Dag Kittlaus, creator of Siri, recently spoke at an economic development event in his hometown of Michigan City, Indiana, and iMore had the chance to listen in and ask him some questions about the challenges they faced in implementing Siri and where he thinks the future of technology is headed. According to Kittlaus, interfaces such as Siri and talking to machines is something we can expect to see a lot more of in the very near future.

In 2007, after becoming frustrated with some management decisions at Motorola, Kittlaus connected with the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA. He was hired to come look at their technology and figure out what possible products could be made to be commercialized. This is where he met Adam Cheyer and Tom Gruber, who co-founded Siri. Their first idea actually involved studying twins and DNA. Kittlaus joked about an idea he had to start a company specializing in DNA dating and molecular best matches, but didn't think people were ready for that. Yet...

Kittlaus also talked about what mobile phones were before the iPhone, and how interfaces were rapidly changing.

Mobile phones were just really hard, especially back before the iPhone came out. Phones were tough. It took about 30 clicks to find a ringtone and download it. But what if you could talk to a phone? What if you could just type in a few key words and it understood what you were trying to do and just did it for you? That's pretty powerful. The speech part of it, we didn't even start that part until about a year later. It just didn't work that well. About a year later, speech recognition got really good.

Kittlaus discussed what goes on when you interact with Siri.

First, when you speak it turns the sounds into words. It says "this is what you said". That's not what Siri does. We work with a 3rd party that does that. But what the world didn't have at this point was a machine that could understand what the words meant and do something about it. So that's what Siri does. Even after all the research and development, it took us three years to build it.

The next challenge they faced was getting Siri to interact with humans and getting people to understand what it was. It wasn't Google or a search engine. They didn't want it to take input and simply spit out 10 links. It needed to understand humans and be more human-like. Kittlaus joked about coming up with a tag line:

What are we going to call this thing and make people understand what it is? The first tag line I came up with was "Siri, practically human." Well, it's not really human yet and kind of sucks at this point. We need something better. So this version we'll call "Siri, periodically human." Then we said ok, at a certain point, the next version will be practically human. The version after that will be positively human. Then unfortunately, the version after that will have to be kill all humans.

Siri wasn't an overnight success nor an easy project to implement. During the talk, I had the opportunity to ask Kittlaus about the challenges they faced in implementing Siri.

The first time was -- How do you make all this technology work together and actually deliver this experience of talking to a machine? That's really hard. That's what we spent the first two years doing. After we got acquired by Apple, now we had to take this technology and make it available for 100 million users. That's a completely different type of challenge. Nobody had ever done it before. So the biggest challenge was getting it to work. Especially in the software business, you really need the best people. It's different than many other businesses because the impact of getting the right people means so much more than it does in many other industries. In sales, you can have two sales guys that do as many sales as one guy that's really good. But in software, it can be 50 times or 100 times different because if you don't have a good team, you're going to be writing bad software that all the good guys have to go and clean up later which really slows you down. You can't throw people at a software problem. You really need the best people.

Kittlaus went on to talk about the "law of accelerated returns" which basically states that each generation of a product exponentially doubles in power over the previous technology. Kittlaus pointed out that the iPhone has 10,000 times more computer power than the original Apollo program. If you apply the law of accelerated returns to the rate of technological growth today, we'll advance 20,000 years in the 21st century.

If I take 30 steps, I'm over the table. If I take exponential steps, I'm on the moon.

Towards the end of the session a member of the audience asked what the next version of Siri will be like. He jokingly stated that he couldn't answer that question in fear of the attorneys at Apple, but was able to say that this is just the beginning and we've got a lot to look forward to.

A special thanks to Michigan City Economic Development for hosting such a great event and letting me take part in it!

We had a chance to sit down and talk to Pocket's (formerly Read it Later) founder, Nate Weiner, and developer Max Weiner about their recent re-branding and the transition from a read-later service to a read-, watch-, and generally enjoy-later powerhouse. With a newly redesigned app, continued cross-platform focus, and business model that includes giving the app away from free, it's a huge gamble for Pocket.

