Handful of Nothing

Well, this deserves a post because it’s exactly what I have been saying in all my talks over the iPhone. It really takes more than just “let’s do something to mimic” and what we see in the market is a bunch of frankstein trying to awfully copycat the phone without having the thing that really makes what the iPhone is: A guy who understand that user experience is everything, and that pushes it down into the company’s organization in such a way that what you get in the end is a device that was able to in it’s first incarnation set all the mobile manufactures 2 (I would say more) years behind when it comes to user experience (I already said that feature wise and hardware wise it sucks).

So take a little time to read this presentation from Peter, who beautifully put in a slideset the 10 reasons why you can morph a phone into the iPhone. here

To be able to produce inspired software, the top boss has to believe in great user experience and kick everybody’s ass to get it done. In huge companies a VP will do, but management below that level will be sidelined when trying to implement proper interaction architecture and usability processes.

In the meanwhile what we get is a lot of FranksteinPhones.

My highlights from his texts :

on Features :

This circle of dependancy is diabolic. Users and features are like children and candy. They never say no, even if stomach pains will surely follow. For developers, it is the easiest thing hand out. New features are a commodity. If you have no clue how to improve your software, you can always add new features.

Incrementally improving a mobile so that it leaves the cluster and approaches the iPhone is impossible. It is actually easier to join the iPhone’s position from above, below or the right. The only way to get there, is to jump.