Jonathan Ive, known as Jony, is Apple's Senior Vice President of Design and the man responsible for turning Steve Jobs' iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad into real, physical objects with just exactly the right feel, in perfectly the right color. And when asked in a two-part interview with The Telegraph which Apple design he'd most liked to be remembered for, he says we haven't seen it yet.

“It’s a really tough one. A lot does seem to come back to the fact that what we’re working on now feels like the most important and the best work we’ve done, and so it would be what we’re working on right now, which of course I can’t tell you about.”

Apple is famous for its secrecy about future products. I ask what will happen if the Queen asks about the new iPhone today. Will he have to say, “I’m sorry Your Majesty, we don’t comment on forthcoming products”?

“That would be funny,” he laughs.

But I notice he doesn’t say no.

Ive is in England to receive his knighthood for services to design and enterprise.

Born in Chingford, Essex in 1967 to a furniture and silverware maker who helped inspire Ive's attention to detail, after studying at Newcastle Polytechnic he ended up at Apple just prior to Steve Jobs' return, and became head of design at Apple shortly after Jobs' return. The rest, very literally, is history.

When asked about "focus" Ive re-interates a sentiment we've heard from him before, but should always be kept in mind in the months and weeks before Apple device launches.

“We try to develop products that seem somehow inevitable. That leave you with the sense that that’s the only possible solution that makes sense,” he explains. “Our products are tools and we don’t want design to get in the way. We’re trying to bring simplicity and clarity, we’re trying to order the products.

“I think subconsciously people are remarkably discerning. I think that they can sense care.”

Ive also repeats his belief that design shouldn't be obvious, that a designer should sweat and fret the details, figure out the complex problems, and present the end user only with the simplicity and elegance of the solution.

Interestingly, when asked about the visual complexity of skeuomorphism in software -- the stitched leather in Calendar specifically -- Ive claims his areas of responsibility are not connected to to those elements.

Both parts of the interview are worth a read.

Source: The Telegraph, x2

Late last week Apple filed a preliminary injunction against Samsung's flagship tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. The move comes shortly after an appeal which partially confirmed that Apple's design patent infringement complaint was valid. This might put just a slight damper on the settlement talks Apple and Samsung had scheduled for today. Apple proposed to give Samsung until May 25 (this Friday) to respond.

Such a ban might sting Samsung a bit, but they've dealt with a similar ban in Germany by offering a slight a redesign of the Galaxy Tab 10.1; even if such a ban comes quickly to the U.S., Samsung already has a contingency in place to put their Android tablet back on store shelves. We've seen a lot of this kind of activity on the smartphone side of things lately;  HTC was recently hit with a similar ban from Apple, and Apple might not even have to do anything to get Motorola phones off the U.S. market, since some of them are facing a ban after an ITC ruling in a patent case against Microsoft.

Although the iPad still dominates the tablet market, it's been gradually losing market share as a multitude of Android tablets have begun coming out of the woodwork. By attacking on legal fronts, Apple is at least delaying the competition's progress, if not securing its lead for the long-term. I'm not worried that Android's going to beat out Apple overnight, especially given the sky-high customer satisfaction of iOS devices, but it's hard to imagine how the current iPad will manage to stick out to consumers when surrounded by so many lower end, cheaper alternatives. (As to the 7-inch iPad, well, that's still a rumor for now...)

What do you think - does Apple need to litigate to keep the iPad in the lead, or is this just one of the many steps needed to take to kill and bury Android?

Souce: FOSS Patents

A Lithuanian developer, LemonLabs, has recently published an interesting infographic detailing a few simple ways in which designers can prepare their assets for developers in a useful and sensible way. The advice ranges from simple standard resolutions for icons, to highlighting particular Apple style guidelines, and how to package your final bundle of assets. A lot of it seems like common sense, but I'm sure there are at least a few iOS developers out there who would like to make sure their designers have at least glanced over something like this.

If you're an avid listener of Iterate, our mobile design podcast -- and if you aren't, hurry up and start listening now! -- you know the subject of how designers pass of assets to developers is rather hotly contested. Some designers want complete control over final image files, right down to the slice, while others think it's the developers job to take the Photoshop or Fireworks source file and cut it up themselves. Likewise, some developers have no idea how to edit an image and just want the slices all pretty and packaged, while other developers want final control to the point of preferring to slice the source files themselves.

When you factor in managing Retina (@2x) and non-retina assets, making sure everything is pixel perfect can become both an art and a chore. Luckily, compared to other platform, Apple's small set of screen sizes makes the task at least somewhat manageable. (iOS developers don't have to invent their own forms of antialiasing and test against different screen technologies, for example!)

So consider this a cheat-sheet, or a funny way to make a much-needed point.

And for way more on the topic of mobile design, keep listing to Iterate and check out our Mobile Design & Development Forum!

Source: LemonLabs via iPhoneinCanada

One More Thing is conference all about how to make brilliant iOS apps and, more importantly, how to make a living making brilliant iOS apps. Last year some of the best and the brightest of Australia's iOS developer community took the stage, including our Iterate co-host, Marc Edwards of Bjango. This year they're pulling in some international all-stars including Loren Brichter (Tweetie/ex-Twitter), Neven Mrgan (Panic), Karl von Randow (Camera+), Raphael Schaad (Flipboard), Matt Rix (Trainyard), Shaun Inman (Last Rocket) and many more.

One More Thing isn’t a traditional programming conference. It’s a meeting for iOS developers, designers and those who just want to come along for the ride. You won’t directly learn to code better. Your UI probably won’t improve either. But you will leave with more confidence in your abilities as an iOS developer or designer.

One More Thing is organized by Anthony Agius and Lauren Watson. It takes place in gorgeous Melbourne, Australia on May 25 and 26, 2012. You can find more information, and a complete listing of their all-star speaking lineup below.

More: One More Thing

Or, why building a solid iOS app ain't like dusting crops, boy!

Han Solo's right. People release thousands of apps a week into the App Store, with varying levels of commitment and forethought to the final products. At Nickelfish, we pride ourselves on not being those kinds of people. Which is why when Rene and the Mobile Nations guys came to us and asked us to build them a great iMore app, we said yes. Obviously, as a podcast host and occasional contributor to iMore, on a personal level I'm deeply invested in making iMore and Mobile Nations look as good as possible, so there was a definite component to this project that made the stakes a little higher. It also made making choices that much more difficult. That's what it's all about though -- making the right choices at the right time, and releasing a product of which you can be proud.

We knew collectively that in order to release a great 1.0, among the most critical choices would be what we needed to leave out. It's the basic tenet of Apple's iOS philosophy at its core: to do a few things really well, and add others later when the time is right, and the appropriate level of planning and work has been applied to them. We knew the app would be "missing" features. We knew that people would talk about what's not there (yet). This was a conscious choice we had to make as a team. We believe strongly that in most cases, it's far better to develop a strong first entrant into the market and iterate quickly and effectively to continue strengthening the product. It's the path we took with iMore, and it's a path we've walked before with great confidence.

Since there isn't a whole lot of clarity for the end user in many of these cases, I also wanted to write something about it after the launch in an effort to not only share how this process works with the iMore community, but also as my own little way of creating the right expectations going forward -- for this app and for other apps people may download in the future. We often forget that real human beings are pouring hours -- and their hearts and minds -- into their work. The App Store makes it easy to overlook the complexity of how this all comes together (and it should -- that's what makes it an effective sales and distribution platform). So here's a tiny bit of background on the thinking that went into the app's development.

Taking a lightsaber to it

One of the first wireframes of the iMore app, breaking down basic layout and behavior

Rene and I, as well as his Mobile Nations team and our NF team all talked about what the big picture for the app looked like. The whole thing. Let's put everything on the table and add every possible feature we would want in this most killer of killer apps. A large feature list is compiled. We all read it and continue adding things to it.

Then we take a lightsaber and slice that thing open. We take out what we don't need (tauntaun guts) and make sure the things that are most important for right now (Luke) go in.

Now we ask the tough questions. What do we need for a 1.0? What is the core idea behind the app? Who is the target audience for the app? These seem like easy answers, especially if you're already an iMore fan. However, you need to consider the much wider audience of the App Store now. What do those people want in an app, and how do we deliver it without executing a "lowest common denominator" approach (so as not to alienate or take away from a hardcore fan's experience)? Do we need forums? Yes, we need forums. Well, it turns out, after days of research, phone calls halfway around the world on weekends (yes, to do things right, you have to sometimes work on weekends) and a lot of heavy discussion, we realize we can't do the forums the way we want to. Visually, functionally, and in any number of other ways, we aren't happy with the results. Do we want to drop them completely? No, of course not. Will it bother people that they can't access the forums from the app? Almost certainly. But it's a choice -- do we appease everyone at the cost of seamless functionality and aesthetics? Or do we draw a line in the sand and say "now that's a v2 feature"? Or it's an app unto itself, as Rene has already mentioned.