Doing a great app on iPhone and iPad is challenging. Doing a great app on iPhone and iPad and the plethora of Android devices Pocket decided to support is a huge challenge. But we live in a cross-platform world where Android phone users might have an iPad, or iPhone users might have a Kindle Fire, and being able to read the content you want on the device you want, when and where you want is hugely important. So, Pocket is doing an incredible amount of heavy lifting to make sure their users can just launch the app, tap, and never have to think twice about it.

Watch the video above for the full interview, and check out Leanna's authoritative Pocket review for everything you need to know about the iPhone and iPad app.

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

We have only 6 days left to help keep the jailbreaking exemption to the U.S. DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) alive and well, and we need everyone's help to do it. The jailbreaking exemption was granted by the Library of Congress in 2010 but not codified into the law, meaning it's set to expire now, unless the copyright office extends it.

If the jailbreak exemption is not extended, then modifying your iPhone or iPad could be considered a violation of the DMCA, and companies could theoretically sue or press charges against jailbreakers. We think the right to modify our phones for personal use, provided we take personal responsibility for the risks involved, is an important one and deserves protection. The EFF (Electronic Frontier Fund) thinks the same, which is why they're fighting to get the exemption renewed, and are also pushing for tablets and game consoles in general to be included as well. iFixit.org recently spoke to the EFF about where things stand now:

iFixit: Has the Copyright Office made any comments on jailbreaking since the 2010 smartphone exemption? How likely do you think it is that they’ll renew that exemption? Why have exemptions for smartphones but not game consoles and tablets?

EFF: The CO hasn’t made any public comments that we are aware of. We are very hopeful that the smartphone exemption will be renewed, and we think extending it to game consoles and tablets is the logical next step.

bunnie: My understanding is that the CO is fairly conservative about granting such exemptions, so tightly scoping the exemption request increases the chances that the result has real impact. A broad request to exempt large swathes of technology from the DMCA would likely be denied; and such a denial would waste the infrequent window of opportunity to have such requests examined. Therefore, an incremental approach is being taken, allowing the CO to try small changes and become comfortable with them. Note that the request to the CO splits smartphone/tablets and game consoles into separate categories, so that the CO can have the flexibility to reject or accept individual categories.

The interview goes on to discuss the impact the DMCA has had on modifying gaming consoles and the rest of the jailbreak and homebrew communities. Sony, for example, infamously sued well-known iPhone jailbreaker George Hotz, aka Geohot when he jailbroke the Sony Playstation 3.

You can hit the link below to read the whole interview. We also urge you to sign bunnie's petition and leave your own comments if you'd like to see the exception renewed. He plans to take all the signatures and comments to the Copyright office on February 10th at 5pm.

Remember, there are only 6 days left. Whether you jailbreak or not, if the legal right to jailbreak your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad is important to you, act now.

Source: ifixit.org; Petition: jailbreakingisnotacrime.org

We're here at CES 2012 talking to Belkin about iPhone cases. This time around they've aimed to differentiate cases for white and black iPhone users. Their new lines expected in April are focused specifically on the color differences. Certain cases will compliment the black variant while others will look better on white models.

Outside of expanding selection from a color and form factor aspect, they've been experimenting with new types of plastic that allow them to make cases even thinner and lighter. Not only are their new lines thinner and lighter but certain plastics can be used to create very realistic textures such as wood. While actual wood cases are on the market currently, plastic tends to allow your device to breathe better and not overheat, especially while charging.

The once lost footage of Steve Jobs' 70 minute Triumph of the Nerds interview have been found in London, restored and enhanced, and is soon to be making its way to the big screen.

After Jobs died, Sen went looking for the interview because he thought it would be interesting to watch. He dropped Cringely a line telling him of his find and suggested that perhaps Cringely could put it on his technology blog I Cringely as a "gift to the world."

"He didn't see any commercial value in it," Cringely said. "I have three kids I have to put through college, so I thought maybe we could sell it."

Cringely sent Landmark Theatres co-owner Mark Cuban an email late one night to see whether there would be any interest in screening it on Landmark screens. Less than five minutes later, Cuban fired back that he was game.

