Riccardo Mori

Poche ore al nuovo iPad

March 7, 2012

Nel momento in cui scrivo, mancano poco meno di cinque ore all’evento Apple in cui verrà presentato l’iPad di terza generazione (qualunque sia la sua denominazione finale). Come ebbi a dire a un amico in occasione della presentazione di iPhone 4S, questi sono i momenti in cui la grande Rete si riempie di fango, ovvero delle sciocchezze più varie. Quello dei siti di rumour sta diventando sempre più un circo, o un mercato di paese dove tutti strepitano dalle loro bancarelle cercando di vendere la propria mercanzia. Solo che almeno nei mercati di paese, spesso si trova qualcosa di buono.

In questa marea fangosa, destinata ad alzarsi nelle prossime ore, per ora spiccano alcuni interventi intelligenti. Quello con cui mi trovo più allineato proviene da Marco Arment, che nel suo recente post intitolato “Disappointing” iPad 3 Speculation (cioè Ipotesi su iPad 3: ‘deludente’) scrive:

Il primo iPad: deludente. Poi Apple ne ha venduti 15 milioni.

L’iPad 2: deludente. Ma Apple ne ha venduti 40 milioni (finora). […]

[Di come sarà l’iPad 3] ne so quanto voi, ma vi posso garantire che l’iPad 3 deluderà molti commentatori tecnici da poltrona, ‘analisti’, e chiunque ricavi denaro dal traffico che riceve il suo sito (comodo, vero?).

Quando verranno introdotte le specifiche e i miglioramenti [di iPad 3], considerate il lancio di iPad 2 e le successive ‘delusioni’ dei commentatori da poltrona. […] L’iPad 2 era il risultato di molte migliorie di scarsa o moderata entità. Molte di esse, prese singolarmente, sembravano ben poco interessanti.

Ma la somma di tutti quegli aggiornamenti ha creato un prodotto drasticamente migliorato. Se state usando un iPad 2 da un po’ di tempo, andate a prendere un iPad 1 per capire cosa intendo. Forza, tenetelo in mano. Poi fateci qualunque cosa. Vedete?

Cerchiamo di tener presente tutto questo quando reagiremo all’introduzione del nuovo iPad domani [oggi].

Perché anche se l’unico aggiornamento dovesse essere lo schermo Retina, si tratta di un aggiornamento coi fiocchi.

Per quanto mi riguarda, di fronte a eventi Apple di questa caratura mantengo sempre una posizione socratica: so di non sapere. Mi piace osservare sempre a posteriori, con informazioni concrete con cui impostare una discussione. Tutto quel che c’è prima è tirare a indovinare più o meno bene. Due cose soltanto so del nuovo iPad. La prima è che Apple ne venderà una quantità spropositata. Secondo me attirerà da una parte chi non è ancora utente iPad (come il sottoscritto) e che non ha voluto rischiare l’acquisto del primo iPad e non ha acquistato l’iPad 2 perché non aveva (come molti si aspettavano) lo schermo Retina; dall’altra parte iPad 3 molto probabilmente attirerà una fetta di utenti di iPad 1, perché il salto prestazionale fra i due dispositivi sarà più netto. L’iPad 3 sarà per i possessori di iPad 1 come iPhone 4 è stato per i possessori di iPhone 3G.

La seconda cosa che so del nuovo iPad è che finalmente, dopo lunga e snervante attesa, me lo comprerò. Le specifiche tecniche di iPad mi hanno sempre interessato relativamente. Chi se ne frega del processore e della RAM, quel che conta è l’esperienza utente. Avendo una vista non perfetta, però, ho voluto aspettare l’arrivo dello schermo Retina anche su iPad, per questo ho resistito finora all’acquisto. A convincermi definitivamente che valesse la pena attendere è stato il passaggio da iPhone 3G a iPhone 4: grazie allo schermo Retina mi sono sorpreso a leggere molto di più (articoli e libri) su iPhone di quanto avessi creduto. Ipotizzo che, a maggior ragione, il nuovo iPad per me sarà un imprescindibile strumento di lettura e probabilmente il mio unico lettore di libri elettronici.

E chissà quali altre novità ci aspettano fra poche ore. Magari dettagli che di per sé, parafrasando Arment, dicono poco, ma che messi insieme produrranno la classica ‘invenzione’ di Apple che farà dire a molti, Perché nessuno ci ha pensato prima?

