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Whenever I see stuff like this I think of Steve jobs: In 2007, right before the first iPhone launched, Steve Jobs was asked the obvious question: The design of

Whenever I see stuff like this I think of Steve jobs: In 2007, right before the first iPhone launched, Steve Jobs was asked the obvious question: The design of the iPhone was based on discarding every physical interface element consumers were used to except for a touchscreen. Would consumers be willing to give up the then-dominant physical keypads with tactile feedback for a more clumsy experience with a touch screen keyboard? His answer was brusque: “They’ll learn.”

magicalhippo 3y ago
And I still long for physical keys on my "smartphone" as I miss every 3rd letter or so on that flat surface with zero tactile feedback...
- corethree 3y ago
  Steve was prescient. He's so knowledgeable about consumers he knew that consumers would willingly take UI/UX design and back pedal by several decades just to accept the novelty of a dynamic touch screen. As much as you as a consumer hate the touch screen... consumers as a whole are the ones who chose to go this direction.
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    I think this is a misunderstanding of the UX of phones. The fact that keyboard input is harder on a touchscreen than a physical keyboard is of course a disadvantage. But it is a much smaller disadvantage than the UX gains from having more screen space for content when you're not typing. Also, a touchscreen is much better for input than a keyboard for various navigation features - panning, zooming, selection, not to mention many styles of games are all more suited to touchscreen input then keyboard input. So, the choice is between a phone with a good keyboard but half the screen size (horrible for the web, maps, photos), or a phone with a subpar but still functional keyboard with a full screen. The UX is clearly overall much much better on the second one.
    - nottorp 3y ago
      Some people had had PalmPilots for years when Jobs launched the iPhone and were wondering why no one puts a cell phone on them... Also some people (looks in mirror) had noticed that you could press buttons in apps with your thumbs even on the resistive Palm touch screens and were hoping they enlarge the scroll bars so you can at least view data without taking out the stylus. Yes, there was the Treo, but mobile internet was still crap and expensive. If i recall correctly, they even added a keyboard back because their customers thought they needed better Blackberrys?
    - corethree 3y ago
      Yeah that's one perspective of the tradeoff. I'm neutral on this actually. I think both perspectives are correct depending on your angle. The mouse and keyboard still haven't been replaced by a touch screen.
      - tsimionescu 3y ago
        > The mouse and keyboard still haven't been replaced by a touch screen. That is very much in line with what I'm saying. Where you don't have a space problem, having a keyboard and a mouse and a big screen is ideal. But just as no one is seriously considering putting a mouse on a phone, I don't see why they'd consider a keyboard as mandatory either.
  - bostik 3y ago
    The correct term for this recurring abuse of end users is "Stockholm Syndrome". Finns have an age-old saying about the same thing. Loosely translated... At first it hurts. Then you get used to it. And then you start to like it.
    - nottorp 3y ago
      Unfortunately it's not abuse when your alternatives are Windows [1] on the desktop and Android on mobile :( It's sad that Apple has no meaningful competition. Not because they're the best, but because they suck the least. [1] I make a living on Linux but where's that consistent experience desktop? I think I won't live to see it.
      - bostik 3y ago