The film will be titled Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview and will debut on November 16. This Paul Sen film has not yet been rated, but it is hyped as "best TV interview Steve Jobs ever gave", so don't let the opportunity to check it out pass you by.

Source: MovieCityNews, LA Times Blog

Walter Isaacson, the author of the upcoming authorized biography of Steve Jobs, will be sitting down with 60 Minutes on Sunday for an interview going over the new book. In a preview, he reveals:

"I've asked [Jobs why he didn't get an operation then] and he said, 'I didn't want my body to be opened...I didn't want to be violated in that way,'" Isaacson recalls. So he waited nine months, while his wife and others urged him to do it, before getting the operation, reveals Isaacson. Asked by [60 Minutes correspondent Steve] Kroft how such an intelligent man could make such a seemingly stupid decision, Isaacson replies, "I think that he kind of felt that if you ignore something, if you don't want something to exist, you can have magical thinking...we talked about this a lot," he tells Kroft. "He wanted to talk about it, how he regretted it....I think he felt he should have been operated on sooner."

The Steve Jobs is scheduled to go on sale Monday, October 24th after the date was moved up following the announcement that Steve Jobs had passed away.

Source: CBS News

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CNBC: Titans will be airing an unauthorized biography of "The undisputed king of Silicon Valley for the better part of three decades," Steve Jobs, tonight at 9PM PT/1AM ET.

We don't expect much if any new information, at least nothing that is not readily available via the internet, but a look back at life of the genius who brought us the Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iPod is sure not to disappoint.

At the very least, it should hold you over until his official biography , iSteve: The Book of Jobs is released.

If you watch the show, let us know what you think!

[Fortune]

David Ashman is the developer behind LockInfo, the popular notification and lock screen information app for Jailbreak -- and he's just seen Apple add their own version of both those features to iOS 5. So how does he feel about that, and what does it mean for the future of LockInfo?

Check out the video above, shot at WWDC 2011 the day after the keynote to see what he says. (Spoiler: While Apple may fill the needs of casual users, LockInfo is going to make the pros very, very happy for a long time to come.)

[LockInfo]

Cydia founder Jay Freeman talks to TiPb about what iOS 5 might mean for Jailbreak, whether or not Apple uses Jailbreak as a incubator for their own iOS updates, and where Jailbreak fits going forward.

Live from WWDC 2011, right before the keynote!

Following up on Apple's location data Q&A, posted earlier today, Mobilizer spoke with CEO Steve Jobs and other members of the executive team.

“We haven’t been tracking anyone,” Jobs said in a telephone interview with Mobilized on Wednesday. “The files they found on these phones, as we explained, it turned out were basically files we have built through anonymous, crowdsourced information that we collect from the tens of millions of iPhones out there.”

As to why Apple seems to get singled out in media and investigations, Jobs said he'll be looking to see coverage of their competitors.

“Some of them don’t do what we do,” Jobs said. “That’s for sure.”

UPDATE: The full transcript of the interview with Steve Jobs, Scott Forstall, and Phil Schiller is now online. The explanation of why it took so long is similar to the one given during the iPhone 4 antenna press conference. [Mobilizer]

We’re an engineering-driven company. When people accuse us of things, the first thing we want to do is find out the truth. That took a certain amount of time to track all of these things down. And the accusations were coming day by day. By the time we had figured this all out, it took a few days. Then writing it up and trying to make it intelligible when this is a very high-tech topic took a few days. And here we are less than a week later.

[Mobilizer]

Firemint's Real Racing 2 for iPhone just went live in the App Store. With 30 licensed cars, 15 person online multiplayer, career mode, and other console quality features it's another huge leap forward for iPhone gaming. But what if -- like me -- you don't drive especially well? What if you need a little inside help, some expert advice on how to beat the game? (And your friends!)

Worry not, Firemint Founder and CEO Rob Murray, Real Racing 2 Producer Chris Nicoll, and Firemint Communications Manager Alex Peters were kind enough to sit down for an interview with us and dish all their secrets. (Okay, maybe not all, but enough tips and tricks to give you an edge!)

