king talk

Multitasking UIs in webOS (left) and iOS 4

So, the iOS has joined the multitasking party. Expectations were pretty high, given that Apple has taken a lot of time to deliver this feature and Palm (now HP) has already brought a great take on multitasking to the market with their webOS.

Perhaps it is my experience with webOS that makes the iOS multitasking feel so awkward to me. An I am not talking about the fact that only certain services (like data, location or audio) can run in the background. I am talking about the interface and the user experience – usually fields where Apple is extremely strong.

But this time I am disappointed and I don’t even know what exactly is wrong. With webOS, I instantly had a coherent mental model that was properly represented by the interface. Open apps were windows, when I throw an app away, it is closed and the process will stop.

In iOS, there is no simple way to completely close an app. EVERYTHING ends up as an open app in the app tray when the home button is pressed – even applications that do not have multitasking capabilities and therefore don’t even maintain state. This is especially annoying because it breaks the trust of the user. Also, it completely clutters the little tray.

Even worse, the process of removing a »running« app is very complicated. It involves double-pressing the home button (which potentially kicks you out of your app if you do it too slow), then performing a long press on an icon (artificially slowing down the user) and then tapping the little close icon (which is a quite small target).

Again, the comparison helps. In webOS, you are performing the same gesture two times: swipe up from the gesture area to go to the application switcher and then swipe up the app card to throw it away. Sure, this gesture has to be learned, but so does the interaction that Apple uses.

Wired also has a comparison of mobile multitasking. They take a look at Android as well.

Bonnier globals R&D released a nice video about Mag+ some weeks ago. Due to the recent launch of the iPad in the states, they updated their concept for Popular Science+ and matched it to the iPad. In my opinion it’s a good concept which was well implemented. It’s a pity, that the overview mode can´t be displayed on the iPad. It looked really nice and the user could see what he has seen and what will be next.

The idea of the big background image and the horicontal text seems to work pretty well.  In times of blogging we learned to scroll down for reading. The user can swipe through the pages, which is a common iPhone gesture and should be established. On the other hand they have that concept called »heat up mode«. Rubbing a specific text area allows you to mark text and write additional notes to that »hot information«.

Mag+, is Bonnier’s digital magazine platform, is a project that began months ago in a collaboration between Bonnier’s global R&D task force and BERG, a London-based design studio. Their goal has been to preserve all the qualities that make magazines such a powerful, popular medium—inspired packaging of carefully curated content by a team of expert editors, delivered in a visually dazzling issue with a beginning, middle and end—and at the same time to reinvent it in a way that makes it come to life on the iPad’s screen.

Light Ripples at Maitreya 2010 from ENESS on Vimeo.

A few days ago, i stumbled across a really nice piece of playful interaction.

The project is entitled »Light Ripples«. It focuses on the aspect of liquid illuminations. ENESS; the interactive agency behind this project are based in Australia and have some really fun and exciting projects to look at.

For this project specifically, they use a camera to track eight floating balls onto a projection. These balls then attract projected shapes onto the liquid surface. Once a new ring has impacted with another ring, a new sound gets produced. It reminded me of when you drop an object into water and you see the water ripples spread out.

The software they have used is called ‘Pixile’. As far as i am aware, the software has been made in house.

There´s a lot of hype going on right now about Chatroulette. A Website were everybody can simply start a video chat with strangers from around the world. This site was developed by 17 year old russian programmer Andrej Ternowskij who is really making money with it. The idea is not really new. We saw an installation at last years Ars Electronica Festival, were you could blow air from Linz to China. There was a webcam installed and skype was running at both places. Linz had a microphone and the chineses guys had a ventilator which was influenced by our blowing power. We spent some minutes at this installation, having fun with the asian people and talked to them the pantomime way. This installation was really fun.

Anyway, Casey Neistat did a short study on Chatroulette and documented this on vimeo. I just browsed through Chatroulette to get a quick overview about the people hanging around there. Unfortunately one of the early contacts was Mr. Weenie, which caused me to close the tab and say goodbye. Some people loose their decency when they are alone in front of webcam. I´m anonymous = I can do what I want?

via asourceofinspiration

Tired of shooting at virtual people? Come on kids. Daddy got a new toy for your iPhone. Finally you can blast your friends… This game is based on the color tracking method like we used it for Augmented Pong. After you defined the opponents shirt color you can go on playing. I like the idea of using the iPhone as tool which engages you to run through your city instead of sitting at home and playing the Sudoku App…

via engadget mobile

It happened yesterday evening. My tummy asked for something to eat and I just wanted to give him a quick and fatty answer. So I just went to one of Munich’s McDonalds at Tal 6. Unfortunately the order point was to crowded, but then I realized these four huge »Easy Order« terminals.

First I didn´t know what to do, but then I realized that this one could be a much quicker way to post a order. I just put in my credit card and the main menu opened up. It´s the same routine like you know it at the standard order point. They even have the same questions like »Do you want it as a take-away or do you want to eat here?« You´ve got the whole card at one touchscreen. It was a nice experience, touching the Big Mac icon and placing your order right there.

I received a little print-out after I finished the order process and received my stuff directly at the vacantly wrapping counter. After all I think that this is a good step in the right direction, the User Interface is much more better than the Deutsche Bahn terminal, but could be improved a little bit in terms of User Experience… Read the rest of this entry »

We received a mail from a friend this morning, who told us that our Arduino Icon Redesign was brought to life. The Massimo Banzi´s students of CIID (Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design) baked a cake based on the icon for the Arduino IDE.

And Massimo Banzi seemed to be surprised, but happy. How long did he spent eating this Arduino Mega Cake…?

via Arduino Blog

Does anyone know about the litl? It´s a so called »Webbook«, a tiny computer without anything, just made for browsing the web and reading RSS-Feeds. This gadget that looks deceptively like a laptop but works nothing like any computer you’ve ever used. The hardware to the user interface to the activities it supports, the new machine created by this Boston-based startup, rejects three decades of convention. But what can you do with it? Just browsing the internet seems to be nice, but the developers should asked theirselfs: What is this stuff for? What value does it add to our lives? (John Thackara)

If you want to buy a litl, you a get a small computer which is radically downsized for about 700 bucks (!!!). It has a 12″ display, an Atom Processor with 1,6 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 2 GB Flash Memory, 1x USB and a 802.11g Wifi chip, that´s it. It even hasn´t enough space for a operating system so they offer you »litl OS« which has two modes. A simple grid view and a 3D view based on the z-axis which reminds me of Apple Time Machine.

In my opinion these product has three main failures. First of all it´s a tool which can only do one thing, browsing the internet and receiving atom feeds. This is a nice idea, but chumby is already doing stuff like that. You can get this small device which is able to play wifi radio, play games and use one of 1500 additional applications for about 100 dollar. And chumby offers you a touch sensitive display,…

which brings me to the next failure. It is the way the user is interacting with the product. You can chosse between a reduced QWERTY keyboard, a touch pad and a remote… Why? What´s about touch? What´s about motion tracking? A radical product like these is screeming for new ways of interaction. The litl offers you a very light weight computer with a small display. A touch interface would be a more direct way of navigating and browsing the content especially in 3D mode. Last but not least…

Read the rest of this entry »

Dear friends of the king, may I introduce you to the Pomegranate! The worlds first mobile device that combines a traditional smartphone with handy tools like a mobile projector, a coffee brewer or a shaver. Watch the videos on the website – they are hilarious!

The phone is actually a marketing idea for a part of Canada with a name that I always mispronounce. The bridge between the two is actually sort of weak, but this doesn’t take away the awesome from the device!