It's a trap

Early color mockup of the iMore app's built-in podcatcher

Everyone will look at this app and say "it's really great, but it'll be even better when it has (blank)". We know. We know because we had that same thought when we first discussed the app, again when we first designed it and again and again when we tested the early alpha and beta releases. We had the same thoughts we knew everyone else would have when they held it in their hands and saw it on their iPhones. And we had a long talk about it, and we had to make a choice. No one liked it, but it had to be done. Because if we hadn't, you'd say "it's cool that (blank) is here, but it kinda sucks the way it works". And that's a trap. It's pure poison. Your impression is already tainted, and the delight we could have provided is diminished by our inability to properly choose what is most important at this time and place.

We see it every day, in software, in devices, in almost every facet of consumer electronics. The more you try to do, the less you'll be able to do really, really well. It's a simple equation. The other part of that equation is much more quantifiable: budget and time. Things cost money, and making things takes time. If we waited to do all the features that should be in the app, you wouldn't be enjoying it right now. It would still be 6-12 months away from launch. And if we thought of more features, or if new devices hit, or new versions of iOS, it could be even longer. It could be Duke Nukem longer. The more you try to do before you launch, the more you will watch the market, people's expectations, and even your own feelings about the project change -- all of which are out of your control.

Here's where the fun begins

In case I haven't already beaten this point to death, it bears repeating just once more. Being great isn't about hitting all the targets all at once in any way you can. It's about systematically taking each one down with precision. Each step you take with a project should be meaningful. And you'll never please everyone, so don't even bother -- make something great, something that makes you proud. Which is what we tried to do.

And we can't wait to show you what's coming next.

Free - Download iMore for iPhone now

The new Apple TV user interface designs, which debuted alongside the new 1080p Apple TV, are actually 5 years old and were originally tossed out by the late Steve Jobs, who didn't like them. This according to Michael Margolis on Twitter, who claims to have "implemented much of the AppleTV 2.0 UI years ago".

The comment was made in response to Aral Balkan, who asked, "Wtf happened, Apple, did a rainbow throw up at one infinite loop while having sex with a designer from Samsung?" Margolis added, "The new home page UI makes me cry."

Thanks, though most of the product is the same. I also don't like the top-bar-navigation on the app store UI.

Fun fact - those new designs were tossed out 5 years ago because SJ didn't like them. Now there is nobody to say "no" to bad design.

Margolis closed out the exchange by saying, as far as he knew, "that whole team has left/been replaced".

Seth Weintraub from 9to5Mac checked into Margolis on LinkedIn, and found him listed as both former Senior Software Engineer at Apple, and Professional Hobbyist, AppleTV. He's currently listed as iPhone Software Connoisseur at Massive Health.

The new Apple TV user interface has been somewhat controversial, with some liking it and believing it hints at a future where apps can run on the Apple TV as they do on other iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad. Others feel the icons are inelegant and poorly organized.

However, citing the lack of Steve Jobs being there to say "no" to bad design is somewhat specious. Some of the user interface decisions made by Jobs were just as controversial, including pinstripes and brushed metal on OS X, the new iTunes icon, and the skeumorphic trend on iOS involving plush leather, green felt, and various shades of linen.

Update: It occurs to me that 5 years ago was iOS 1 (iPhone OS 1), which consisted of a Home screen interface with nothing but a collection of static, unorganized, unorganizable icons. The ability to move and organize apps on the Home screen wasn't added until iOS 1.1 in January of 2008 when Apple created Web Clips (web app icons on the Home screen). Jobs obviously okayed the iPhone UI, and later evolutions thereof. Since you can't directly interact with the Apple TV like you can the iPhone and iPad UI, however, it's not quite the same.

Personally, I'd prefer some hierarchical organization -- News, Sports, Videos, etc. instead of just all the icons (some rather less than appealing to look at) splattered all over the screen.

If you've tried out the new Apple TV software, what do you think of it? Designed fine, or design crime?

Source: @yipe, @aral, LinkedIn via 9to5Mac

In a recent interview Samsung Mobile's VP of design, Lee Minhyouk, had a few things to say about Apple's claim that Samsung is "slavishly" copying their designs.

"I've made thousands of sketches and hundreds of prototype products (for the Galaxy). Does that mean I was putting on a mock show for so long, pretending to be designing? ... As a designer, there's an issue of dignity. (The Galaxy) is original from the beginning, and I'm the one who made it. It's a totally different product with a different design language and different technology infused."

Of course, there are some undeniable similarities between Apple and Samsung products, but since the initial lawsuit, there has definitely been a bit divergence, particularly when it comes to Samsung's wider variety of form factors. There are still a lot of lawsuits flying back and forth between the two giants, and as much personal affront as this Samsung designer might take to the allegations, I doubt things will turn out completely in his favor.

Samsung may have started off being very Apple-like in their design and marketing, but lately devices like the Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy Note show a different design language and philosophy. (They're hardly copying the Apple stylus, right?)

What do you guys think? Is Samsung a shameless copycat and this designer is just putting on a show, or is Apple's claim to originality overinflated in the face of a long history of mobile technology and interfaces before it?

Source: Reuters

Apple's Senior Vice President of Design, Jony Ive is the man who put form to everything from the iMac to the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. He's given a rare interview to the Evening Standard where he comments on everything from his recent knighthood to Apple's conceptual process.

Q: Why has Apple’s competition struggled to do that?

A: Most of our competitors are interested in doing something different, or want to appear new — I think those are completely the wrong goals. A product has to be genuinely better. This requires real discipline, and that’s what drives us — a sincere, genuine appetite to do something that is better.

Ive also comments on the importance of prototyping and the physicality of objects.

Q: How does a new product come about at Apple?

A: What I love about the creative process, and this may sound naive, is this idea that one day there is no idea, and no solution, but then the next day there is an idea. Where you see the most dramatic shift is when you transition from an abstract idea to a slightly more material conversation. But when you make a 3D model, however crude, you bring form to a nebulous idea and everything changes — the entire process shifts. It galvanises and brings focus from a broad group of people. It’s a remarkable process.

Throughout the interview he keeps hitting on "better" and "focus", and believes consumers can tell the difference.

Check out the link below to read the interview in it's entirety, and for more, the video from the movie Objectified, where Ive comments on similar ideas.

Source: Evening Standard

Ten One Design has just announced that it is working on a pressure sensitive Bluetooth 4.0 stylus for the next generationiPad 3. Ten One has a great reputation when it comes to accessories and this one looks to take that to the next level. The new stylus which is currently in development uses technology that has never been used before in an iPad stylus.

Using the latest Bluetooth 4.0 standards’ enables Ten One Design to create a stylus that is pressure sensitive. This basically means that it can represent a much truer pen like experience where a line is thicker or darker depending on the pressure made with the sylus. As the iPad screen is capacitive, it can’t distinguish how hard the screen has been pressed; just that it has been pressed. Ten One Design believes with the use of Bluetooth 4.0 this can now be made a reality.

You may have been hearing good things about Bluetooth 4.0. It's a fast wireless connection, and is fully supported by the CoreBluetooth framework in iOS5. Bluetooth 4.0 devices don't need to pair with your iPhone or iPad, they just connect and work. Also, the battery life is dramatically better - think months or a year on a single coin battery. We've developed the first pressure-sensitive stylus for iPad that uses Bluetooth 4.0.

The pen will offer full pressure sensitivity, palm rejection capability, lights, buttons and no need for Bluetooth pairing. There is already an SDK available which will allow app developers to immediate integrate support for the stylus in their apps. The pen will only work with iOS devices that have Bluetooth 4.0. Currently that is only the iPhone 4S however it is almost certain that the iPad 3 will have it too.

The pen still needs to garner FCC approval but Ten One Design is hanging back on full production until it believes that there is enough developer support for the product. If this works as advertised, that shouldn’t take very long!

Source: Ten One Design

Marc, Seth, and Rene iterate about OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, how to balance security with convenience for user permissions, and Google Chrome for Android, and interrogate Michael Flarup from Robotcat and Pixel Resort. This is Iterate!

• Our podcast feed
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• OS X Mountain Lion
• Back to the iPad: What Apple should take from OS X Mountain Lion and give to iOS 6
• iMessage and Poor User Experiences
• Address Book tagging
• iOS 6 and privacy: How Apple should draw inspiration from Android for better app permissions
• Google Chrome for Android... tabs on top!

