I have developed software since 1988. I developed graphic user interfaces for the very first touchscreen device ever used in audio. I always considered the user, (I was the application engineer for the company), and always was empathetic to the programmers, (have a minor in computer science), and took both into account when designing a GUI. I’m not sure what’s going on at Apple, but I believe that Sir Jobs would probably fire a lot of the people in functionality and user interface design. They seem to be out of touch with using the actual phone. To me they have dishonored Steve Jobs wish to never make the phone bigger than the original, by making it out of glass, and by including far too many ways to gesture to the device. Sometimes I take my phone out of my pocket and it seems like it wants to delete all of my apps, because all of them are wiggling. I’m not sure how my thigh does that.
The constant improvements as they call them to the iPhone experience is frustrating. But they have got us into buying thousand dollar pieces of glass which look so beautiful but you have to buy case for, with too many features, and too many bright ideas of their own, which confuses their very own user base.
They’re making a consumer toy. They are not professional designers. That is to say they are not designing anything for use by a professional. I have great respect for all of them. Still, the product managers should be fired — if I were the king of the forest of One Infinite Loop, which is appropriately named and, without a trace of irony.