This is just a taste mind you. The full interview will be included with our iPhone Live #130 podcast, available later today right here on the blog and via iTunes. Subscribe already!

[$9.99 - iTunes link]

Ars Technica's Chris Foresman has a terrific interview up with Star Trek production artists Michael Okuda, Denise Okuda, and Doug Drexler about how they conceptualized iPad-like devices for TV and movies... some 23 years ago. Their device was known as the PADD (Personal Access Display Devices):

Drexler said that to him, the iPad is "eerily similar" to the PADDs used in Star Trek. "We always felt that the classic Okuda T-bar graphic was malleable, and that you could stretch and rearrange it to suit your task, just like the iPad," he said. "The PADD never had a keyboard as part of its casing, just like the iPad. Its geometry is almost exactly the same—the corner radius, the thickness, and overall rectangular shape."

"It's uncanny to have a PADD that really works," Drexler said, unlike the non-functional props made for the TV series and later films. "The iPad is the true Star Trek dream," Drexler told Ars.

[Ars Technica]

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]

Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher's D8 conference interview with Steve Jobs has been posted in its entirety on iTunes for your higher quality, uninterrupted viewing and/or listening pleasure. It's quite a good interview and we get to see Jobs excited, pensive, and -- to quote him -- pi$$ed off.

A few of the points I found most interesting, after the break.

[iTunes]

• He defended his use of the term magical for the iPad but said he hadn't quite figured out why yet. The disintermediation of the keyboard and mouse, allowing direct interaction by the user on the screen was one reason, the 10 hour battery life breaking the bonds of power cords, and the small form factor allowing for new ways of movie and holding it were two more. Getting rid of what comes between users and apps/content is indeed powerful; magical is probably still in the eye of the beholder.

• His analogy concerning personal computers being trucks and iPad being a car seems to reflect the mainstreaming of computers-as-appliance (or becoming very personal computers), complete with automatic transmission, power steering, etc. It takes a lot of the hard work out of using the computer and the internet and opens it up to a much wider audience for whom traditional PCs (trucks) are difficult to use and hard to comprehend to the point of being hostile and/or scary (including Macs). Geeks forget the tyranny of viruses, complex installs/uninstalls, and confusing windowing systems under which their less tech-savy family members live (and for which they endlessly call for support).

• Jobs thinks current mobile ads "suck" and Apple is doing them because no else has done them well enough yet. Apple's goal is to help developers of free and cheap apps make some extra money through advertising. (It's worth pointing out it also binds them and their revenue more tightly to Apple's iOS platform at the same time). Jobs repeated his charge that mobile users aren't going to search (Google's traditional strength) but to apps, and the experience their getting for in-app advertising is jarring. Given that Apple is focusing on content-driven, interactive ads and seems to have signed premium brands to platforms means they're taking it seriously. Whether it works or not we'll have to see, but iPhone usage patterns -- interstitial as they are -- make for a prime target. (No more tweets to read... but hey, look, Wall-E 2 is coming out and I can Eva cannon some human-blobs...!)

• Curation of the App Store, when it goes wrong, can't be defended by saying 95% of apps get approved in 7 days, and the 3 top reasons for rejection are apps that don't do what they say they do (though we'll come back to that in a moment), apps that crash on launch, and apps that use private API (that could break in the next OS update). The price of exerting editorial control is editorial responsibility. Jobs chose to point out app reviewers (and Apple) were just people, and they make mistakes, and can't foresee everything in advance -- like a rule against defamation conflicting with apps making fair parody of public figures. It's not that Apple is making mistakes (they are), its not that Apple is learning and improving (they are), it's that they continue to do so in a black box using editorial ambiguity to shield them from the responsibility mandated by their control.

