The iPhone User Experience: A First Look

Bruce Tognazzini founded the Apple Human Interface Group, whenever he weighs in, I link.

iPhone is revolutionary, not a big surprise coming from Steve Jobs. He knows how to gather a tiny team of brilliant young minds and work them half to death until they innovate beyond any reasonable expectations. He has the common sense to know what will ultimately find favor. And he has the hardened-steel man parts to take a chance and roll with it. What's a pity is that so few others in this industry share those triple strengths.

I couldn't agree more. Particularly about:

What's a pity is that so few others in this industry share those triple strengths.

I'm ambivalent, because I want Apple to compete well, but what I really want is those amazing gadgets. The ones that push the envelope of what's possible while still paying an extreme degree of attention to asthetic details and user experience. I am insatiable in this regard so it wouldn't hurt my feelings at all if more companies were actually able to compete with Apple for my business.

I have yet to get my hands on an iPhone?frustrating! (You can imagine Bill Gates?s frustration. He probably has a cadre of engineers ready to take it apart, put it back together with a couple of screws missing, and paint it brown.)

Now that's funny.

(OK, OK, I?m biased. I am owned and operated by Verizon because they truly do have the network?I left Cingular because they didn?t?yet I want an iPhone. So shoot me. Or, better yet, call me in 2009 when Apple's ?exclusive contract? with Cingular comes to an end and tell me I can buy an iPhone now.)

That is true in New York. No other provider works in my apartment. I've tried them all. Verizon owns me too. I would like to buy a Verizon iPhone, but Verizon would probably lobotomize it like they did with the Treo 700p. I'll probably end up with both for the next two years.

email echoes the voicemail interface. It is clean and simple. What is startling is the apparent hard separation of email, SMS, and voicemail. What I would want is a single list, defaulting to the newest and unread/unheard first. I don?t care about the medium, and neither should iPhone.

I completely agree. See Togs article for his reasons.