Rebuilding the toy box

March 5, 2012

by Riccardo Mori

Tech Life

In the last weeks, I’ve been reading a few contributions to the argument ‘The iOS Home Screen is broken and needs a rethinking’. I have already written something about it, but I wanted to delve into it a bit more, trying to ask some challenging questions to those who voice their dissatisfaction with this allegedly problematic iOS Home Screen yet don’t seem to be clear about exactly what kind of changes they’d prefer.

Most of iOS’s interface is a container, a toy box defined by its contents. Look at your iPhone or iPad and mentally remove all the applications (toys): what’s left? Very little. It’s like a big folder with zero elements. The interface basically consists of icons you push to get what you want. It’s also modular: you extend it by adding applications (both in the sense of new software and new uses/features).

In the beginning, iOS had only two major layers: the Springboard, showing all the installed apps, and the Application layer, that is whatever you see when you’re inside an application.

Then, after the launch of the App Store, and as more and more apps were created and made available, some adjustments to the toy box (I prefer this term over ‘container’) had to be made, because having screens over screens of apps was quickly getting unmanageable from a usability standpoint. So Folders were introduced. Perhaps for some it hasn’t been an elegant or definitive solution, but at least has mitigated the problem (I had reached nine full screens on my iPhone before, now I’m down to five).

Then multitasking came, and with iOS 5 Notification Centre came too, so that now iOS has four major layers (from top to bottom):

1. Notifications
2. Springboard // 3. Multitasking tray
4. Applications

Now, in my opinion, Apple has managed to do something incredibly difficult: on one side it had to make the toy box more complex to accommodate new features and keep it manageable as users pour more applications into it; on the other, Apple has been able to maintain the user interface as simple and as consistent as possible. Compared to the first-generation iPhone, very few new gestures or commands have appeared during these years. The learning curve has remained consistently low. Yet, feature-wise, if you put the first iPhone with iPhone OS 1.x and an iPhone 4S with iOS 5 side by side, there’s an abyss between them.

Let’s get back to iOS’s interface as a container. As I said before, an iOS device without applications is an empty shell, with an empty screen save for a status bar at the top. Some of iOS’s main functions, when it comes to user interface and interactions, are:

Providing a way to organise and arrange its contents
Providing a way to manage active applications (multitasking)
Providing ways to handle documents and data produced by applications
Providing ways to handle certain data across applications (e.g. copy/paste)
Providing ways for applications to communicate/interact with the user (e.g. notifications, statuses, etc.)

Of all these functions, only No. 1, 2 and 5 are pertinent to the ‘iOS Home Screen is broken and needs fixing’ argument. iOS’s model so far has been quite simple: everything is built on applications represented by icons, virtual buttons you push to activate. So, if the Home Screen is broken, how can you fix it, how can there be innovation without changing the model? And if the model has to change, what is a better (simpler, more usable, friendlier) model? I may have missed something, but I can’t think of any change in iOS’s model that doesn’t also complicate things conceptually, visually, and gesturally.

iOS and iOS devices need applications to have sense. So the interface has to deal with them one way or another. It’s a touch interface, so the ‘apps as buttons to push’ makes sense. Then you have more apps, more buttons you need to arrange inside the toy box; if you want to change the Home Screen, you have to introduce some change that is bound to be disruptive in a way or another. Some people seem to like the idea of introducing app icons that are more informative and animated, like the Live Tiles of Windows Phone 7. Sure, I for one think that it’s about time for the Clock icon to start moving and showing the current time. It’s 10:15 since 2007! Same goes for the Weather app, stuck at “Sunny — 23°C” since forever. But any more than that, and you have to increase the icon size to be able to show more detailed information.

A ‘simple’ change like ‘let’s make the icons bigger, animated and informative’ is likely to create a snowball effect. Do you make all icons bigger, allowing any application to have its icon with such characteristics? That means changing the whole iOS UI. Or do you change just the Home Screen, transforming it into some sort of powerful mix of Dashboard-like live widgets and Notification Centre? The tradeoff of such a change would be interesting: on one side you could have areas where apps show live information which could also work as a shortcut to the apps themselves (like Weather and Stocks in Notification Centre); on the other the Home Screen would get in the way if you want to have quick access to certain favourite and frequently used apps, especially if the Home Screen allowed only for a limited range of widgets to choose from.