• Calling some developers whose apps were rejected "liars" rankled the feathers of some other developers since they couldn't tell to whom Jobs was referring. The complete interview makes that clearer. He was referring to people who deliberately tried to game the system and get apps approved that did things they weren't supposed to, and game the press into writing about them -- and taking Apple to task -- when they were rejected. My guess is he was referring to those who tried to swipe personal information from users, who presented an app with web-based image content they switched to porn after approval, or who used private API. (Steven Frank pointed out Opera could be on that list as well, if indeed they complained publicly about their App Store approval process before even submitting their app).

• When asked about content creation on the iPad, Jobs mentions movie editing -- and this was before iMovie for iPhone (but not yet iPad) was revealed. Being able to finger paint with productivity is going to be both a huge challenge for Apple and a huge potential immersive win for users.

• When asked about tethering to sync iTunes media to iPhone and iPad, Jobs reframed the question saying what users want to do is not sync but share their content -- bought or otherwise come across -- from their library to all their devices. He said Apple is working on this. Maybe, like copy and paste and multitasking it's taking a while but will work well. Rumors persist they'll use their Lala acquisitions to move iTunes to the cloud (if the media companies allow it). However, local wireless transfer would also be appreciated.

• Likewise, when Sugar Sync asked about access to the file system to better "round-trip" the wireless syncing process for users (move their docs from the cloud to the device and back), Jobs said they should talk. So coy.

• Privacy was big for Jobs, and something that might be a competitive advantage against companies like Google, Facebook, and Adobe (now owners of Omniture) whose revenue depends on aggregating and selling against user data. He was adamant that users be asked before their personal data gets used -- again and again until they deliberately decide they don't want to be asked any more. As fired up as Jobs got about app rejections -- and the Gizmodo iPhone 4 incident -- when asked about the new rules in the iOS 4 license that limit "advertising" he almost got out of his chair. The idea that Flurry could get developers to embed code in apps that reported device, location, and other user information back to their analytics to the extent they could tell Apple was testing iPad and iPhone 4 months before release shocked Apple and provoked an immediate response. Likely the thought Google could do the same, and use that information for competitive advantage with Android, is why the new rules are phrased exactly how they are.

• When speaking about gaming, Jobs mentioned that iPhone and particularly iPod touch, had created a subset of casual, inexpensive gaming. He particularly stressed iPod touch sales during the holidays. Apple is pretty much alone in offering a high-profile, fully compatible, non-smartphone version of their smartphone platform. That they've been pretty much alone in this going on 4 years is remarkable. Every other player has totally conceded the early teen market to Apple and let those users grow up immersed in iOS, ready to graduate to iPhone and/or iPad. Staggering. (Then again, what would a non-smartphone, fully compatible BlackBerry device be, and how would it play in the gaming space?)

• We've gone over what Jobs said about the difficulties surrounding Apple TV's go-to-market strategy and why it's still a hobby, but its irksome so it bears repeating. Jobs thinks it's hard to sell users another box to add to their TVs. Cable and satellite companies will need to be taken out of the equation the way big box stores were for music and carrier control was for phones. Regionalism and lack of standards doesn't help. Mac Minis with HDMI-out don't help either when Front Row pales in comparison to Apple TV UI and Apple TV UI pales in functionality compared to the various XBMC forks and even iOS. Rumors of a cheap Apple TV running iOS are interesting. iOS replacing Dashboard and Front Row across the line is transformative. (Assuming an elegant control scheme, which isn't an easy assumption to make).

There's a lot more to the interview, of course, so give it a listen and let me know what you think.

Steve Jobs is live on stage at the D8 - All Things Digital conference being interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. They're not pulling any punches with the questions, and Jobs is answering in typically direct, quasi-terse form.

Notes after the break!