• Michael Flarup of Robocat and Pixel Resort

Hosts

• Marc Edwards (@marcedwards) of Bjango
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford) of Nickelfish
• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) of iMore.com

Feedback

• Email: podcast@iterate.tv
• Twitter: @iteratetv
• Facebook: Iterate page

If you're one of the best-of-the-best-of-the-best in mobile design for Android, BlackBerry, iOS, webOS, or Windows Phone, we'd love to get you on the show, or if you've found a drop-dead gorgeous app on any platform and really want us to talk about it, contact us and let us know.

Depending on how an app was designed and developed, updating for an iPad 3 Retina display could take days or weeks

Flash forward — After lining up for hours, or sitting at home all day waiting for a courier to arrive, you finally have your hands on an iPad 3 with its amazing Retina display. A display with over 3.1 million pixels. All of them difficult to distinguish, because they're so damn tiny. Text is crisp. Photos look are amazing. This thing is gorgeous.

You launch your favourite app and notice things aren't as amazing as they were a few seconds ago. The app in question doesn't contain Retina image assets -- the pictures that make up the user interface elements are at the iPad 2's screen resolution, so things look as blocky as they did on your previous iPad. What's going on?

Custom UI vs standard UI

A regular graphic (1x) will simply be rendered with four pixels per point on a Retina display, unless proper Retina (2x) resources are in place to take advantage of the higher density

When creating an iOS app, developers can choose to use Apple's supplied UI (user interface) elements, they can create their own, or they can use a mixture of the two.

If they choose to only use Apple's in-built elements, then the onus is on Apple to ensure everything is designed to take advantage of the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and iPad 3's Retina displays. No additional work needs to be done by the developer. Apps like this will look great on the iPad 3 on day one.

For designs using entirely custom elements, every single part of the user interface needs two images created — one for the previous, non-Retina size, and another at the new, double resolution Retina size (these contain "@2x" at the end of the filename). A simple app may only contain tens of images, but most of the prettier iOS apps also contain a large amount of individual images to construct their overall design. Some of the apps I've worked on have well over 300 images, so by the time we've finished creating the Retina assets, that's doubled to over 600 images.

Depending on the designer and developer involved, each image may take up to a few minutes to create. Multiply that by the images required and it can often be a daunting, awkward, repetitive task. This also assumes the artwork was created using vector layers and layer styles in Photoshop (or a similar, freely scalable method). If it hasn't, there's a good chance everything will need to be rebuilt from scratch, using vector layers and layer styles, turning a few solid days' worth of work into something that might span weeks.

Thankfully, the transition from iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4 has taught a lot of iOS designers to work in ways that make creating two sets of images easier. If you're a designer looking to learn ways to improve your workflow when building non-Retina and Retina images, I've written articles on Designing for Retina and automated exporting.

Preparation is the key

Some developers have made the assumption that a Retina iPad was on the horizon, and have already included Retina images in their apps. However, I suspect the vast majority haven't, even if they have the images on hand — being double the width and height also means the images are bigger in file size, which may push the total app size over the 20MB 3G download limit (apps bigger than 20MB can't be downloaded over 3G networks).

Why doesn't iOS just use vectors for everything?

From the app Consume, an example of a vector interface element set up in Photoshop

If the issue is that pixel based images look blocky when they're scaled, why aren't vector based image formats, like SVG and PDF, used for iOS? Sometimes SVGs and PDFs are used in iOS development, but only rarely -- they're not the method Apple recommends. Vector formats tend to be far more resource hungry, especially for photorealistic icons, due to the amount of layers that have to be drawn independently to create the final visual. Mobile devices just don't have the grunt or memory to draw everything on the fly.

That's ok though -- think of the bitmap images used in iOS apps as pre-rendered vectors. The tools developers use to create the initial design should be easily scalable, but the final assets used in the app should be bitmaps, because they offer better performance (everyone loves silky smooth scrolling).

Patience

Good developers will know what's required of them, but may not want to start the arduous task ahead until the iPad 3 is announced (keep in mind that until Apple announces, we don't really know anything for sure). So please be a little patient if your favourite app doesn't take full advantage of the iPad 3's Retina display on launch day.

Marc Edwards is the founder Bjango and co-host of the mobile design podcast, Iterate.

Marc, Seth, and Rene iterate about the iPhone mute switch (sigh), Android interface guidelines, Windows Phone at CES 2012, and PNG compression redux, and interrogate Mike Rundle of Flyosity. Plus, we sneak a question to Joe Belfiore of Windows Phone. This is Iterate!

• Our podcast feed
• Download Directly
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• Google's Android Design site... user interface guidelines for Android 4.0
  • Don't make your apps look like iOS or Windows Phone 7 on Android
  • The Verge interview with Matias Duarte
  • Khoi Vinh on Android Design guidelines
  • Recap of the Windows Phone $100 "smoked" challenge at CES
• PNG compression and iOS apps

• Mike Rundle of Flyosity
• Joe Belfiore of Microsoft
  • Complete interview with Microsoft and Nokia at CES 2012

Hosts

• Marc Edwards (@marcedwards) of Bjango
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford) of Nickelfish
• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) of TiPb.com

Feedback

• Email: podcast@iterate.tv
• Twitter: @iteratetv
• Facebook: Iterate page

If you're one of the best-of-the-best-of-the-best in mobile design for Android, BlackBerry, iOS, webOS, or Windows Phone, we'd love to get you on the show, or if you've found a drop-dead gorgeous app on any platform and really want us to talk about it, contact us and let us know.

The Samsung Galaxy Ace, a new entry level Android phone, looks an awful lot like the iPhone 3G/iPhone 3GS. Samsung has a history of copying Apple's design so this really shouldn't come as a surprise.

Motorola and HTC both do far better jobs at providing real hardware alternatives to the iPhone, but Samsung's growth in recent years sadly shows there's probably a bigger market for Android lovers who want iPhones -- even retro iPhones -- not running iOS.

Kudos to Samsung. Instead of putting a lot of money and effort into design and marketing, they can spend it rapidly updating their existing phones to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Oh, wait...

Source: Cult of Mac

Apple Senior Vice President of Design, Jonathan Ive has been made a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE), in recognition of his work at Apple and contributions to the industry.

He described the honour as "absolutely thrilling" and said he was "both humbled and sincerely grateful".

Mr Ive added: "I am keenly aware that I benefit from a wonderful tradition in the UK of designing and making.

"I discovered at an early age that all I've ever wanted to do is design."

Ive was previously made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2005. Known to have been one Steve Jobs's closest friends and co-workers, he's been responsible for making manifest everything from the original iMac to the iPhone, MacBook Air, and iPad.

Source: BBC News

Marshall Bock has posted a set of iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 Photoshop templates on his blog. They include:

• Both 4 and 4S models
• Both black and white body colors
• Portrait, landscape, and angled orientations
• Every combination of the preceding bullet points
• Rendering that matches Apple’s product images as closely as possible
• Created at high res scale for Retina Display
• Made entirely of vectors and layer styles for scaling up
• Full alignment to a 2px grid for pixel precision at 50% scale
• Screen images as Smart Objects for inserting your own screenshots
• Clean, organized, color-coded, well-named groups and layers

Handy asset for both developers and designers.

Source: Marshall Bock via @flyosity

Michael T. Rose of TUAW has posted a fantastic look Apple design exhibit at MKG Hamburg. If you love Apple and Jony Ive design, are intrigued by the influences of Braun and Dieter Rams, or just want to see an amazing array of everything from iPod to Mac, check it out.

Source: TUAW

A leak in iTunes may have settled the rumors and debates about the design and name of the next iPhone. iTunes 10.5 beta 9 includes image files for the new iPhone - and they look exactly like the CDMA iPhone 4. Additionally, the files reference the new handset as 'iPhone 4S'. Both of these findings are exactly what TiPb has been hearing all along.

Also notable is that the files reference only two new iPhone 4S models: black and white, whereas the iPhone 4 references 4 models: black/GSM, black/CDMA, white/GSM, and white/CDMA. This is a strong indicator that the iPhone 4S will be a dual-mode, GSM+CDMA handset.

We are now only 3 days away from putting all the rumors to rest, because on Tuesday, Apple will reveal the truth.

Continue speculating in the meantime!

Source: 9TO5 Mac, AppleInsider

Randomly accurate rumor site Digitimes is once again beating the drum on rumors they spurred up back in May about Apple prepping a curved-glass design across iOS devices including the iPhone 6 for 2012.

