“It!”
September 9, 2007
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The new Nano looks a little odd in the pictures but the real proof with be in seeing one in the metal. Personally, I would much rather that they put the click wheel to the left of the display and made it a wide device instead of a square device. But then, I tend to use mine left-handed, so most of the audience would disagree with me.
Turning to the touch iPod, I love everything about it except that it doesn’t have any note taking capability that I can see. If it has an onscreen keyboard for filling out forms in Safari, why not extend that by having a notepad as well; after all the iPod went beyond being a mere music player years ago, what with clocks, games, calendar etc.
Maybe the notes app really needs the predictive and intelligent keyboard software that is one of the real differentiators of the iPhone, and they’re not yet ready to share that with the lesser brother that is the iPod.
It seems that every time Apple introduces something new, I’m reminded of some other product in another field altogether that’s equally cool. The rub is that I can never place that other product; I rack my brains, but it never comes to me.
Maybe there isn’t some other product in another field at all. Maybe it’s just a reminder of some ancient low level part of the back of my brain where appreciation of just-rightedness is stored. These design elements appear to look familiar, but in actual fact, they just look “right.”
In the overall scheme of product evolution, there are some products that are revised and refined over time (and there are some that start out being refined) to a point of being just right. Then a strange thing happens; it’s almost like a sort of chaos theory — applied to design; they (according to some) become refined to the point of being perceived as boring, or bland. Then, all of the un-written rules of radius and angle and intersection go out the window… And something new and funky is born.
What pisses me off is the phenomenon whereby the funky version becomes the hit. Usually a whole new group of “fashion conscious,” or “lifestyle” users arrives and usurps the first group who really knew what was there in the first place.
This does not happen in the case of Apple, or at least Apple in the last decade or so. There are no plain stupid, or “funky” revamps, just continuous kaizen-like refinement and evolution.
The guy in the iPhone instructional video says that in the end you just have to trust in the intelligence of the software, and go ahead and type. After a fews days you’ll just fall into the intended design of the thing.
That’s how it is with the products themselves. Just trust them to know what’s best; the new nano might look fat and squat right now, but I’ll reserve judgement until I have one in my hand — hopefully then it will all make sense.
For now my delight quotient is being more than filled by the new aluminum keyboard. I can’t get over how I’ve owned this thing for several days now, and it still looks even more gorgeous every time I see it.
Not only are all the sizes, proportions and angles just right — no matter how closely I look, the construction is literally flawless. This from what’s probably the cheapest peripheral that they make.
I think I get it…
