one thing: the iPad’s ecosystem.

Don’t just hand a user a tablet and then say “Good luck with that; tell us how everything works out.” No. You need to give them apps, and content, you’ll need to provide people with other devices that work well with it. Apple left nothing to chance: they released the iPad with a whole suite of slick, affordable business apps that they produced in-house.

[…]

I honestly feel a certain amount of pity for everybody who’s trying to enter the tablet market this year. In every kind of creative endeavor — and great technology is indeed a form of creative expression — there’s a difference between real art and mere technical competence. It’s impossible to quantify but which everybody can intuit it almost instantly.

The world is full of singers, painters, actors, and dancers who can expertly perform any piece they’ve seen before. And then there’s Sinatra, Cézanne, Lemmon, Astaire … and Apple. The ones who push the art form forward because their instincts push them to ask questions that have never been fully considered before. The ones who create the templates that everybody else will follow.

Designing for iPad: Reality Check

iA:

On a computer we have to take in account that the user physically operates between keyboard and mouse, while visually he moves between monitor, OS, app window and the inner visual order of the window. On the iPad, eye and hand movement are brought together and held captive within a massive black frame.

Old World vs. New World Computing

Read the whole thing. I’m not going to spoil it for you.

You’re welcome.

For the life between buildings - some notes on the iPad

Thus the iPad to me feels more like a product for third places rather than a third product. Its form factor and service model is defined for in-between spaces. Although it will float around the home and the office perfectly well, it comes into its own in these third spaces in a way that that phone and laptop cannot, being either too small or too large respectively.

[…]

But what do they think when iBook pops up in these surroundings? Likewise, Contacts, and even Calendar to some extent, appear to be trying to be desk diaries. iTunes doesn’t try to be a shelf full of vinyl records at all.

Notes, IBook, the Dock itself, parts of iWork, most of Calendar and Contacts are quite different, indulging in faux-textures, references to physical objects like desk diaries, 3D spatial metaphors, ‘spacey’ background images and so on; an entirely different interface language. What’s going on?

iBook in particular seems very rushed, and not great. That shelf interface is particularly horrible. While the bookshelf metaphor was trailblazed by Delicious Monster a few years back, it hasn’t improved with time. Why would a Rams-fan such as Ive settle for clumsy faux-wooden shelving?

The iPad will prove best for third places at first, then the experience will become so natural, it’ll become the favored experience.

Some parts of the UI beat the whole purpose of the iPad, I thought we’re shifting the desktop and filesystem metaphor. Developers, they’re the bearers of true innovation.

Adaptation

Adam Lisagor:

I think you’re going to find that the interaction model of the Mac OS exists specifically because you have a keyboard and a trackpad below your screen, and those two instruments allow for refined movements within a dense display of information. What the iPhone OS has done is to allow for the removal of that layer of abstraction, and let us touch our information with our actual fingers. And though our fingers are massive and clumsy, every removal of a layer of abstraction between us and our information represents an ephocal shift in technology. Like every such shift, sacrifices must be made, and remedial solutions proposed.

A message to the Internets regarding the iPad

Michael Pusateri:

Well, I am lucky enough to have been at the Apple Event today. Deep within the Reality Distortion Field. I saw the demo live, not snap shots on a web site. I got to use the iPad and see how it worked in person. I talked with other people that had tried it.

And you know what, just like Steve Jobs said, you need to hold it for yourself.

Via DF.