Apple reportedly also has bought glass polishing equipment for its suppliers in preparation for the production of devices fitted with curved cover glass. Lens Technology, Fuji Crystal, G-Tech are said to be major cover glass suppliers of Apple. While Lens and Fuji focus on iPhones, G-Tech supplies mainly for iPad

As always with rumors from Digitimes we urge you to take this with a 3.5-inch grain of salt. Apple supposedly purchased upwards of 300 glass cutting machines earlier in the year that they've stored in warehouses until production yield rates meet their requirements, and glass makers have had a hard time entertaining the idea of producing curved glass for Apple because of capital costs.

We'll have to wait until next year before we see if Apple pushes out an iPhone with a curved-glass display... or if they're just using them for all the windows on their new mothership HQ.

Source: Digitimes

More reports are springing up that the next generation iPhone 5 will feature a thinner, tapered hardware design based off images of 3rd party silicone cases. Now this is not the first time we've come across rumors of what the new hardware will look like. It all started as early as April when we heard about a completely new design and then again earlier this month we heard similar reports of a thinner and lighter device.

However, iPhone 5 -- assuming that's what Apple calls it -- from what TiPb has been hearing for a few months now, from very reliable sources, the next generation of iPhone hardware will look very, very close to the current iPhone 4 design. It will not take on the design of the iPhone 3GS or iPod touch. It will not be moving backwards.

Now Apple often does work on more than one concept, a more audacious design that changes a lot (like iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4) and a more conservative model if the audacious one doesn't work out (like iPhone 3G to iPhone 3GS), so it's possible the different rumors are based on leaks from different concepts.

It's also possible the 3rd party cases appearing with this shape are harbingers of iPhone nano concepts instead, or simply next generation iPod touch cases (with added iPad-style mute switch).

Bottom line is do not get your hopes up for a newly redesigned iPhone 5. Expect a better camera along with the dual core A5 chip with the same externals. That way, at worst, you won't be disappointed, and at best, you'll be surprised.

[9to5Mac]

Clayton Miller's Interuserface takes a look at the iconic shapes behind today's biggest mobile companies, and while Apple, iPhone, and iPad are obviously roundrects (rounded rectangles), their competition is just as geometrically aligned:

Microsoft’s Metro UI owns the square. Apple has a corner on the roundrect, from the Springboard launcher to the iPhone hardware itself. Nokia, despite its late entry with MeeGo’s Harmattan UI, found the squircle unclaimed and ran with it beautifully. Palm has used the circle from the early days of PalmOS, and in WebOS, HP continues the tradition with care (one might even note that both Palm and HP structure their wordmarks around the circle).

Zune, obviously, couldn't hold the squircle, and neither Bada nor RIM could take the square or roundrect as their own. Interestingly, Google's Android has no iconic hold on any simple shape (nor do Facebook or Amazon for that matter, who have elected to stick with letters).

[Interuserface via WPCentral]

After a brief flirtation with pock marks, Apple embraced into the linen texture in a serious way with iOS 4, making it the background for both the multitasking fast app switcher dock, and for the open view of folders. Both of these UI metaphors were supposed to be "behind the scenes", with the iOS screen literally opening up to reveal them. With that was meant to convey the padding beneath the armor or the t-shirt beneath the jacket, who's to say? In the iOS 5 betas, however, Apple has gone all in on linen. While iOS 4 kept linen subtle and dark, iOS 5 brings lighter shades as well. You can find it as the background to the welcome screens when you update or re-install the OS. You can find it behind the new Notification Center when you swipe down from the title bar. Also, for the first time you can find it in OS X as well, in beta for Lion.

That makes it noticeable. Which is interesting. Texture is a Good Thing. It exists everywhere in nature and our eyes are used to it. Our eyes expect it. As long as it is consistent, it almost disappears, something we feel more than see in the overall richness of the environment around us. We'd notice if it wasn't there -- something would seem off or amiss -- but we shouldn't notice if it is there.

And that's where linen may be crossing the line for me -- I'm noticing it. Rather than a background that's contrasting and setting apart the foreground of the UI, rather than something my eyes ignore as they fall on the icons and buttons, it's becoming something my eyes fall on.

Though it hasn't come anywhere near that point yet, it does remind me of brushed-metal and the dark days of Apple design, before Leopard restored stately gray subtlety and consistency to the OS X UI. (So does the iCloud, LaunchPad, and associated conical gradients icons shown off at WWDC 2011, even more viscerally.)

It's possible I'm just noticing linen because it's new (though I'm not the only one). It's possible Apple will change the quality and quantity of it's use during the betas. Or it's possible linen is the new brushed-metal.

There have been some significant UI changes to Notification Center in iOS 5 beta 2, specifically, the way notifications are handled on the Lock Screen. In beta 1, notifications would simply appear as line items, with new notifications stacking as new line items, one after the other. In beta 2, if a single notification comes in, it now gets its own, newly styled popup.

In both cases, you could and can drag the associated app icon to unlock and be taken directly to the app, only the appearance of the first notification has changed. I addition, Apple has added a visible "window shade" UI element, complete with a little "gripper" handle, to the lock screen, above the single notification, so you can pull down the full list of recent notifications.

For alarms, the change is even more striking, as the addition of the "snooze" button seemed bitsy in the beta 1 UI but is now big and bold in the beta 2 UI (see above).

The most interesting part of this is that Apple is still working on, or experimenting with, the notifications user experience during the beta process. During previous iOS releases, the user experience for cut, copy, and paste, and for the multitasking fast app switcher and folders remained relatively unchanged during the beta process. (Though significant changes were made prior to the beta period, when it was still internal to Apple).

We know Apple hired the father of webOS notifications over a year ago, but also hired the developer of Jailbreak notifications just prior to the iOS 5 beta release. What, if any, impact that might be having on the betas is unknown, but it's tremendous to actually "see" Apple's design iterations on such a major new feature release.

Iterate is a new, mobile design focused podcast coming soon from Marc Edwards of Bjango, Seth Clifford of Nickelfish, and yours truly.

For more information and updates, follow @iteratetv on Twitter.

Loop until done.

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It's boys night as Rene, Seth, and Marc talk Apple Store 2.0, web apps vs. native apps, #dickauth, Playboy for iPad, Sideways racing, and a bit of design. This is iPad Live!

• Show notes

Hosts

• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie)
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford)
• Marc Edwards (@marcedwards)

Credits

Thanks to the TiPb iPad Accessory Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Music Hear me Roar by iPad Live theme song contest winner, DieselJesus!

Android Gripes, which I'm guessing is an homage to the terrific Adobe UI Gripes blog, has posted up some screenshots of iPhone apps side by side with their Android counterparts.

When I use an iPhone and an Android phone at the same time, I often find that apps from the same company look a lot different on these two platforms - the ones on Android usually look much worse.

There are without a doubt some well designed, great looking Android apps (Google makes a lot of them) but it is strange to see the same apps from the same developers simply not as well rendered for Android as they are for iPhone. Either Interface Builder in Xcode is even more magical than the iPad, there's some constraint in the Android development tools, or Android users simply aren't demanding the design level they deserve.

(There's a joke that if an app has an ugly icon, iPhone users won't download it. That same joke should exist on Android.)

Check out some more example via the link below.

[Android Gripes via @mdflores]

Remember that TiPb iPhone and iPad wallpaper contest we had going in our forums? We didn't forget about it, but I don't think we made it exactly clear what we were looking for either. So to kick things off (again), we've picked our first winner, the forum member who submitted the beautiful wallpaper they made above.

Think you can make a killer wallpaper? Jump over to our thread and submit your iPad or iPhone wallpaper for your chance to win. We'll be picking a winner every week. Each winner will have their wallpaper put on the front page of TiPb as well as receive $20.

Remember: we are looking for original works, not photos. It can be based on your own photo but it has to be made into a real, great looking wallpaper. Textures, abstract patterns, stripes, plaid - whatever you think will really make an iPhone or iPad background stand out. You'll need to create these though, not just find one online.

And now for our first winner, CoffeeFaith - for their awesome iPad/iPhone creation you see above. Great job!  He's got it posted in all iDevice formats over in our forums, so check it out!

If you guys think you've got some awesome creations, once again hop on over to our Wallpaper Contest Thread!

The TiPb forums are naturally a great place to talk, commiserate, celebrate, get help, and offer advice to your fellow iPhone users. In order to create a new thread of your own or reply to any of the existing threads, you must be a registered member. Becoming a member is easy and free so if you haven’t already head on over and register now!

• Rumor is that sometime this month we may see some sort of iPhone 4 redesign to provide better reception. What are your thoughts on this?

• You know you want one of the four iPhone 4 Vapor cases that we are giving away... Here is your chance to win one!

• Official Apple 2010 Special Music Event predictions/reactions.