[Engadget]

• Rupert Murdoch scores the introduction, he's pleased to be working with new tech companies like Apple, who's sold 2 million iPads, and looks forward to other companies fielding "ePads" soon...
• Jobs says surpassing Microsoft in market cap is surreal.
• Regarding Flash, Apple doesn't have unlimited resources and chooses to invest those resources in technologies they think are on the rise, not the decline. Draws analogy to abandoning floppy on iMac.
• Adobe promised mobile Flash for years, never delivered. Apple chose not to use the product, Adobe made a stink, Jobs had enough so he wrote the letter.
• HTML5 is the future.
• Ongoing investigation into lost/stolen iPhone prototype. Great story, has theft, buying of stolen property, extortion, Jobs is sure there's some sex in there...
• Apple is looking into Foxconn situation.
• Almost everyone uses WebKit, most popular mobile browser.
• Jobs said Google decided to compete with Apple, Apple didn't go into search business.
• Apple isn't going to remove Google from iPhone.
• "Just because you're competing with someone doesn't mean you have to be rude."
• Apple bought Siri, isn't that search? Jobs says no, it's AI. [Technically it leverages search API to make recommendations]
• AT&T is doing better. They have way more data traffic than all the other network combined. Jobs won't comment on a Verizon iPhone.
• Apple went a different way than Microsoft with the iPad/tablet. Jobs thought handwriting was slow. If you use Windows, you need a cursor. Throw out the stylus, use finger, need to start from scratch.
• Jobs confirms they started with tablet before phone [Safari Pad stories FTW!]
• Jobs claims he had idea for glass display with multitouch, Apple techs did it, Apple UI got inertial scrolling working, Jobs thought it would make an amazing phone.
• Jobs doesn't want US to become a nation of bloggers [ouch!], need editors.
• Newspapers need to think like internet business, aggressive on price and go for volume.
• iPad is to PC what cars are to trucks. We're moving from farm computing to city computing [!]
• What about App Store control and responsibility? Jobs says iPhone has 2 platforms, HTML5 and App Store. HTML5 [Safari] is completely open.
• Doing the best they can with approval process, don't anticipate everything, make mistakes.
• Seems to say Gizmodo bought stolen property and tried to extort him, can't let that slide, would rather quit.
• Apple iAds, going into ad business. Thinks competitor ads "suck". No one else is making good ads.
• Apple takes privacy seriously. Jobs takes shot at Google "Wi-Fi collection".
• Apple was angry at Flurry for pulling unreleased device data out of apps. That's what caused the crackdown on analytics. Can't take that data and turn around and sell it. No excuse for not asking customers if they can take data. When Apple calms down they might discuss it further.
• Working on better ways to share content, maybe file system access (said "a lot of things" being worked on).

Walt Mosspuppet interviews Steve Jobspuppet about the iPad, and for everyone who's loving to hate on Apple's latest mobile device, well... watch this and try not to gloat to much.

Warning: not safe for work due to language (NSFW-L). Video after the break!

Marc Edwards is one of the well known team behind Mac Dashboard Widget aces iSlayer and iPhone development house bjango, whose apps include Jobs, Cities, Darkness, and Phases, and he was kind enough to sit down and talk App development and ecosystem with TiPb.

TiPb: Your team is famous for their Mac OS X Dashboard widgets, was developing for the iPhone really the easy transition some have suggested?

Marc: For us, yes. Our widgets have used Cocoa plugins for quite some time. A lot of widgets are straight HTML, Javascript and CSS though, which is very different to what's needed for iPhone apps.

Was there anything substantially different about developing for the iPhone? If so, did you learn anything that you will effect your future Mac development?

The biggest lesson seems to be quality. Apple have some great bundled apps, so if you want to fit in, you'd better make sure you spend as much time as they do on the small details. The effective hit area of a human finger also means you have can only have a small number of buttons on screen at once. That keeps you on your toes—almost everything has to be contextual, which is quite different to traditional Mac development.

With some of Apple's built in Apps, like Stocks, Weather, etc. seeming more like OS X widgets than real Apps, there was once speculation that Apple may open up a widget platform for the iPhone as well. With both WebApps and App Store apps, do you think there's still a place for a dedicated iPhone widget development system?

There probably isn't much point in a development platform between web apps and App Store apps... Apple can and will keep on extending WebKit, allowing for better web apps that look and behave more like App Store apps. That's probably enough for anyone who doesn't want to develop using Cocoa.

So the line between the two is close enough to not warrant another choice. But hey, who knows what Apple will do!

