iPhoneStuff.org

Ars Technica got some great information from a well-known professional usability expert, Bruce Tognazzini, including his opinions on whether the iPhone’s touch-screen interface will be the next big thing, or the next big flop. You may find the results surprising.

Naturally, besides a few elite media people, and Steve Jobs himself, no one has really had a good “hands-on” with the iPhone to test it out for usability, however, perceptions and predictions can be formed.

Bruce…

Loves:

Gives ordinary people widespread access to technologies that have otherwise been very limited for public consumption (such as multitouch and whatnot)
Very approachable, even for older folks
Visual, random-access voicemail. “It’s about time.”
Hates:

Five hour battery life, and non-replaceable battery (without a crowbar…). “That’s a bad interface,” Tog says.
Relying on public WiFi (”Public WiFi is a mess”) for Internet access, or expensive cell networks affect fundamental reliability
SMS, e-mail, and voicemail are all separated out as much as possible. “I should not have to visit three different places on my phone every few minutes to see what is happening.”
Widgets are the only add-on path for the iPhone. “I can only hope that changes.”
Needs a keyboard. Touchscreen keyboard is nice and all, but not good for extended use and takes up much of the screen.
Nits:

Desperately needs to be tested for ruggedness (is that a hint for me, Tog?)
SMS should include an interpreter to expand upon common abbreviations
Camera should be higher resolution
Facial recognition “would be a plus”
iPod interface potentially confusing, much more complex than phone interface
Safari browser on iPhone may and may not be forgiving to web pages that are not totally strict on HTML. Forgiving will be much better in the long run than not.
Maps on the iPhone should just “know” where you are and tell you how far, distance and time-wise, you are from appointments that are on your calendar

He did, however, comment on how much of an improvement on current cell phones this phone from Apple really is, saying “Traditional cell phones are dull, limited, and at end-of-life. iPhone is glorious, and it is only the beginning.”

Yes, if we can learn one thing from our technologically and cell-phonically advanced neighbours in Japan, it’s that cell phone innovation has to start somewhere, but where it leads to with competition, is limited only by imagination.

The first generation iPhone comes equipped with a two megapixel digital camera on the back of it. To see exactly what size of image to expect to see taken from this tiny camera, I have provided a scaled-down picture I took with my Canon Powershot A70 a few years ago on a frosty morning. Click on the picture to enlarge it to full two megapixel screen size.

Whether we’ll be able to get this type of macro quality out of the small iPhone camera or not is yet to be seen, but what’s not left to worry about is if the size of the photo will be enough for printing 4×6 prints, or even 5×7 prints. They will look as sharp as your skill as a photographer lets them.

A word of caution: don’t plan to be bobbing your head to the beat of a soulful tune playing on the iPod section of your iPhone while taking a picture with the iPhone camera. Doing so will likely lead you to a road of disappointment in picture quality, due to the fact that your shaking will make for blurry portraits.

Apple has been using the same typeface for all its’ iPod products for years now, and it seems they’ve carried this same marketing over to the iPhone.

To replicate exactly what this looks like, for any personal reasons, simply use the font Myriad Pro, Semibold, at its’ default kerning.

You can notice by my image comparison that the official logo seems to be a modified version of Myriad Pro, somewhat elongated on the height scale. This is especially noticeable in the “o.”