• Some of you are having some battery drain issues running iOS 4.0.2. While I'm not seeing this personally, how about you?

See you in the forums!

Core77 spoke with Apple Senior Vice-President of Design, Jonathan Ive, about iPhone 4's including the Retina Display, custom stainless steel antenna array, aluminosilicate glass front and back, and even the microSIM tray.

"A big part of the experience of a physical object has to do with the materials. [At Apple] we experiment with and explore materials, processing them, learning about the inherent properties of the material--and the process of transforming it from raw material to finished product; for example, understanding exactly how the processes of machining it or grinding it affect it. That understanding, that preoccupation with the materials and processes, is [very] essential to the way we work."

Jonathan Ive focuses extensively on the importance of real material in an increasingly virtual world and seems driven by just how far he can push the manufacturing process to achieve his goals. For design aficionados and anyone wanting some insight into the mind behind iPhone 4, check out the link below.

[Core77 via Daring Fireball]

iPhone 4 is the first redesign to hit the iPhone since 2008's iPhone 3G. Back then some users complained it was a ploy to make them buy new accessories. When iPhone 3GS landed in 2009 with essentially the same design, other users complained Apple was stale and unimaginative.

Cardfan in our forums says he wishes Apple had kept the iPhone 3GS/iPhone 3G design for another year as it's more comfortable to hold and less nerve-wracking to put down.

Personally I like the new look. It's all back-to-the-future, Leica industrial and Dieter Rams chic. The glass is a concern but it also seems more fully realized and more in keeping with Apple's product line in general.

So what do you think? Design win or fail? Vote in the poll and give us the details in the comments.

The 4th generation iPhone HD/iPhone 4G revealed this week doesn't look exactly like the iPhones that have come before, but could it just be the iPhone Apple's senior vice-president of design, Jonathan Ive has always wanted to make?

If you're not familiar with Ive, a man who's won more high-level design awards than just about every other consumer electronics whiz on the planet combined, just look at any Apple product since the iMac. The iPod, iPhone, and iPad -- and few unibody MacBooks and Magic Mice in-between -- have all come from Jonathan Ive and his team. From deep, monochromatic plastics to unblemished aluminum to polished black glass, it would be fair to call Ive's work industry leading -- if the rest of the industry hadn't but lately decided design was even something worth considering.

The original iPhone 2G in 2007 was something new for Apple and Ive, and it had to work, just work, flawlessly out of the box, and you could see it's compromises right on the large black plastic strip that cut across the aluminum on the back. iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G boosted the radios and the power under the hood, but not much else happened on the outside other than the adoption of a full plastic jacket to make those radios work better. And all the while Apple's other designs -- the ones where they long since found their footing in time and technology to really unleash their A game... well, they started to leave the iPhone design language behind. Rounded aluminum rectangles with sharper corners came to the iMacs and MacBook Pros as the parts inside got smaller and the batteries (and battery life) for laptops grew and grew.

A lot has been said about Jonathan Ive's influences, almost singularly and iconically Dieter Rams of Braun. To say Apple products now bear striking resemblance to Braun products then is not an understatement and is unmistakably intentional. Rams and Ive share the same philosophy and language of design. They're minimalist. There's only as much form as is needed to utterly get out of the way of function. The radio is a speaker, the iPad is a screen. They are what you use them for.

And because of Apple's inexperience with phones and the compromises mentioned above, perhaps it's no more coincidence that past iPhones bear less resemblance to the work of Dieter Rams than that the next generation one bears total resemblance.

Apple's gone unibody, they gone glass edge to edge, and most importantly they gone Apple A4 inside and shrunk the guts down to unbelievably small sizes, leaving room for ginormous batteries and little else but design. What was previously curved and more complicated now be flat and simple. It not only just works, it just fits in the broader context of Ive's work and the influence of Rams he's shown such homage for over the years.

Check out the videos of Jonathan Ive discussing design from the outstanding documentary Objectified, and from Apple's iPad event below, and hop on over to Gizmodo for a look at Ive's work in context to Rams.

Based on everything we've seen to date, debate about what Engadget showed glimpses of on Sunday and Gizmodo went hands-on with on Monday is over -- it's a next-generation Apple iPhone HD (iPhone 4G). It might not be final hardware, but with the public unveiling expected to be in WWDC this June and the shipping date soon thereafter, it's close.

We'll go over the purported specs in a post to follow, but right now we're going to concentrate on the design. Some are complaining it doesn't look Apple-like, doesn't look like something that came out of the Star Trek-style labs of Apple SVP of design, Jonathan Ive. We thought so too at first, when all we had to go on were the pics of the initial post. We thought it looked like a Japanese knock-off. We were wrong. The pictures posted from the hands-on today were much clearer and they show lines that are much cleaner and a design much more in harmony with the other major releases Apple's done recently -- unibody MacBook Pro, 2009 iMac, 2010 iPad. Sure, they typically have subtle curves along one large surface -- back of the iMac, rear of the iPad, and this iPhone HD looks flat as a pancake, but the language is unmistakable. Mostly.

Yeah, the breaks in the aluminum siding. Screws in the iPhone 3GS and iMac is one thing, but breaks in the aluminum? It's possible that those were there to grant easy access to the guts of the prototype and will disappear when Steve Jobs pulls the final production model from his pocket at WWDC. Or it's possible that those are there to grant access to the guts and are a compromise we'll see up to and after release. (We choose to believe the former rather than the latter, of course).

Also, the volume buttons. Gone are the toggles found in the first three generations of iPhone, last two of iPod touch, and one and only iPad to date. In there place are something that looks like the battery level indicator button from a MacBook Pro [tip of the hat to @richardlai] as seen through double vision.

Gizmodo knows/guesses they're there to serve as additional, contextual hardware buttons. Specifically, that when in camera mode (where volume is not needed) they'd serve as a hard shutter button for taking pictures or starting/stopping video recording.

A toggle could perform multiple functions as well, however, though perhaps less intuitively.

If we go through the checklist, however, we have the rounded rectangle with the hardened angles, the glass to the very edge, and the black and aluminum that has become this generation of Apple trademark.

That's our take. Now it's time for yours. WWDC is still well over a month away, when it comes to the iPhone HD/iPhone 4G design, what do you hope Apple keeps the same, and what do you really wish they'd change?

First we saw Steve Jobs visit his local Palo Alto store and now Apple SVP of Design, Jonathan Ives was spotted Saturday at the Stockton Street Apple Flagship Store in San Francisco. Ives went one step further than Jobs though as he didn't just stop by to say hello -- he walked out of the store with not just one but two new iPads. Humble man purchasing his own design.

We only wonder what kind of old-fashioned British beat-down would have followed if he'd come across these linkbaiters on his way out...

[Via 9to5Mac]

Cameron Daigle's "is the iPad just a big iPhone" user interface presentation from PodCamp Nashville. Note, the second slide is a gigantic "NO."

[via Daring Fireball]

Above is a image that is claimed to belong to the upcoming 4th generation iPhone, courtesy of iPhone repair Web site iResQ. As iResQ points out, there are a few interesting things that stand out in the photo.

• "The LCD appears to be factory glued to the digitizer which is more similar to the first generation iPhones than the iPhone 3G and 3GS. The digitizer can be separated from the LCD on the 3G and 3GS models, which should be interesting to all, but for the repair folks like us–this means that the 4G screen repair price will be higher since both parts will have to be replaced at once."
• "The iPhone 4G front panel seems to be about 1/4″ longer than its predecessors."
• "There is an interesting reflective, mirror-like surface directly above the speaker. This is likely a spot for the proximity sensor. If that’s what is is, it’s in a different location than previous models."

Here at TiPb we are hoping for something more drastic in terms of design changes but based on these latest images it's hard to tell if the "A+" upgrade Steve Jobs promised will hold true. These images may turn out to be bogus or simply be scrapped before the final product is put together. We've seen it happen before with the matte backing.

We are willing to give Jobs the benefit of the doubt on his A+ upgrade for the time being, how about you?

One more image after the break!

[Via Apple Insider]

AppleInsider is claiming "people familiar with the device" as saying Apple's upcoming iTablet/iSlate/iPad will have a physical design reminiscent of the original iPhone 2G launched in 2007:

Nestled in an aluminum shell that leverages the Apple's expertise in unibody construction but thinner proportionality than the original iPhone, the tablet reportedly sports all of the same buttons found on the handset, right down to its iconic home button -- which, like the volume toggle, is missing from the rendering.

Similarly, the tablet is said to sport all the same in/out connectivity as the current iPhone 3GS, including a 3.5-mm stereo headphone jack, built-in speaker grills, a microphone, GPS, 3G connectivity and a 30-pin dock connector. Like the rendering, its 10-inch display is framed by a black border that bleeds into its wrap-around aluminum enclosure.

