4 ms·

If you sit experts in separate rooms and give them the same problems, often they will converge to the same solution. Whether that is due to physical limitations

by msg 15y ago

If you sit experts in separate rooms and give them the same problems, often they will converge to the same solution. Whether that is due to physical limitations, mathematical or statistical considerations, the current state of the market, what have you. There are a lot of narrow physical constraints operating in this market: the size of the human hand, the size of a fingertip, the range of human vision, the distance from the eye to the screen in terms of arm's length. There are other technology givens like the resolution of a screen that fits in the hand and the precision of touch technology. There are cultural givens to pull something apart to stretch it or push it together to make it smaller, or to advance a view by turning a page. The more you think about these problems, the more you realize how narrow the space for innovation was in them, and in fact how many of Apple's innovations were anticipated by the market. Apple got there first with the whole package and reaped the benefits in mindshare. But they shouldn't be able to seek rent on a solution that experts would create in a vacuum.

chugger 15y ago
that's like saying the Beatles are shit and anyone could've written all the songs in Sgt. Pepper.
Anechoic 15y ago
>If you sit experts in separate rooms and give them the same problems, often they will converge to the same solution. As a universal truth, I don't buy this. This is partially based on my own engineering experience, but in terms of the smartphone market I see WP7 (and to a lesser extent Palm) and see touch phone experiences that are significantly different than what Apple developed/evolved with iOS (although it is true that some of the implementation details like pinch-to-zoom are present there as well, but other details are different). There is no universal axiom that says that a smartphone experience has to look like an iPhone. I think everyone would be better off if Google took more of an independent route rather than just building an experience using bits and pieces of iOS and WP7.
- msg 15y ago
  I'm an engineer as well. I would say that in interfaces especially, we converge toward best practices globally. Your customer is not happy to have to learn a hundred interfaces or switch interfaces when they get a new device or program. For instance, the VCR. Or Windows version bumps. Or the Ribbon. They prefer one interface to rule them all, like Logitech Harmony remotes, the browser, the command line, Emacs. The current market provides some evidence. http://searchengineland.com/comscore-android-nears-50-us-smartphone-market-share-95768 http://searchengineland.com/comscore-android-nears-50-us-sma... 70% of the smartphone market is in iOS and Android, two very similar smartphone experiences. RIM's distinctive experience is at 20% and falling fast (it was at 27% in March). WP7 is an also ran at 5%. Symbian is at 2%. Palm is not in the chart. If you believe those numbers, the contest is all but over. Every non-iOS non-Android experience is failing in the market. It may not be just because of their designs, but I think you have to believe on other grounds that UX/design is the major selling point for all smartphones. The second contender might be applications, and iOS and Android are the leaders there too, by a wide margin over the field. I think Google decided to beat Apple at its own game. Whatever you believe about how they used Apple's patented material (or not) or how valid the patents are (or not), clearly at some point a decision was made to compete with Apple not just on features, but also in UI polish and look and feel. And somebody probably looked at Apple and said, how can we top that? When they couldn't, they kept it as similar as possible for a variety of reasons: the patents were too broad to be enforceable, they could justify deriving the same concepts in a vacuum because they come from well known UX principles that predate the patents, the design elements were universals that all phones should have, they should lower switching costs from iOS to Android. I agree with you that Google could have gone its own way when designing a phone experience. But I don't know that that would have been a path to success. You would only have to believe the preceding paragraph to imagine that a think-different UX could have been worse for consumers.

by msg 15y ago

chugger 15y ago

that's like saying the Beatles are shit and anyone could've written all the songs in Sgt. Pepper.

Anechoic 15y ago

>If you sit experts in separate rooms and give them the same problems, often they will converge to the same solution. As a universal truth, I don't buy this. This is partially based on my own engineering experience, but in terms of the smartphone market I see WP7 (and to a lesser extent Palm) and see touch phone experiences that are significantly different than what Apple developed/evolved with iOS (although it is true that some of the implementation details like pinch-to-zoom are present there as well, but other details are different). There is no universal axiom that says that a smartphone experience has to look like an iPhone. I think everyone would be better off if Google took more of an independent route rather than just building an experience using bits and pieces of iOS and WP7.

msg 15y ago
I'm an engineer as well. I would say that in interfaces especially, we converge toward best practices globally. Your customer is not happy to have to learn a hundred interfaces or switch interfaces when they get a new device or program. For instance, the VCR. Or Windows version bumps. Or the Ribbon. They prefer one interface to rule them all, like Logitech Harmony remotes, the browser, the command line, Emacs. The current market provides some evidence. http://searchengineland.com/comscore-android-nears-50-us-smartphone-market-share-95768 http://searchengineland.com/comscore-android-nears-50-us-sma... 70% of the smartphone market is in iOS and Android, two very similar smartphone experiences. RIM's distinctive experience is at 20% and falling fast (it was at 27% in March). WP7 is an also ran at 5%. Symbian is at 2%. Palm is not in the chart. If you believe those numbers, the contest is all but over. Every non-iOS non-Android experience is failing in the market. It may not be just because of their designs, but I think you have to believe on other grounds that UX/design is the major selling point for all smartphones. The second contender might be applications, and iOS and Android are the leaders there too, by a wide margin over the field. I think Google decided to beat Apple at its own game. Whatever you believe about how they used Apple's patented material (or not) or how valid the patents are (or not), clearly at some point a decision was made to compete with Apple not just on features, but also in UI polish and look and feel. And somebody probably looked at Apple and said, how can we top that? When they couldn't, they kept it as similar as possible for a variety of reasons: the patents were too broad to be enforceable, they could justify deriving the same concepts in a vacuum because they come from well known UX principles that predate the patents, the design elements were universals that all phones should have, they should lower switching costs from iOS to Android. I agree with you that Google could have gone its own way when designing a phone experience. But I don't know that that would have been a path to success. You would only have to believe the preceding paragraph to imagine that a think-different UX could have been worse for consumers.