A few days ago, Shawn Blanc wrote:

If I were a betting man, I would wager that the iOS Home screen as we know it today is not Apple’s long-term plan. My hunch is that the Home screen is still the way it is because the long-term ramifications of what it could be are huge.

A reimagined springboard is a prime opportunity for significant innovation. And significant innovation takes time.

Rebuilding the Home screen isn’t just about increasing usability. It is also about innovating at that “front-door interface” of how and where we get to the stuff on our devices (you can hardly do anything on your iPhone without going through the Home screen).

My hunch is that the Home screen is still the way it is because it has come to a point where there’s little room left to innovate inside the current model. What’s faster than seeing an app icon and tap on it to launch it? We are back to my previous question: if the model has to change, what is a better (simpler, more usable, friendlier) model? When you think about possible alternatives, remember that there is a delicate balance at stake here, the balance Apple has been so good at maintaining so far: increasing functionality without complicating the user interface and user interaction. Remember that iOS’s interface is what has won lots of non-tech people and has shown them that computer and devices can be friendly, useful and fun to use. Any future innovative move has to take into account all these factors.

What’s my take on all this, anyway? Believe it or not, I don’t think iOS’s Home Screen is as problematic as many seem to argue. The room for innovation inside iOS, in my opinion, is somewhere else, more behind the scenes than in the foreground. If you go back to my list of iOS’s main functions, those where I see room for improvement are No. 2, 3 and 4. As an improvement for 2 — Providing a way to manage active applications (multitasking) — imagine an enhanced multitasking that gives you the ability of having two apps opened at the same time, side by side (or up and down, in portrait mode). On a powerful iPad 3 with that high-definition Retina Display, it doesn’t look so far-fetched. Imagine having Pages and Safari opened side by side, importing images from the Web into a Pages document simply by tapping-and-holding, dragging and dropping from one app to the other.

As an improvement for 3 and 4 — Providing ways to handle documents and data produced by applications and providing ways to handle certain data across applications — think of iCloud. Think of an iCloud layer working as a connective tissue among apps to handle their data and providing an easy interface to interact with documents in a more cohesive manner. (This idea came to me when I saw the iCloud document storage interface in Mountain Lion).

Usability isn’t necessarily something that has to be visible in the foreground. An evolutionary step for iOS now could be in the way some things work under the bonnet. While as for the Graphical User Interface, at this point I think that any step forward has to be a revolutionary one.

Some webOS Features worth stealing

March 1, 2012

by Riccardo Mori

Handpicked

In another excellent article, titled Please Steal These webOS Features, Lukas Mathis examines a few notable features that make webOS more suitable to get work done than iOS. Now, in many discussions I’ve had both online and offline regarding topics like this — i.e. comparing different platforms to assess which makes you more productive, satisfied, etc. — I have to say that it all boils down to individual habits. There is no such thing as ‘the best workflow’. It depends on the work you’re doing. It depends on what you consider annoying. For instance, I can’t even look at the status bar on an Android phone/tablet: all those little icons crowding the status bar, so compressed against one another, constitute a bit of information my eyes perceive as ugly and cluttered. Android enthusiasts look at it as a precious source of information and are glad it’s all there.

So, if you read Mathis’ piece, you may think that he simply finds webOS superior because it fits his habits better. In part it’s probably true, but considering that one of Mathis’ main interests is user interface design and interaction, I’d think twice before dismissing his point of view too quickly.

The only way I have used an HP Touchpad and webOS is by downloading the webOS SDK and emulator and running everything inside a virtual machine. This way I miss touch gestures, but for the rest I can say the environment is quick and responsive enough to be quite usable. In other words, I have used enough of webOS to strongly agree with many of the points Mathis makes. Here’s where I agree with him the most:

Almost every time I try to use the iPhone or iPad for writing a response to an email that is longer than «Okay» or «I’ll be there», I have this problem: I need to refer to another email. Maybe it’s something somebody said in an earlier conversation. Maybe it’s something from the mail I’m replying to, and I’ve already deleted it. Regardless, it constantly happens to me.

On iOS, it’s almost impossible to leave a draft, read another mail, and go back to the draft. It can be done, but it’s ridiculously cumbersome. On webOS […] the new email opens in its own card that’s attached to the Mail application’s card. You can easily go back to your other mails, search them, read them, copy text from them, do whatever you want. You can even start writing another mail, and easily switch between the two drafts.