The above conceptual rendering from Fotoboer.nl is said to be close, though lacking the home button and other details. Apple being Apple, they'll likely want to maintain visual ties between their iPhone, MacBook Pro, and iMac lines, and that means blacks, aluminums, and glass, so this doesn't sound at all far fetched.

AppleInsider is also hearing there may be a CDMA-compatible (read: Verizon-friendly) chipset version, but don't know if it'll make it into the final product.

Meanwhile, 9to5mac picked up a DigiTimes story that hints Apple's new smart, long-lasting MacBook battery technology will be found in the iTablet as well:

Taiwan-based [MacBook battery suppliers] Simplo Technology and Dynapack International Technology are expected to share orders from Apple for its tablet PC, according to a Chinese-language Commercial Times report.

Again, not far fetched at all. Apple leverages their technologies across their product lines, and that's one of the keys to both their hardware and platform models.

Apple VP of Industrial Design, Jonathan Ive discusses the philosophy behind everything from the iPhone to the iMac for the documentary Objectified and, quite frankly, shows why he's the best there is at what he does, and why what he does is oh, so nice.

Watch the video. Especially if you're designing for Apple's competition. Please.

Via: Ryan Block

Sebastiaan de With -- aside from gritting his teeth and almost blinding himself in one eye while reproducing the incomprehensibly pin-striped logo above -- has bent his design-focus and Cocoia blog towards an analysis of Apple's new iPhone 3.0 user interface:

Sometimes, I’m considering if other companies in the cellphone / personal media player market have caught up to Apple’s care to details and design sensibilities, but then things like these make the reality very obvious to me:

Apple’s still the leader of the pack by several tail lengths.

If you're into the details of user interface and design, give it a read and let us know what you think about the look and feel of iPhone 3.0.

If you didn’t know, Google and T-Mobile held a small event that introduced the world to Android and the first Android device, the T-Mobile G1. And though Android impressed many (TiPb included), a lot of people scratched their heads when it came to the T-Mobile G1. Sure it packed a lot of features, controls, layouts, etc in one device but looks-wise it just didn’t blow anybody away. Is this really the device that Google is going to use to introduce the world to Android?

So we decided to take a closer look at the hardware and see how it compares to the iPhone 3G!

Read on to see how the iPhone 3G compares to the T-Mobile G1 Here's a disclaimer: We know that the iPhone is the iPhone is the iPhone while Android can pretty much be anything anybody wants it to be. Apple and Google employ different strategies, different ideals, and different means but the goal is the same—to take as much of the cell phone market as they possibly can. We’re not going to delve into the differences because honestly, it’s too many to list.

Google is a company that (almost) receives as much attention as Apple so when they release a cell phone platform, we’re going to pay attention. Though some may argue that Android is trying to replace Windows Mobile more so than go after the iPhone, like it or not, the iPhone and the T-Mobile G1 are two devices going after the same consumer market. So let’s see how they compare, hardware wise, yeah?

Design

Probably the biggest disappointment of all is the styling of the device. Though it looked considerably better than the leaked photos, the T-Mobile G1 still lacks a certain swagger to it. It seems like it’s so confused on what to be that it just comes off as plain. Not even to imagine the Jay Leno sized chin, in product shots the thing is ginormous. The device does seem to have an endearing quality to it, perhaps it’s the usage of very-approachable colors—you won’t find a glossy black or white here.

But overall, it’s sad that the design couldn’t be more revolutionary than evolutionary considering HTC doesn’t typically make bad looking devices (look at the Touch series). I think it can be said with fair certainty that the T-Mobile G1 will never win any design awards and will NEVER be mistaken as an iPhone.

Edge: iPhone, Comparing the styling of the iPhone to the T-Mobile G1 is really no contest and probably offends the heck out of Jonathan Ive.

Input Method

Plainness aside, the T-Mobile G1 is the perfect device to launch Android with. Why? Because it includes all the popular input methods: touch-screen, keyboard, and even a trackball. Developers are able to create versatile apps that will extend past the T-Mobile G1 because of all the input methods available.

But by including so many input methods, the T-Mobile G1 risks confusing the user experience. Would anyone ever actively use a trackball over a touchscreen? Is a keyboard that might not even be good (there have been complaints of it being too flat) worth the added thickness? And above all, having a touchscreen is fine and dandy with TiPb but where’s the multi-touch? Most other touchscreen devices are less sensitive and less responsive than the iPhone 3G and without multi-touch it can’t even be considered in the same league. Maybe the T-Mobile G1 will be better in that regard.

Edge: T-Mobile G1, I think people who can effectively use the iPhone’s keyboard won’t look twice at the added input methods of the T-Mobile G1 (I know I won’t). But it’d be careless to not admit that the T-Mobile G1 beats the iPhone in offering options. I mean, even Blackberry users can get in on the fun with the (out-dated) trackball.

Dimensions

Size and shape wise, the T-Mobile G1 does a great job in creating a easy-to-hold, good-in-hand feel. It’s a wee bit taller than the iPhone (4.6 inches vs 4.5) and noticeably thicker (.62 vs .48), but it does deserve credit for being narrower (2.16 vs2.4). The screen is a nick smaller at 3.17 inches vs the iPhone’s 3.5 inches but I can’t imagine people complaining about that difference. In all, dimensions wise the T-Mobile G1 is commendable, it’s pretty amazing how it can offer so many input methods in such a tight package.

But come on, really? To compete with the iPhone you have to package a more amazing product in stunning dimensions. The T-Mobile G1 doesn't do that. Instead it loses here, loses there, and pretty much loses everywhere when compared to the pure dimensions. Some may still complain that the iPhone 3G still doesn't "feel" like a phone but you'd be hard pressed to find a better package than the iPhone.

Edge: iPhone, Though the T-Mobile G1 surprised many with a solid build quality, it doesn’t approach the iPhone 3G (and original iPhone!) in terms of feeling great in the hand.

Storage, Headphone jack, Camera, Battery, Misc

Some people like expandable memory via MicroSD cards and sure it offers a lot of options for the future, but honestly, I would rather take the 8/16 GB out the box than the 1GB—its just easier that way. When bigger MicroSD cards become affordable we’ll probably be on 32GB iPhones and maybe even a G2.

Even worse than a recessed headphone jack is using a proprietary ExtUSB port. Seeing how much flack that the original iPhone got for not including a 3.5mm headphone jack it is simply jaw-dropping that the T-Mobile G1 would include something even worse. Yeah, we know HTC typically uses this style of port but come on, we’re really going to get excited to listen to our DRM-free music through this thing?

One thing the T-Mobile G1 has going for it is opting for a 3 megapixel camera that can auto-focus at close distance over the iPhone’s 2 megapixel fixed camera. Also, the T-Mobile G1 includes a removable battery while claiming to offer the same talk time (5 hours) as the iPhone 3G. A big plus for power users. Oh, and don’t forget that the T-Mobile G1 has a built-in compass that adds a ridiculous amount of slickness when using Google Maps Street View.

What they both have: Wi-Fi, 3G, EDGE, GPS, Accelerometer

What they both lack: stereo Bluetooth, video recording

Edge: Tie, In our book, Built In Storage + 3.5mm headphone jack = Better Camera + Removable Battery + Compass

Final Thoughts

Don't worry, the king is still the king and the world can continue on spinning. The iPhone 3G still takes the cake in this hardware shoot out. Yeah, who would have thought we would do that huh?

Though a lot of the features are similar, the things that the iPhone are better at are simply best-in-class while the T-Mobile G1’s offering were simply par for the course. Put it this way, the iPhone is a knockout punch while the T-Mobile G1 is just a light jab. The iPhone was made to stun and revolutionize the industry while the T-Mobile G1’s main purpose is to get the market ready for the Android onslaught. They're both successful at what they aim to do.

Even though we are the iPhone blog, we’re pretty excited at the potential of Android and were surprised about how solid the T-Mobile G1 was. Our baby-sister site AndroidCentral is covering all things Android and T-Mobile G1 so be sure to check them out!

What do you think? Do you think the T-Mobile G1 is a worthy contender of the iPhone? Let us know!

Got a video camera with a nightvision (infrared) setting? Grab your iPhone and take a look at the left-rear of the phone, as fskj85 of Austrialian Whirlpool did, and you'll see the snazzy "Data Matrix Code" underneath the body of the device. Wazzat, you ask? It's essentially a two-dimensional bar code (many Nokia phones are able to photograph these to get links to downloads, for example). Apparently the plastic in that section is transparent to infrared light, allowing you to see the matrix underneath. That's some secret-agent-design right there, folks, somebody nominate Jonathan Ives as the next James Bond.

