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On Design

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I saw a post over at CNet asking “Has Apple lost its design edge? Not quite” (It’s a Q&A post and the question was asked by an emailer). The question got me thinking about design.

If you’ve ever watched Jonathan Ive talk about design, you’ll be able to guess why certain products haven’t been redesigned yet. The newest versions of the iPad and iPhone look virtually identical to their predecessors. In the documentary Objectified, Ive says something like there’s a point where something is so simple and intuitive it doesn’t appear to be designed. 

A great design disappears. That was one of the goals of the Amazon Kindle. Jeff Bezos said he wanted the device to disappear so you could just read. The device should not get in the way of its function.

Currently, the iPad and iPhone are at a point where they don’t need to be redesigned for function. Added to that, the current generation of devices can take advantage of the previous manufacturing process. 

Some people want everyone else to know that they have the latest and greatest product – hence the success of perceived obsolescence. Arguably, Apple wants the world to know that everyone is using its products, not necessarily its latest. 

 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0fe800C2CU]Clip from “Objectified”

The Privacy Panic: It’s a good thing

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I’m currently scouring the news and seeing lots of privacy concerns and security issues with pretty much every major operating system, mobile or otherwise. My initial reaction to the panic was that perhaps it was overblown. Then I realized something. This is kind of a milestone in technology and computers – in a good way.

It used to be that Internet concerns and computer security were limited to a special class of people, “nerds.” What’s happened in the past five years or so has been an explosion in personal devices. Laptops can handle the needs of many. With smartphones and tablets, people are using connected electronic devices much more than they used to.

Now the concerns of the “normal person” come in to play because it’s not just nerds who are connected all the time. So while it may appear that any time a phone sends data to a server that people are freaking out – it’s really the general public learning how these systems work. 

The days where a person would have to bring their device to their nerdy friend to figure something out – those days are ending. Knowing where your settings are on your phone or Facebook is slowly becoming the norm. Bring on the security concerns and privacy panic because it’s actually a mass education – and that’s a good thing.