iPhone: Revolution by Evolution

There are already enough blogs and articles out there about the pros and cons of Apple's new iPhone, lawsuits and trademarks aside. I'll point to some below. While the iPhone is revolutionary in a way, it's really more evolutionary. Just about every major feature has been around for a while. But to Apple's credit, they were the first to figure out how to put them together into a great solution.

• They finally replaced the hardwired keypad with more reasonable controls for a gidital device.


• They seemed to grasp how to use adaptive interfaces in a way Microsoft never figured out.


• They realized that a touch-screen is normally touched with the most powerful point-and-manipulate devices known to man.

Of course, since it is a revolution by evolution, that (hopefully) means it's better than what came before, but still not perfect. The most interesting discussion I think is Tog's view at The iPhone User Experience: A First Look. It is a very thorough review, with an interesting discussion of the amazing intuitability of the multi-touch screen and the history of the "pinch-spread" interface. (Shoulda patented, Tog). And Ryan Pearson's Everything's got a down side describes network compatibitily and storage expansion problems, and more importantly the longevity limits of touchscreen hardware.