Engadget Mobile, where we first saw the story, posits that the matrix likely encodes the IMEI and the Serial for the iPhone. That information is also printed in human-readable form on the SIM-card tray, but since that tray could technically be removed / swapped into another iPhone, it makes sense that Apple would find a way to get that data onto the iPhone itself.

That, or Apple is secretly tracking us with every camera we pass by.

At the rate Apple's Vice President of Design keeps winning awards for the iPhone, he's going to need a bigger mantle! Last time it was the unprecedented (and continued!) domination of the uber-elite Black Pencil, now it's the Mobile Data Association 2008 MDA Personal Achievement Award.

Said the judges of Ive's iPhone design:

"It sets the bar very high for all present and future competitors and as such, is shaking the mobile phone industry. We look forward to seeing Ive's design innovation continuing to challenge the mobile world."

They're right. For the last long while, when it comes to consumer electronic design, there's been Apple's Ive and pretty much nobody else.

Read

Pop quiz, hotshot: You're the acclaimed director of Finding Nemo and a Bug's Life. Your latest project, Wall-E, requires a state-of-the-art-of-design robot straight from the 26th century. What do you do?

If you answered, call your boss Steven P. Jobs, who also happens to run a little, perennially design-award winning, consumer electronics company called Apple, and see if he can hook you up with uber-designer Jonathan Ive, than you, like Andrew Stanton, are correct.

Ive, the genius behind Apple's industrial design team, oft-(poorly)-imitated industry trend-setter, and innovator of the twin-injection plastics technology seen in the iPod and the aluminum and glass innovations in the iMac and iPhone, was uniquely positioned to glance just that far into the future, whether or not he could declassify said glance:

Stanton said that it was a "lovefest" with Ive, but that the notoriously tight-lipped design wizard offered few specific modifications. "Apple is so proprietary and so secretive that he couldn't even really allude to where the future of technology was going," says Stanton. "The most he could do is nod his head to the things we said we wanted to do." (Through a spokesman, Ive declined to comment.)

Is Eve just a cute CG character for this summer's Pixar blockbuster, or a glimmer of iPhone (iDroid?) designs to come? Only Ive knows for sure, and he ain't sharing.

Read

Sramana Mitra has an interesting post up comparing Apple to Palm. Actually, she's been on a tear lately when it comes to Palm and how they've dropped the corporate management ball. She scored a comprehensive interview with former Palm Executive Eric Benhamou, which reads very nicely but is also a clear example of how the problems Palm has now are the direct result of their earlier problems. Basically they followed the exact opposite trajectory that Apple did in nearly the same time period (basically).

Anyway, back to the intersection of the two companies. Mitra writes:

Rubinstein and Jobs could not agree on the iPhone’s strategy wrt the Keyboard. This tells me that Rubinstein has a separate but perhaps also compelling vision on how the keyboard needs to be incorporated into smartphones. I can’t wait to see what that vision entails!

John Rubinstein (Palm) vs. Steve Jobs (iPhone) - Sramana Mitra on Strategy

It's surely not the case (one assumes) that Rubenstein left Apple over the keyboard issue (though that would be hilarious); but it is interesting that the guy who ran the iPod division, the podfather himself, was pro-physical-keyboard for the iPhone. Now, of course, he's hard at work over at Palm, they who basically specialize in keyboard + touchscreen smartphones.

One wonders what other ideas Rubenstein had that didn't make the cut on the iPhone. If "Podfather" Rubenstein's input was 86'd on the iPhone, then one assumes that it was all Ive and Jobs, just like everybody's always said.

There's a big article in the New York Times that includes an interview with Steve Jobs about the excellent shape that Apple's in nowadays. Apple is 3rd in computer shipments overall. They might slip to 4th when Acer buys Gateway after Gateway buys Packard Bell, but Apple will still have more growth than the resulting top three. The Times did an interview with Jobs, and he of course has some choice things to say about everything -- Leopard vs. Vista, Ultimate Editions, the iPhone's multitouch interface, the delays of Leopard, and the Newton.

'Mr. Jobs said that multitouch drastically simplified the process of controlling a computer.

There are no “verbs” in the iPhone interface, he said, alluding to the way a standard mouse or stylus system works. In those systems, users select an object, like a photo, and then separately select an action, or “verb,” to do something to it.'

I've written about what Ars Technica called the 'New Frontier' of the SDK, and I agreed with Ars that it was coming. Anyone that gripes about the availability of the development kit for making apps on the iPhone doesn't give enough credit for what Apple has created with multitouch.

figure 1: John Gruber

John Gruber of Daring Fireball has posted an excellent discussion on the various subtleties of the language used in Steve Jobs' iPhone SDK letter. He talks of HTML widgets vs. the stripped-down Cocoa API, the security of the current iPhone, the hidden compliment-slash-dig on Nokia and their recent "open to anything" marketing slogan, signed apps, the iTunes App store, and with his usual attention to detail and insight. Well worth the read there, like any long Gruber post.

Gruber also points to a blog post for OSX developers that intend to write applications for the iPhone, which led to a comment-discussion by several mac developers, and where they intend to aim their development efforts -- both in functionality of their applications, and price thereof. It looks like there's plenty of hope for the $5 app, if they can be guaranteed to be paid. There's still the lingering question of how available the SDK will be -- and that's excellently addressed by Frasier Spiers on a blog post at his site.

According to an article in ComputerWorld, the iPhone handily beat other smartphones (printable version) in almost all of the usability categories. The iphone competed against the HTC Touch (Windows Mobile) and the Nokia N95 (S60 Symbian) in usability tests performed by Texas-based Perceptive Sciences. Their test group was with ten people that had never used any of the three phones, so it's unfortunately a fairly small sample size. The article title gives the net result away, but read on for the highlights from their test.

The averaged scores show the iPhone's overall usability dominance:

• iPhone: 4.6 out of 5
• HTC Touch: 3.4 out of 5
• Nokia N95: 3.2 out of 5

The tests are certain to be fodder for various discussion sites, since there is a legion of interesting facts and money quotes from the test (as quoted by Tom Thornton and Tim Ballew, test administrators from Perceptive Sciences. Note that all emphases are added)

• The iPhone deftly won the speed test:

  "Testers were about twice as fast doing specific tasks on the iPhone, which is pretty remarkable."

• Some members of the test group couldn't use basic functions of the HTC Touch:

  "That's pretty basic functionality, but we had people who couldn't complete a call at all"

• The N95 won in functionality (and the iPhone lost in this section) but its wins came at the cost of usability. The key usability issue for the Nokia?

  "People had a hard time turning it on. Only 30% of our sample group could turn it on right away."



• The iPhone wasn't without its gripes, however. The largest one was that the functionality that the iPhone had was basic:

  "It has really basic functionality. For example, the camera functionality is pretty basic. We're starting to see more third-party apps, but they're Web-based, and some aren't very good."

• The usability test was based on true usability: how user-friendly the device is to use, and how easy it was to learn.

  "People can eventually learn to use any device. But that's not true usability. We wanted to see how long it took to figure out how to use the phones. That's the difference between learnability and usability."

The basic functionality as a win for overall usability has been an Apple trademark for a long, long time. More features doesn't make for a better device, that's a cornerstone of good user interfaces.

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I'm almost I'm embarrassed to report it, but I noticed that Calculator is getting a new icon. I think it's safe to say that it will arrive with the new update. In other news, I looked through the localizable.strings file for the new iTunes, and found no new strings of note pertaining to the iPhone.

Upsides:

• Safari: The web browser is great. I haven't missed flash yet, and the fact that YouTube is built-in more or less means that I'm not too broken-hearted about Flash. Maybe we'll see it in an update, maybe we won't. If we don't, I hope they give me the ability to turn it off.