I really like the concept of ‘cards’ of the webOS user interface, and in cases like this it shows all its flexibility. It really makes in-app navigation easier and more intuitive than hitting some ‘back’ button to go back two levels to then tap and go down one level elsewhere. For this reason, I forced myself to drastically simplify my mail management on iOS.

Another great example of the validity of the ‘cards’ concept is when Mathis talks about having to compare multiple webpages at a glance in the ‘Organizing Windows’ section of his article.

I also agree with Mathis when he talks about the virtual keyboard:

To begin with, it has a number row. No more switching between different modes to type numbers. You can access them directly.

You have no idea how much I miss a number row on iOS. Not having to switch back and forth is really a time-saver.

Finally, I agree on the usefulness of webOS’s quick access to certain settings. It’s really a pity iOS doesn’t have some sort of Mac OS’s Apple menu equivalent, with instant access to settings you frequently toggle on and off, like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connection, or Airplane mode. And it’s ridiculous one has to resort to third-party applications (like the amazing Launch Center — worth every penny and a highly recommended purchase) to achieve a similar functionality.

Like Mathis, I too love webOS. I was intrigued by the potential and originality of this OS from the start, and I really hope it can survive (at least in a similar fashion as the Newton platform) the horrendous, criminal treatment HP’s stupidity inflicted on it.

I’m still looking to acquire a modern webOS device, mainly for studying the user interface and user experience, and if you have an HP Touchpad lying around collecting dust (maybe you did an impulse purchase during HP’s infamous ‘fire sale’ and found out you don’t have much use for it), and want to donate it to science or sell it at a reasonable price, please get in touch. Thank you.

Notational Velocity as a cross-machine clipboard

February 27, 2012

by Riccardo Mori

Software

My work very often involves dealing with text inside PDF files. I need to copy large chunks of text by selecting it in the PDF, then transferring it to a text editor, like BBEdit or TextWrangler (both by Bare Bones Software). To handle PDF, I’ve happily used Skim for years, and sometimes Preview. But at times I’ve encountered a couple of problems with both applications: first, some PDFs present a complex layout where text is wrapped around images or otherwise mixed with graphic elements on the page in a way that is difficult or impossible to select it in the correct paragraph sequence, so I end up with butchered or incomplete sentences, missing blocks of text, etc. Second, sometimes I receive PDFs where the text isn’t even selectable and all the pages are treated as a series of scanned images — I can’t select anything in there.

I have found that I can avoid both these problems by using an older version of Adobe Acrobat Professional (6.0.5, I believe) that I purchased a few years back. Now, this older version is a PowerPC application and I can’t use it anymore under Mac OS X Lion. So I installed it on my Power Mac G4 Cube and my PowerBook G4 12″, and when I need to handle some problematic PDFs, I do the work on these older Macs. The annoying thing is that when the work is done, I have to pass the text back to my main machine, the MacBook Pro.

The title of this article is quite self-explanatory. I wanted to share this little trick I’ve found rather useful in my workflow, to quickly copy-and-paste text across different machines. It’s nothing exceptional, and I’m sure it can be done in other ways and using different solutions. You could easily use Dropbox or some equivalent service, create a text file on Machine A, sync the file on Machine B, and then copy/paste the text you want to use. (Or iCloud, of course). With my method, you don’t even have to create a file:

Install Notational Velocity on all the machines you plan to use to move text. If you haven’t one already, create a new Simplenote account and have Notational Velocity connect with it. (Go to Preferences > Synchronization and tick the ‘Synchronize with Simplenote’ checkbox, then enter your Simplenote account details). Of course you’ll have to do this on every machine.
Create a new empty note and give it a name. Let’s call it Textboard, for example.
Copy the text on Machine A and paste it in the Textboard note in Notational Velocity.
On Machine B, launch Notational Velocity if it’s not yet open. Thanks to the Simplenote synchronisation, you should see the Textboard note and the copied text appear. On my systems, I’ve set Notational Velocity to check for remote changes every minute (this option is in Preferences > Synchronization as well, bottom of the window), so notes update rather instantaneously.
Copy the text on Machine B and paste it wherever you need it.

