unraveled

Permanent link I just started a wiki page for the San Francisco UX Book Club. Who’s in? 1 Dec 08

Permanent link Oh happy day, bitching is fun again! Kvetch is back! 19 Nov 08

Cameraphone Button Basics

I recently moved from a Blackberry Pearl 8100 to an iPhone 3G. Overall, it’s been a good transition. Sure, the Blackberry interface is usually much more efficient, but the iPhone won me over with its gorgeous screen and array of high quality apps.

I was also excited about the iPhone’s camera. The auto white balance on the Pearl 8100 was so bad that every photo looked like it was taken in a snowstorm. I had seen photos taken with the iPhone and was consistently impressed. I was excited.

Here are the steps I followed to take photos with my Pearl:

  1. Unlock the phone.
  2. Apply muscle memory and press the external camera button.
  3. Wait 1 second.

And here are the steps I follow to take photos with my iPhone:

  1. Press the home or sleep/wake button.
  2. Unlock the phone.
  3. If in an application, press the home button again. If not, skip to step 4.
  4. If not on first home screen, flick to first screen. Otherwise, skip to step 5.
  5. Apply Fitts’s Law and tap Camera.
  6. Wait 3 seconds.

The difference may seem small, but as someone who was used to taking 5 — 10 pictures a day, this suddenly felt like a lot of work.

I understand that the camera isn’t a key selling point of the iPhone. Its features page hardly lists the camera as a main feature, and instead lists it as Photos + Camera.

The first paragraph boldly states “iPhone is the most photo-friendly phone ever.” Or is it really that bold? Read that again. It’s the most photo-friendly phone ever, not the most photography-friendly phone ever. Oh those clever Apple copywriters.

Now I know the camera must have been part of the iPhone’s early design. If Apple was introducing a phone in 2007, it would have to have a camera. And to their credit they included a reasonable 2.0 megapixel camera that takes decent snapshots. Okay, so the inverse shutter still makes photographers everywhere laugh, but the auto-rotation feature is pretty handy.

If the iPhone 3G was also the most photography-friendly phone ever, it would have an external camera button. Here’s how it should work:

  1. Press the home or sleep/wake button.
  2. Unlock the phone.
  3. Press the external camera button to launch the Camera app. (The same button should take a photo when in the Camera app.)

But the truth is that it actually doesn’t need an additional button — because when the iPhone is unlocked the Home Button can be double-clicked to carry out a custom action. In Settings - General - Home Button, you can configure the Home Button to go to the Home screen, Phone Favorites or iPod. There’s no reason why Camera can’t be added to that list.

There is a valid argument against including additional options because as good designers know, more options make products more complex, and they can quickly add up. If Camera gets added as an additional option, why not Contacts or Calendar or any other app? At some point the designer needs to say no, and balance what is desired vs. what is needed.

In the case of the iPhone, I would argue that the additional option is needed because whether Apple wants to admit it or not, the iPhone is a cameraphone. And as we’ve seen in more mature markets, cameraphones increasingly become the owner’s primary camera. And primary cameras have external camera buttons.

This isn’t rocket science. These are cameraphone button basics.

Permanent link Just bought the Zagg InvisibleShield for my shiny new iPhone 3G. I was considering several different cases but I decided that I liked the iPhone’s form factor to much to wrap it in anything. Thanks to @hprice for the recommendation. 21 Jul 08

Permanent link The three choices for what happens when you double-click the iPhone home button: home screen, phone favorites and iPod. If Apple really wants to drive the iPhone as a multimedia device, isn’t “camera” a natural choice to include here? 20 Jul 08

Permanent link Quicksend is a nice idea for an iPhone app, allowing you to quickly select a contact and send them a preconfigured short email, but it would be immensely more useful if it worked with SMS. 20 Jul 08

Permanent link Radar wins a People’s Voice Webby! Thanks to everyone who voted for us. Radar loves you too. 9 May 08

Permanent link Radar is up for a Webby Award in the Mobile - Social Networking category. Please vote for Radar now to help us win. Many thanks! 21 Apr 08

Permanent link Your mobile phone is your social network: Tiny Pictures just relaunched, and we’re hiring senior engineers and a front end interface ninja. 21 Feb 08

Permanent link Six Apart releases Action Streams plugin. Can I get a “hell yeah!”? I’ve wanted something like this forever. 1 Feb 08

Permanent link Bono responds to Davos Question: “Don’t change your lightbulbs, change your leaders.” 24 Jan 08

Permanent link Off-topic for unraveled but hugely important to me: Janine recently launched her new production company, Opal Productions, which specializes in the emerging interdisciplinary field of Dance for Screen. I know I’m biased but it’s hard to deny that her work is pretty amazing stuff. If you want to see artistic work at the forefront of dance and film, you should see this. 10 Jan 08

Permanent link NetNewWire is now free. For those who are already drinking the RSS kool-aid or want to try it out, this is definitely an app to look at. I personally use Google Reader, but I’ve used NetNewsWire in the past and can highly recommend it. 9 Jan 08

Permanent link I’m going to Interaction Design Association’s first conference: Interaction 08. Are you going too? Want to meet up? Get in touch! 4 Jan 08

Permanent link unraveled 2007 year in review: moved from London to Zurich to San Francisco, started a new job at Tiny Pictures and got married. I’m happy, healthy and feeling great about 2008. Happy New Year everyone. 3 Jan 08

Browse all entries in the Archives