Downsides

• Web Applications and built-in apps in general: Most applications that Apple has included are great: Text, Calendar (mostly, see below), Photos, Camera, YouTube, Maps, Weather, Clock. I found Notes and Stocks to be underwhelming (and as of this writing, undeserving of the front screen), plus there's an entire empty row sitting there waiting eagerly to have application buttons stuffed in. You can't replace this kind of immediacy with web services -- I don't want to open Safari, create a new window, or find it with a bunch of button presses in my bookmarks. I want it there, on the main screen.
• To Do: Implement To Do: The sync doesn't bring over to-dos from iCal, which is going to be a big hullaballoo. On the flip side of events, it doesn't sync notes from the notes app back to the computer, so there's no way to back them up either. I'm guessing something will happen here once Leopard comes out, or that we'll see some updates here, but this aspect is very disappointing; the omission of this is actually downright weird. Any fans of GTD will have to use a web app for To-Dos as of this writing.
• Activation: When I first installed the iPhone to my computer, it took a while to activate. The system failed on me. I was nervous of a double-billing situation, but I resubmitted my information anyway. The activation system found my info and to my relief I had already been accepted. Other folks in our organization were not so lucky; Chris Kingree at our warehouse had to wait 60 hours (!) for his activation to go through.
• Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR: So what? there are *no* supported profiles for interfacing with a computer. None! That includes DUN, AVRCP, OBEX, the whole shebang. This means you can't use the unlimited internet on your computer; nor can you sync your iPhone via Bluetooth. A2DP seems to be unimplemented as well. This one is downright weird to me; if I was assigning a score to this review, they'd lose some serious points here.
• Preferences: They don't allow you to set too many preferences. Granted, this keeps things simple to support and you're never in a situation where you're not sure where the preferences are (they're right there in the Settings app). But if you don't like the default SMS message alert, tough! You can't change it. You can disable it, but not change it.
• Ringtones: Apple has included ringtones on the iPhone, and some of them are pretty good. Thank you for the effort, Apple, but I would prefer to be able to use my own. I'd love to be able to blare video game sounds from Galaga or the theremin-like intro from Dr. Who whenever someone calls me, but that functionality is not with us. I'm guessing they just haven't finished it yet, or don't have legal agreements with labels yet in place.
• AT&T / EDGE: If you're a technophile, you expected this here, and I am not willing to disappoint. EDGE brings me back to dialup days. AT&T's coverage in my area is adequate, but it's nothing to praise. I dropped two calls on the first day of use. AT&T's commercials about dropped calls are like salt to my wounds now.
• Filesystem and Mass Storage: The iPhone doesn't show up as a mass storage device when you plug it in to a computer, nor is its filesystem browseable. I can't peer around on the inside, much with things, see how it works, and the like. It's essentially a black box, which is annoying. This doesn't bother me too much, but nor does it make a lot of sense. I didn't think I'd still have a use for memory cards once the iPhone came out. This one doesn't bother me too much.

All in all, what Apple has completed is mighty. That's not to say that there aren't missing pieces; there are serious missing pieces from the iPhone. Still, for an entry to the smartphone market, or mobile phone market in general, it's a very impressive device. I'm glad I bought it; I'd recommend it to anyone while making note of the above caveats, it's the most fun I've had with a phone in a long time, and I haven't even installed any games on it yet. Oh wait, that's still a sore spot.

It fascinates me that Apple's marketing and commercial videos for the iPhone so far has also been all training. They show the iPhone being used for the main tasks that people will use, and that's it. The interface is good enough that it sells itself and doubles as a training video, which is brilliant.

• YouTube
• Google Maps
• Internet Browsing
• iPod Video
• Overall How-To

• the guided tour video
• activation and sync video

He's not saying the PC is dead, dying, or even getting old; he's saying that the big emerging market opportunity is in those post-PC devices (you or I would likely call them gadgets). The overwhelming sense I got from his fireside chat with Bill is that he's got a bunch more gadgets coming out, you'll happily get rid of the other stuff they replace, if you ever had anything like it anyway, and you can bet real money on tighter integration between all of them and the PC.

Jobs consistently focused on the two newest Apple post-PC era gadgets, the Apple iTV and the upcoming iPhone experience. Mossberg seemed to want to talk about convergence, asking if all of these things aren't just computers in a different form factor. Mossberg also wanted comments regarding the constant predictions by some of "the death of the PC." Jobs' responses are of course illuminating here, I'll condense his quotes while quoting liberally to give a more concise idea of what he was talking about:

but then, there's an explosion that's starting to happen in these, what you'd call post-PC devices. You could call the iPod one of them. There are these things that are not... as general purpose, they're really more focused on more specific functions... that category of devices is going to continue to be very innovative, and you'll see more of them.

"We're getting to the point where everything's a computer in a different form factor. So what? So what if it's built with a computer inside? It doesn't matter. It's 'what is it, how do you use it, how does the consumer approach it.' It doesn't matter anymore, so who cares what's inside it anymore?"

What's really interesting is, and we talked about this earlier today, if you look at the reason that the iPod exists and that Apple's in that marketplace, it's because these really great Japanese consumer electronics companies who kind of owned the portable electronics market, invented it, couldn't conceive of the appropriate software... it's in a beautiful box, but it's software.... what an iPhone hopefully will be, it's software. Apple views itself as a software company.

how much of the really revolutionary things that people are going to do in the next 5 years are done on the PCs, or how much of it is really focused on the post-PC devices. There's a real temptation to focus it on the post-PC devices, because it's a clean slate, and because they're more focused devices, they don't have the legacy of zillions of apps in these zillions of markets. I think there's going to be a tremendous revolution in the experience of the post-PC devices. I think the question is, how much to do in the PCs... some of it has to be tempered a little bit....

[Users] don't want to drive with a joystick, they like the steering wheel. Radical rethinking of things is going to happen in these post-PC devices.

When asked by Mossberg why .Mac had been stagnant lately:

"I couldn't agree with you more, and we'll make up for lost time in the near future."

These are telling statements about product plans from Jobs. Apple is in the business of releasing solutions for interface problems created by other companies in software, and they're going to release a bunch of gadgets to fix them, instead of just trying to cram it all into the PC. For example, When my wife tivos something on our DVR, I don't want it recorded to my phone. I don't want it recorded on my laptop either; a convergent solution isn't really the right thing for this situation. And I'm saying that as a big fan of convergence.

I'm not ashamed to admit it, but my wife has an easier time with the TV remote than I do. She is basically unofficially in charge of the TV remote. It's not that I don't understand it -- I set it all up, she pesters me when the satellite signal doesn't work or inputs aren't aligned, she couldn't tell you the difference between BNC and RCA. It's that I can't stand using the thing -- the interface sucks, and I don't like having to use multiple remotes, and I don't feel like rolling my own. There's 40 odd buttons on the remote because the manufacturer have no idea how to fix the interface problem in software. Apple knows how to fix the interface problem in software and match it with corresponding hardware; the resulting TV product has a four-way nav pad and two buttons. The marriage of hardware and software is, as Jobs called it, "a powerful marriage."

This coupling is the raison d'etre of their post-PC devices. The iPod aimed to replace confusing or non-consumer-friendly mp3 players from Japan, and well, you know the story there so far. The Apple iTV and Front Row -- they aim to fix the previously mentioned TV problem, as well as bring the computer and the internet to the ailing interface problem in your living room, aka your TV and its remote. In an earlier talk, Jobs demoed iTV's ability to play YouTube videos. With that product, I don't need to look in the dark for what button does what, I can just look at the screen; that's where I'm generally looking while watching TV anyway. If I wanted to show my wife something I saw on YouTube, we'd instead watch it in the living room instead of crouching over my laptop.

Regarding what he says about .Mac, I'll put money down that we'll see .Mac improvements come with Leopard that require an update to the iPhone. Of course, I could be wrong. We could see those improvements when the iPhone comes out. But, I'm glad to hear that Apple has short-term plans to improve its internet services division.

At any rate, Apple is constantly looking for those interface problems because those problems market opportunities. Jobs of course wouldn't talk about those market opportunities in detail; he instead passed on what other Apple employees said of him in the early years:

"Isn't it funny, a ship that leaks from the top."

And with that, I end today's column. I know, it's not fair. I haven't really delved into what the post-PC era means for a smartphone here, I've mostly just explained it regarding the iTV. That's neither a product I own, nor is it the likely subject matter of this website. I'll move on to what it should mean for phones tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: apple, design, ive

Apple without design focus:

And, Norman adds, the consultative process could take a toll on the product line as a whole. Look, he says, at the 70-odd Performa models Apple churned out between 1992 and 1997--models that varied only in hard-drive size, in whether they had modems, or in whether they were sold directly or through a retailer.

And Apple with design focus:

One direct result of that sharpened focus is Apple's unique ability to create simple products. Though the idea of a simple high-tech device seems counterintuitive (why not offer more functionality if you can?), it's worked for Apple.

"The hardest part of design, especially consumer electronics," says Norman, "is keeping features out." Simplicity, he says, is in itself a product differentiator, and pursuing it can lead to innovation.

Rolston agrees. "The most fundamental thing about Apple that's interesting to me," he says, "is that they're just as smart about what they don't do. Great products can be made more beautiful by omitting things."

I'm a big believer in the idea that simplicity is a part of good design. My understanding of design isn't vaunted or anything, but I know what I like. I don't want a phone that looks like my remote.