Once set up, this process is quicker to perform than it is to explain. Basically, it’s like using Notational Velocity (+ Simplenote) to teleport text across machines. I find this quite useful also when I start some work on a Mac and continue working on another. And since Notational Velocity supports rich-format text, I don’t even lose text formatting. Another advantage is that the latest version of Notational Velocity (which supports Simplenote synchronisation) runs on older Mac OS X versions, as old as 10.4 Tiger, so I can use this cross-machine clipboard trick even with older Macs. It also works with Macs with Mac OS X 10.3 or earlier, but instead of installing Notational Velocity, you just use the Simplenote Web app in a browser. How’s that for flexibility?

European independent Apple resellers on verge of Bankruptcy

February 26, 2012

by Riccardo Mori

Handpicked

In this interesting article, European independent Apple resellers on verge of Bankruptcy, Thom Holwerda writes:

Way back in 2005, only a few months after I joined the OSNews team, I interviewed Wim Schermer, founder and then-owner of the largest chain of Apple “Premium Reseller” stores in The Netherlands, MacSupport (now iCentre). In fact, Wim Schermer was the first Dutchman to buy a Macintosh — the original Macintosh, that is — in The Netherlands, and went on to start his Apple reseller business in 1988. While the interview covered many aspects, one thing always stuck with me: Schermer was concerned about what would happen to his business if Apple were to open an official Apple Store in The Netherlands. Seven years later, his concerns are becoming reality.

[…]

The one thing that always stuck with me was Schermer’s answer to my question about what it would mean for competition if Apple were to open an official Apple Store in The Netherlands. There have been mumblings about this topic for years now, with the first Apple Store supposedly opening up shop later this year. Here’s the question and answer in full.

You guys have been an Apple reseller for 17 years. How do you feel about Apple taking retail upon themselves with the Apple Stores? Do you expect any (un)fair competition when they open up stores in The Netherlands?

Wim: That’s of course a sensitive subject. [chuckles] Let me put it this way: if Apple plays fair with its dealers, then we barely have to compete with each other. But, it all depends on that fair play. There were occasions in America where Apple opened a retail store in a place where there also were successful dealers. And then Apple got critique on how they supplied their own stores in comparison to the independent dealers. And I think that that critique is founded.

Apple must play that game fair. If the game is played fair, and Apple supplies all stores equally, especially with new machines, then independent dealers can easily exist. The market is big enough. Look at Amsterdam. First there was only one small shop, now there are three bigger ones, and they all put food on the table.

It turns out that Schermer’s fears have materialised. Not in The Netherlands (yet), but in France. Les Echos has an article up [French] about how the first and largest authorised Apple reseller in France, eBizcuss, has filed an injunction against Apple, and is threatening to file a complaint at the competition authority in France. The reason? Apple is supplying its own stores better than its resellers. eBizcuss claims to be on the verge of bankruptcy because of it.

As always, I don’t want to generalise or make assumptions, but I had the opportunity to witness a similar situation here in Valencia. When I came here in 2005 there was only one Apple Premium Reseller, K‑Tuin, but I went there only occasionally due to the fact that the shop isn’t in a central location. Then, around 2008, another Apple Premium Reseller called Illa Digital opened shop, this time right in the city centre, in a prominent position.

When rumours that Apple was planning to open its first official Apple Store in the centre of Valencia, just a few block from Illa Digital, I wondered if the little shop could resist having such powerful official presence nearby. I wasn’t optimistic, but then I thought that maybe it could still offer its customers the ‘curated’ experience of a small shop, both regarding customer care and technical assistance.

Sadly, that didn’t happen. The official Apple Store opened on December 3, 2011 and started attracting a multitude of customers. I had to wait more than two weeks before being able to enter the Store with enough personal space around me to make it a pleasant experience. And when I happened to walk by the near Illa Digital, I couldn’t help but notice that the place was getting less and less visited by customers. Little more than one month later, roughly around mid-January, Illa Digital closed shop. From an article published by ifoAppleStore.com on January 13:

Illa Digital is just four blocks from the Calle Colón Apple store, and opened four years ago as the city’s first Apple Premium Reseller, the highest level of certification for a reseller. Illa Digital was the only reseller serving the city center when the Apple store opened last December 3rd. According to ValenciaPlaza.com, the store’s owner noticed revenue began to decline after the Apple store opened. Finally this week, the store’s owners laid off all four of the store’s employees and the store went dark.

At ifoAppleStore.com there’s also a map of Valencia’s centre, with the location of both Illa Digital and the Apple Store — very close to one another as you can see.

(Thanks to @zbrando for pointing me to the original article)