[LINK] Disaster management on an Apple iPhone

[Adam Todd]

At 11:07 AM 17/07/2007, Stilgherrian wrote:
>http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/475-designing-for-the-iphone-is-a-refresh
>ing-experience
>
>     I remarked that I loved the constraints. For example, we know
>     the exact screen size/resolution, we know the exact typeface,
>     we know how the face renders on the screen, we know the colors,
>     we know the browser, etc.
>
>     Then Ryan nailed it: Designing for the iPhone is like a hybrid
>     of print and web design.
>
>     The web we all know is rife with uncertainty. We don¹t know
>     the viewer¹s screen size or resolution, we don¹t know the
>     gamma of someone¹s screen, we don¹t know if they¹ve got a
>     certain typeface and/or exactly how that face renders on in
>     their browser, we don¹t know the browser they¹re going to use,
>     etc.

Hang on, this is a puff piece!

Some people have iPhones and some people have 
Sony Erricson K610's.  Everyone with a SE K610 
has the same sized screen, the same browser, the 
same colours, the same keyboard and interface.

What's the diff between an iPhone and a 
K610?  Nothing, some people have one, some have the other.

>     But paper, on the other hand, is full of controls. Fixed size,
>     fixed faces, fixed colors. What you print is exactly what
>     someone sees (assuming you¹ve done your homework on color and
>     paper, etc).

But an iPhone is not the electronic equivalent of 
paper.  If it was, then the $600 price tag would 
be $24.99 per ream and you'd be able to buy one at any supermarket.

Paper isn't locked to a carrier who will provided 
limited coverage.  Paper can be use din ANY 
PRINTER be it a HP, Canon, Epson, Lexmark 
etc.  It can be used with a variety of inks, and 
in most cases when you send a graphic file from 
one part of the world to the other and they print 
it on a colour printer, the likeness is pretty damn close.

I'll bet my K610 themes won't work on an iPhone, 
yet I can print them to paper and I can print 
them on any printer on any kind of paper and I get the same results.

>     So the iPhone is a weird mix. It¹s the web, and things can
>     scroll, and the data is pulled from remote servers, but it¹s
>     also a fixed width, a fixed browser, fixed typefaces, etc.
>     It¹s pretty cool and a really refreshing design exercise.

Yep, so is my k610.  It's just that the k610 has 
a smaller screen, but it's adequate for the job 
it needs to do - make phone calls.  Actually 
strangely enough 20 years ago I didn't have a 
phone with a display on it at all.  So a full 
colour LCD is really something "added"

>     In other ways it¹s also like going back to the early days of
>     the web when people¹s connections were a lot slower. The EDGE
>     network and mobile phone latency emphasizes the need to keep
>     page size down, images sparse, etc. It¹s a return to the
>     power of text, shape, color, and basic HTML.

Oh gawd, you mean people are going to design web 
sites that fit in 64K per page download - like I still try to do?

>Of course some Linkers will hate 37Signals' products because they have the
>temerity to use JavaScript, but hey...

Well that's not really server based execution is 
it.  Javascript is client based application execution.

More puff!