The iPhone (or iPod Touch) is very easy to use, my five years old son can use it at once. It’s not only a better mobile phone or MP3, it’s a powerful PDA or a computer indeed. I summarize some respects here.
- Drag to scroll. While draging a finger, the mostly action is to scroll. This is very creative and different to other devices. It’s the most important characteristic I think, it’s the key reason that iPhone is so easy to use and so different. But this is a double-edged sword, because of this design, the “drag to select” and “copy & paste” functions are lost.
- Big screen with reasonable resolution. Big screen is easy to read, looks more high-end. In contrast, very high resolution is not a very important respect. Some other devices equipped a smaller but higher resolution screen, for example: 640 x 480, it’s hard to read on it.
- Good looking fonts. I enjoy the reading experience on iPhone. I like the digital clock on the lock screen very much, though there are just a few numbers, but I think it’s an art work indeed.
- “Real browser”. Safari is the best browser on mobile devices.
- Double tap to zoom in. This is important for a mobile device.
- Online store. User could download music, movie, app by iTune very easy.
- Well defined interface elements and design guide. Every control looks beautiful and large enough for operating by fingers.
- Multi-touch. This is not important, but makes iPhone very cool.
- Built-in accelerometer. This is not important, but makes iPhone more fun.
- As every product designed by Apple, it’s clean and elegantly.
iPhone is a great product, I like to watch it, hold it, taking it everywhere. But like other products of Apple, in some respects, maybe “It just works”, hope Apple could add more powerful functions to it. BTW, I want to point out that I realy enjoy the experience of developing app for iPhone, it’s amazing and feels like in a dream.
Tags: interface design, user experience