        The truly sad thing is, there was a killer form factor for phones. N900. Full touchscreen, with a slide-out physical keyboard. It wasn't a perfect device, far from it. The details of the form factor were still off: the device was too thick, and the keyboard was part of a heavy "base". It slid out too little for the keyboard to be properly useful. The screen was the wrong size, with an awkward aspect ratio. But nonetheless, N900 had the right idea. With three or four hardware revisions it could have become something magnificent. Instead what we have right now is like the Zork opening from an alternate universe - "you are in a maze of twisted options, all equally shitty." Btw, the consistent desktop experience exists right now. It's called "i3" or "sway", depending on your display tech.
        nottorp 3y ago
        “Sway is a wayland compositor”. Does that give a consistent experience across applications? Or at least a taskbar that doesn’t visibly add and remove icons every time they refresh, recalculating sizes and shrinking and growing all the time? Which was kde’s state last time I used Linux as my main deskop…
        bostik 3y ago
  - zevon 3y ago
    When he said that, he knew well how much prior work had gone into touch- and multitouch-based interfaces, including lots of work outside Apple such as technical developments and a long tradition of HCI research into such interfaces with end users. However, "they'll learn" sounds much more catchy and visionary than "based on doing our homework thoroughly, we have built a grounded theory on how culture and technology have developed to the point where we can sell a newly and nicely packaged thing - and where we are able to mass produce it". In other words: Apple's thinking process about what to build when and how to shape it are not prescience at all - they are science. They very carefully look at as much context as possible, including - but not limited to - what users (say they) want. Jobs was great at making those processes look visionary and magical which was (very) good for internal and external marketing.
    - corethree 3y ago
      Obviously prescience doesn't exist. I just used the term to illustrate his instinctive ability to predict things beyond the typical data driven way we worship nowadays. It's not science either. Science requires data and the data overwhelming showed that consumers preferred physical keyboards. Puahing the iPhone requires one to actually go against the science and against the consumer data. It's unlikely any internal marketing or design team led the way here as their approach would likely be science based. Jobs most likely led the way by intuiting how consumers would change based off of his own experience with the prototypes. Certainly not super human, but a bit more smarter than your average consumer research scientist to be able to make an analysis that not only goes above science, but against it. People worship science as the one and only infallible method to answer questions. That's not true. Science needs data and many questions just don't have data available to build an answer. For this kind of thing you need to use induction.
      - esafak 3y ago
        I found "Creative Selection: Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs" worthwhile reading on this matter.
      - zevon 3y ago
izacus 3y ago
Steve Jobs also thought the phones don't need apps despite customers telling him otherwise. The customers were right. He also thought they don't need 3G despite what customers told him. The customers were also right. He also thought that they don't need copy/paste. The customers were, again, right. Cherry picking data is great, isn't it?
- corethree 3y ago
  Relax man. He's not right about everything but he's right about keyboards. There's no cherry picking data here because Im not using the data to support some point about Steve Jobs being some sort of god like prophet. I didn't even make a point. I just said that it made me think about this. My thoughts on consumer data is that some data is valid some isn't. It's like asking a woman for dating advice. Sometimes she gets it but a lot of the time it's better to ask for advice from a man who fucked a lot of women. Just to spell it out. Consumers are women. Steve jobs is the man who fucked a lot of women.