There been ongoing controversy about the App Store and how to both get exposure for apps and earn a fair living off their development. Do you think app developers are currently racing to the bottom, and pricing themselves out of business, or do you think volume and building user base will prove a viable model long term?

I don't think pricing is as much of an issue as others seem to. We're talking about a platform with millions of users (don't forget iPod touch users when adding up the total). A huge portion of those users seem to buy apps.

If anything, I think we will see some more expensive apps appear, as all the small ideas get done well enough that each app type has a clear winner. Once the low hanging fruit is gone, developers will probably head towards bigger projects.

Either way, I'm not sure less than $5 is a bad pricepoint for an app. Just make sure you have a very good, very small team developing it and you'll be fine.

Now that the numbers are approaching 10,000, what could Apple do to make iPhone apps more discoverable by end users?

Search results ordered by rankings. A "newly popular" section might work too. I think it's going to be fairly difficult to keep iTunes as it is for music while making it work for the App Store too. I'm sure they'll figure it out though. These kinds of things have been working well on web 2.0 sites for years.

What are your thoughts on the new "rate upon deletion" feature of iPhone OS 2.2? Is this unfair to developers who may get more negative reviews now? (fair disclosure, I've only give 4 and 5 star reviews to Apps I've deleted).

For Apple to build better search and ranking tools, they need all the good data they can get. Right now there's a lot of fairly average apps on the store, so I don't see how rate upon deletion should be something any decent developer should worry about.

I've also rated some apps well on deletion. Maybe a rate after 20th launch would be good too, although you don't want it to get in the way too much.

Thanks Marc, we really appreciate your taking the time!

bjango is the website, and the apps are all available via the iPhone App Store (iTunes Link)

Mark Jardine and Paul Haddad of Tapbots are the breakout designers and engineers behind Weightbot (iTunes link), one of the most original user experiences released on the iPhone App Store to date. Continuing the iPhone blog's behind-the-scenes look at iPhone application development, Mark and Paul were kind enough to take time and discuss their ideas on interface and interactivity, and how what more we might expect from Apple's next generation mobile platform.

TiPb: How was approaching the iPhone interface for this App different than how you would have approached an interface for another platform?

Mark: It was really different coming from a web design background. 320x460 isn't a lot of space to work with and then you have to factor in the huge difference in input devices. A person's finger is a lot less accurate than a mouse cursor. At the same time, I wasn't designing a website so I was freed from a lot of rules and conventions I've been following over the past 8 years. So my initial approach was pretty simple. If Weightbot was an actual physical device, how could I make it usable and fun at the same time?

Paul: The thing I found challenging about dealing with the iPhone interface is that users want a silky smooth and yet the iPhone and iPod touch are both very slow compared to any modern Mac. I spent a lot of time juggling things around in order to get a consistent 60 fps for all the various animations within Weightbot. Coming from our current Multi Gigahertz, Multi Gigabyte and Multi Core world where for the most part you don't have to worry about performance to a platform like the iPhone where every cycle and byte counts is a big change.

TiPb: Weightbot's interface is obviously both creative and innovative. Is the robot theme something that came to expressly for that app, or does it exemplify a personal style of interaction that you can see pushing further in future with different types of Apps.

Mark: The whole robot theme sort of just fell into place. That happens a lot with the work I do. I can't always sit down with a piece of paper and try to think up a whole concept from scratch. I prefer to just dive into the work and then see what ideas pop up from it.

Paul came to me one day telling me he wanted to test the iPhone market and was going to start off simple with a weight tracking app. He asked if I was interested in helping out and didn't want to spend more than a week or two on it. I think the original plan was to use all of the standard UI elements provided in the SDK, but I thought I'd let my imagination run a little and then see what Paul would think. My initial sketch was simple. It was just the shape of the iphone with the lcd as seen on the app today. One thing popped into mind at that point. It was Eve from Wall-e. Everything just fell into place from there. Weightbot was inspired by Eve, and the Tapbots idea was based on the whole concept of different utility robots in Wall-e. That was such a great movie. When I was in high school, my dream was to become a 3d modeler for Pixar. Obviously, my career went off on a tangent (along with this interview).

