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Obligatory 3G iPhone speculation (hardware)

Obligatory 3G iPhone speculation (hardware)

Picture courtesy of CNet

The lack of any iPhones for sale by Apple or its carrier partners, along with the daily torrent of press releases and rumours, all point to a new iPhone being announced at Steve’s Job’s keynote speech at WWDC on June 9th. Apple was panned by many for releasing a device whose hardware didn’t match up compared to other top-flight smartphones, and are sure to address some of these deficiencies. So what sort of phone are we likely to see there?

Without a doubt, 3G

With every other manufacturer having 3G phones on the market in June 2007, I never bought Job’s statement that it was “battery life” keeping 3G out of the first iPhone. This lack of connectivity speed is sure to be rectified. But, carrier annoucements indicate that Apple are moving from exclusive agreements, and vastly increasing the number of markets they will be selling into (including Japan and South Korea).

So they’re going for a worldwide release, but will they support more than just UMTS and HSDPA/HSUPA? Or Will Apple release multiple, localised versions of the iPhone? Maybe, but this doesn’t seem to me to fit with Apple’s way of doing things. Yet the alternative is to either only support certain types of 3G, or try and squeeze more radio hardware into the iPhone’s already large form factor. My guess is that – in keeping with Apple’s design philosophy – less is more, and that only UMTS/HSPA will be supported.

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Embracing Coverflow

Embracing Coverflow

I’m reading MEX’s Manifesto at the moment, and I’d like to bring two of the agenda issues together and consider what Coverflow-style visual browsing could add.

Coverflow for Contacts


First– “Content itself will be the interface of the future”. It talks of “…stripping away the confusion and clutter of traditional interface items…”.

Second – “Intelligent contact lists are the future centres of the user interface”.

It seems strange that mobile manufacturers are so eager to try out new hardware designs, but that software interfaces see so little innovation. The styling may change but essentially we’re still left with lists detailing your texts, email, music, contacts, etc. Notable exceptions are the ever-changing S60 multimedia interface and Coverflow on the iPhone.

Innovation in interface design should consider what users do with their device, in terms of the contexts in which they use them. I believe that the strong visual clues as allowed by Coverflow browsing could be extended to scenarios other than choosing music by album covers.

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