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
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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.

[via]

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.