magicalhippo 3y ago

And I still long for physical keys on my "smartphone" as I miss every 3rd letter or so on that flat surface with zero tactile feedback...

corethree 3y ago
Steve was prescient. He's so knowledgeable about consumers he knew that consumers would willingly take UI/UX design and back pedal by several decades just to accept the novelty of a dynamic touch screen. As much as you as a consumer hate the touch screen... consumers as a whole are the ones who chose to go this direction.
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  I think this is a misunderstanding of the UX of phones. The fact that keyboard input is harder on a touchscreen than a physical keyboard is of course a disadvantage. But it is a much smaller disadvantage than the UX gains from having more screen space for content when you're not typing. Also, a touchscreen is much better for input than a keyboard for various navigation features - panning, zooming, selection, not to mention many styles of games are all more suited to touchscreen input then keyboard input. So, the choice is between a phone with a good keyboard but half the screen size (horrible for the web, maps, photos), or a phone with a subpar but still functional keyboard with a full screen. The UX is clearly overall much much better on the second one.
  - nottorp 3y ago
    Some people had had PalmPilots for years when Jobs launched the iPhone and were wondering why no one puts a cell phone on them... Also some people (looks in mirror) had noticed that you could press buttons in apps with your thumbs even on the resistive Palm touch screens and were hoping they enlarge the scroll bars so you can at least view data without taking out the stylus. Yes, there was the Treo, but mobile internet was still crap and expensive. If i recall correctly, they even added a keyboard back because their customers thought they needed better Blackberrys?
  - corethree 3y ago
    Yeah that's one perspective of the tradeoff. I'm neutral on this actually. I think both perspectives are correct depending on your angle. The mouse and keyboard still haven't been replaced by a touch screen.
    - tsimionescu 3y ago
      > The mouse and keyboard still haven't been replaced by a touch screen. That is very much in line with what I'm saying. Where you don't have a space problem, having a keyboard and a mouse and a big screen is ideal. But just as no one is seriously considering putting a mouse on a phone, I don't see why they'd consider a keyboard as mandatory either.
- bostik 3y ago
  The correct term for this recurring abuse of end users is "Stockholm Syndrome". Finns have an age-old saying about the same thing. Loosely translated... At first it hurts. Then you get used to it. And then you start to like it.
  - nottorp 3y ago
    Unfortunately it's not abuse when your alternatives are Windows [1] on the desktop and Android on mobile :( It's sad that Apple has no meaningful competition. Not because they're the best, but because they suck the least. [1] I make a living on Linux but where's that consistent experience desktop? I think I won't live to see it.
    - bostik 3y ago
      The truly sad thing is, there was a killer form factor for phones. N900. Full touchscreen, with a slide-out physical keyboard. It wasn't a perfect device, far from it. The details of the form factor were still off: the device was too thick, and the keyboard was part of a heavy "base". It slid out too little for the keyboard to be properly useful. The screen was the wrong size, with an awkward aspect ratio. But nonetheless, N900 had the right idea. With three or four hardware revisions it could have become something magnificent. Instead what we have right now is like the Zork opening from an alternate universe - "you are in a maze of twisted options, all equally shitty." Btw, the consistent desktop experience exists right now. It's called "i3" or "sway", depending on your display tech.
      - nottorp 3y ago
        “Sway is a wayland compositor”. Does that give a consistent experience across applications? Or at least a taskbar that doesn’t visibly add and remove icons every time they refresh, recalculating sizes and shrinking and growing all the time? Which was kde’s state last time I used Linux as my main deskop…
        bostik 3y ago
- zevon 3y ago
  When he said that, he knew well how much prior work had gone into touch- and multitouch-based interfaces, including lots of work outside Apple such as technical developments and a long tradition of HCI research into such interfaces with end users. However, "they'll learn" sounds much more catchy and visionary than "based on doing our homework thoroughly, we have built a grounded theory on how culture and technology have developed to the point where we can sell a newly and nicely packaged thing - and where we are able to mass produce it". In other words: Apple's thinking process about what to build when and how to shape it are not prescience at all - they are science. They very carefully look at as much context as possible, including - but not limited to - what users (say they) want. Jobs was great at making those processes look visionary and magical which was (very) good for internal and external marketing.
  - corethree 3y ago
    Obviously prescience doesn't exist. I just used the term to illustrate his instinctive ability to predict things beyond the typical data driven way we worship nowadays. It's not science either. Science requires data and the data overwhelming showed that consumers preferred physical keyboards. Puahing the iPhone requires one to actually go against the science and against the consumer data. It's unlikely any internal marketing or design team led the way here as their approach would likely be science based. Jobs most likely led the way by intuiting how consumers would change based off of his own experience with the prototypes. Certainly not super human, but a bit more smarter than your average consumer research scientist to be able to make an analysis that not only goes above science, but against it. People worship science as the one and only infallible method to answer questions. That's not true. Science needs data and many questions just don't have data available to build an answer. For this kind of thing you need to use induction.
    - esafak 3y ago
      I found "Creative Selection: Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs" worthwhile reading on this matter.
    - zevon 3y ago

izacus 3y ago

Steve Jobs also thought the phones don't need apps despite customers telling him otherwise. The customers were right. He also thought they don't need 3G despite what customers told him. The customers were also right. He also thought that they don't need copy/paste. The customers were, again, right. Cherry picking data is great, isn't it?

corethree 3y ago
Relax man. He's not right about everything but he's right about keyboards. There's no cherry picking data here because Im not using the data to support some point about Steve Jobs being some sort of god like prophet. I didn't even make a point. I just said that it made me think about this. My thoughts on consumer data is that some data is valid some isn't. It's like asking a woman for dating advice. Sometimes she gets it but a lot of the time it's better to ask for advice from a man who fucked a lot of women. Just to spell it out. Consumers are women. Steve jobs is the man who fucked a lot of women.