So Apple really does not do any research eh? *shrug*

Lastly, I will conclude from your posts the following:
- you’re possibly blind?
- you’re bitter and annoyed that people don’t listen and your opinated.
- you have a low frustratoin tolerance.

“I’m sorry, but if I have to look at a keypad in order to make a phone call, then I can’t use your phone.”

I can’t remember *ever* being able to dial a number on a mobile phone without having to look at the numbers. I suppose if I’d entered short cuts, so I could hold down a single number to dial a person I could. But without that, I always have to look at the keypad of even a simple mobile phone. Also, I think the point about the iPhone is that people use it for lots of things other than making phone calls. If I just wanted a phone, I’d get a cheap Nokia (with a great camera, something the iPhone lacks). However, I don’t just want to make phone calls. I want to send email, text message, check my calendar, look up contacts, find my way, find a restaurant, check the weather, check our stock price, play a game on the BART, listen to music, watch a video. In short, I want to do lots of things that I used to use a computer for. For that, I’m willing to sacrifice and perhaps have phone numbers a little harder to dial.

Like the earlier michael above, I agree that tactile feedback would be fantastic, but certainly does not render a device such as the iPhone useless for a large number of users.

“I’m sorry, but the iPhone will likely go down with the Lisa as one of Apple’s blunders in design and marketing. It is a poorly conceived device made exclusively for the digital elite.”

Alas, it appears this comment, too, has proven to be a most inaccurate assessment / prediction, given the imminent release of said poorly conceived device in 24 countries tomorrow, with a further forty-something countries planned by year end.

Anyway: Your criticism is certainly valid. On the iPhone typing without looking at the screen is and remains impossible. If you want that don’t buy the iPhone. If you write E-Mails all day long, don’t buy the iPhone. Yet I would argue that leaves a rather big group which can live with this tradeoff. Having no tactile feedback is bad. True. But the days are long gone when for most people the most important thing they must be able to do with their cell phone was to dial a number and to dial it fast. Cell phones are no more just cell phones and entering data may be less important than viewing and leisurely browsing data. Thus a different approach may be ok and even needed.

Rule of the thumb:
entering data > 50% = don’t buy the iPhone
watching data > 50% = the iPhone may be for you

For me the lack of tactile feedback is less something that makes the iPhone fail as a whole but rather something you have to consider when deciding if the iPhone is for you. Lacking tactile feedback doesn’t turn the iPhone into the cell phone equivalent of Apple’s infamous “puck” mouse.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/13/technology/13phone.ready.html

The same is true of any data input device, of which a cell phone is just the latest incarnation (with PDAs). The behavior — the psychology of this behavior, if you will — is not new. It is a pretty old and well-established behavior, hence the reason for this post. We understand how people use cell phones now, since they’ve been using them for the better part of 15 (or 20) years. To suggest that Apple has discovered that the previous 15 years of learning is without use, is, well, silly (or disingenuous).

And yes, sorry, but people with disabilities shouldn’t be ignored by large companies just because they can. So nice of you, not being blind and all, to be able to post here and give your opinion on how companies shouldn’t pay any attention whatsoever to the needs of those less abled than you.

You point about the blind is simpley ridiculuous. What about the deaf? shouldnt they make a phone that is not based on audition or would that require you to use your eyes to use it. I think you will also find that having an auditory click will provide adequate feedback; besides you’re a psychologist – where’s your faith in peoples basic sensory motor plasticity and learning?

Jeez, methinks this post was an attempt to get page visits.

The Apple fans will love whatever the company produces, but that’s not what made the iPod a hit. Taking a wait-and-see attitude doesn’t make one a hater — it makes one an intelligent, functioning, reasonable human.

Thanks for a sharing a dissenting opinion, and calling attention to what is (for many of us) an obvious shortcoming. With all the press-releases-disguised-as-articles (see the Economist) out there about the iPhone, it’s a breath of fresh air.

Uh, wonder why that is? So people can use another OS on it? Huh. Price? Huh.

You seem to say Apple products are more popular once they stray from the core Apple promise.

Anyway, no one knows until it’s released into the wild, but my guess is it’s a bit large and two-handed to be used as a true mobile phone(i.e., walking down the street with a coffee in your hand).

Oh, and the big problem with the Moto/Apple iTunes phone was not the usability of the device (which has it’s own set of problems) but that Apple chose to restrict the number of songs and functionality of the music player. Plus no over the air downloads???? What’s the point?

I have a Palm Treo 700p and while I don’t have to look at the keypad to dial I do look at the screen. Hasn’t bothered me one bit. Nor millions of other Palm Treo users out there or Windows Mobile Treo users or Blackberry users or PocketPC users…..need I go on?

You really walked into this one. To claim that Apple isn’t making the iPhone easy to use is utter ridiculousness. You say you write from experience? What experience? Apple is world reknown for making already existing products/technologies/processes insanely easy and simple to use, and attractive to boot. I mean seriously, do you have a list of Apple products that the company has made that aren’t easy to use?

As you said time will tell. Apple is rumored to have 3 million iPhones ready to go at launch. They’re not a stupid company. Their inventory control is extremely good. They wouldn’t have ordered so many phones if they weren’t certain they would sell. They have an excellent track record over the past 6 or so years with creating quick selling products. Even the Mac’s marketshare has jumped since the switch to Intel processors. So why would someone as smart as you seemingly walk in front of a bus with all of that information about Apple out there and declare the iPhone is going to be a failure on par with the Apple Lisa? Isn’t reckless attention seeking a psychological disorder afterall?

Of course if you’re going to do tasks on a current phone that require a visual component (e.g., checking email, surfing the web), you need to look at the display part of the phone. But I haven’t looked at my phone’s keypad for months, just as I don’t need to look at my computer’s keyboard to type these words. That’s because both offer great usability.

Yes, I think any phone that sacrifices battery life for cool factor (hence the title of the entry) is not a good thing. I pick on the iPhone because it’s the latest/greatest to emerge. That’s why my phone also has features like turning off the screen while talking on the phone. A nice touch, surely, but not a unique Apple invention.

The article makes clear the original Apple phone was a Motorola invention. Sorry that didn’t make it into the quote, as I agree, that’s an important point. (Of course, it then begs the question — if Apple knows it designs superior products and always has had that philosophy, why would you ever release someone else’s product under your brand?)

Something that isn’t available for sale can’t really enjoy “wild popularity,” can it? I mean, the PS3 had the same thing, right, but the Wii is all my teenage nephews and their friends talk about.

Time will tell, surely, and I have no doubt Apple will sell many of these things. But, just as in the computer market, they will never enjoy more than a tiny percentage of the market share (which is probably just fine for them anyway).