Blastyle

I would like to share a few thoughts about the touch devices from Apple (that is iPod touch and iPhone). I know that most probably all of you guys already have had two or three generations of these toys. I am also aware that there were quadrizillions of similar articles and posts around the web. I will add another one then ;) I’m going to concentrate mostly on usabilty / interaction of the device.

Ok, let’s start then.

Advantages:

1. Interaction with music is easy and pleasant, compared to some other music devices which I had used in the past- other iPods, Nokia 5800 Express Music (even though the word “music” is in its name using a music player was unusable and just very incomfortable) etc. Users are able to quickly change the view modes (artist, albums, songs, playlists) and it’s very easy to suddenly decide e.g. “I like this song, let’s see what other tracks are in this album”.
2. Genius which comes together with iTunes store which generates automatic playlists of similar tracks to the one that you specify. Works pretty well if you have a lot of music on your iPod/iPhone. I must admit that Genius is ingenious! Ok, it’s not always perfect- sometimes it gives me some unexpected surprises which make frown. But still i like it a lot.
3. Touch screen works very well for me- it’s precise and you don’t have to press at all, just touch gently and that’s it
4. Sleek, smooth feeling of a physical device. I got the feeling of interacting with professional and ellegant device
5. Web browsing with multi touch is convenient. Very positive surprise as i must admit that I was quite skeptical about it at first



6. The way you can type in special characters is brilliant. press a letter button for 2 seconds and the appropriate special letters pop up.



7. “Search” function is great- you can access it either by pressing the square button (while on the main “desktop”) or by scrolling the screen to the left side. Auto-suggest makes it possible to find the track/application just within a few seconds.



8. Method of organising the icons in the menu is smart indeed. The whole menu can be organized quickly and on the spot



9. Users need to give their bank account details if they want to use the Apple Store. I was skeptical a little at the beginning (“is it safe?”), but now I see why it’s such a brilliant solution both for the users and Apple. Having to type in the credit card number, code etc everytime you want to buy a single track or a 2$ application would be a big burden and I guess it would happen quite often that I would just resign from it and say “yeah well… whatever, too much fuss”
10. The amount of applications available for download is really big. User is able to customize his/her device and try to fully utilize the abilities that it gives to him/her
11. Buying music and/or applications is really easy and convenient. With just a few clicks you can find and download the music that you want- this is much easier compared to other music shops that you can find on the desktop / mobile web

Disadvantages / doubts:

1. Keyboard might be hard to get used to at the beginning. Especially for people with big fingers…



2. Lack of pen/pointing device- this could be a good alternative, especially if working with applications where precise input is necessary
3. Silver, shiny back of the device likes fingerprints. A LOT…
4. No multitasking. I’ve just found out that users of iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 3rd generation would be able to have multitasking after upgrading OS to the new 4.0 version (read about it here)
5. It’s impossible to delete the built-in Apple applications. Good that at least you can put all the ones that you don’t really like/use at the last, separate screen. But I guess it would be nicer to have a possibility of deleting stuff that won’t be used by you at all.
6. Memory is not expandable- the thing you bought at the beginning (8GB, 16GB, 32GB or 64GB depending on the iPod/iPhone model) cannot be upgraded.
7. Non-removable battery is worrying me. What if the battery just dies out (nothing is perfect, right?)?
8. Lack of Flash- even though it seems that Flash is slowly dying it is still quite extensively used on some of the websites. Having no Flash blocks users from using these websites- from usability point of view this is bad indeed.
9. Incosistencies of applications regarding the way it should be viewed. Some of the applications can be viewed both horizontally and vertically but some of the apps do not support it. I found myself trying to switch the view and wait for the app’s response in vain. It’s not a major issue but still annoying a bit
10. It’s not always easy to copy/move files from iPod to computer. While I was trying to copy the screenshots taken for this post I found it really hard to do that- iTunes sucks at it and since there is no possibility of “seeing” the physical files on your device I had to find some 3rd-party application for that. So incovenient!
11. iTunes is an OK tool but I guess people should not be so limited in regards to what they would like to use as their music player/ music library. I am a fan of Foobar and already have a plugin which can copy the music to the iPhone. But I have this kind of feeling that I am pressured to used iTunes and I guess that after being forced to use it many people would actually stick to it. It’s a “walled garden” business model and I understand why Apple does that- to have full control over users’ actions, applications which are downloadable, etc. For the users it means less freedom and choice. In result this means worse user experience in a long run.

To sum it up: many of the innovations implemented by Apple in iPhone / iPod Touch are really benefiting the users and add make listening to music even more pleasant. However, there are some limitations introduced by Apple which have negative impact on the usability- iTunes “dictatorship”, physical limitations (unexpandable memory).

I hope you enjoyed the article. I would be happy to hear your opinions about it- comments, suggestions?