So now that you know the story of where Tapbots and Weightbot came from, obviously you can expect there to be more robot applications in the future.

TiPb: Given the stylization, was it difficult to balance form and function, and make sure the interface didn't take over or drown out the underlying App?

Mark: Over the years, my web design philosophy has matured. I used to be all about the flash, bang, whiz type of websites, but one day I just realized that people just want to use the site or get the information they need. That's not to say flashy sites don't have their place. I've just changed my philosophy on it. So my take on all UI design is function first, and then wrap a solid, usable design around it. The same approach was taken with Weightbot. I pictured a user balancing on his/her scale, and easily being able to enter weight data into the app with one hand and without needing too much precision or concentration.

The Wii fit is probably the best example of simplicity because it weighs you and stores your weight data automatically. It's also somewhat fun to do. The big flaw with it is you have to turn on your TV and Wii just to do it and that can get tedious if you do it everyday. I know because I have one and hardly ever turn it on anymore. So Weightbot needed to be very simple, fun enough to be motivational, and not feel like a chore to use. I'd like to think we did a pretty decent job on it.

TiPb: Did developing an interface for the iPhone change the way you may approach future interfaces on other platforms? Did you learn anything special from developing for the iPhone?

Mark: New experiences always help shape the way you think about other things. I've definitely learned a lot from the experience and I'm sure it will influence my work on the web. Maybe not from a visual standpoint, but definitely from a user experience point of view.

TiPb: You use touch and accelerometer based interactions in your Apps. Are developers fully tapping the potential of iPhone interactivity yet? What more, if anything, could Apple surface to help developers create even better user interactions?

Mark: Some developers are doing really cool stuff with it. The multi-touch screen, accelerometer, and even the mic are all input devices for the iPhone. Developers should use them to their app's advantage. Our main purpose for using them was to simplify the interface. Imagine having a "graph" button in Weightbot to switch to the graph. The button would have to be small so it doesn't make the interface busy, but then the user has to look for the button. Using the accelerometer was a no brainer. It keeps our interface clean and it's very intuitive.

Google Earth makes really good use of the accelerometer and multi-touch controls. I think games are also pushing how users can interact with the iPhone. I think the possibilities are almost limitless so we will be seeing a lot of great solutions in the future.

Paul: I don't think most developers fully tapping the iPhone at all. It'll probably be another year before we see a large number of apps that really push the iPhone. Unfortunately in the current iPhone SDK there's very little defined support for detecting things like two finger swipes or shaking the iPhone. You pretty much have to depend on accessing the accelerometer and Event code at fairly low levels. Once Apple provides some higher level support for these features you are going to see more and more developers using them in innovative ways.

TiPb: What worked out especially well for you with Weightbot? Any favorite features or elements that you're especially happy with?

Mark: I'm happy most with the pure simplicity of it. Part of me wants to say this is the final version. But we get a lot of feature requests and Weightbot is nothing without people using it. So we will do our best to make our users happy without sacrificing on the initial vision of Weightbot.

Paul: I really like the Date Slider screen, maybe its because I spent an obscene amount of time tuning it, but I really enjoy the effect of flicking the Slider and hearing it tick as it switches dates.

Mark, Paul, we sincerely appreciate your taking the time to share with us and our readers!

Tapbots is Mark and Paul's website, and their premiere application, Weightbot, is available via the iTunes App Store.

If Steve Jobs is the patron behind the concept of the iPhone, then Jonathan Ive is certainly the artist whose hand crafted its ultimate realization.

Apple's reclusive Vice President of Design recently spoke with the Independant's Claire Beale on the nature of design, winning an unprecedented six (6!) Black Pencil awards, and what drives Apple's success:

"We have a very clear focus that all the development teams at Apple share, a focus around trying to make really great products. That can sound ridiculously simplistic, almost naive, but it's very unique for the product to be what consumes you completely. And when I say the product I mean the product in its total sense, the hardware and the software, the complete experience that people will have. We push each other, we're very self-critical and we'll take the time to get the product right."

Witness, of course, the iPhone.

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