Joan Vermette wrote:
With my old phone in that instance, I
would have quickly dialed 911 and kept my thumb poised over the "call"
button. The motion involved in that would have been:
Flipping open phone.
Feeling for raised keys on a keypad very like every other phone I've had
since 1978.
Glancing down for the call button.
Placing my thumb on it.
Holding phone in my hand.
Exactly. We (USAians) haven't improved the mobile phone experience,
we've turned computer-tethered PDAs into substandard mobile phones.
I recently spent two weeks in Japan and spent a fair amount of time
playing with their kick-ass phones and watching people use them around
the country. Softbank has to give away iPhones, that's how much better
Japanese ketai are than what we have in the states. Don't believe me?
When's the last time you paid for your subway or lunch or vending
machine with your iPhone? When's the last time you watched broadcast
HDTV on your iPhone, or used your iPhone *instead of* owning a personal
computer or laptop?
Pretty much every phone I checked out had raised buttons, including the
ones with 16:9 HD capable screens. I miss being able to blind-dial on
my G1, while I saw plenty of Japanese people doing it while walking or
riding the subway with cheaper phones.
IMHO, replacing physical buttons with a touch-screen UI falls into the
"just because we can, doesn't mean we should" bucket.
--
J. E. 'jet' Townsend, IDSA
Designer, Fabricator, Hacker
design: www.allartburns.org; hacking: www.flatline.net; HF: KG6ZVQ
PGP: 0xD0D8C2E8 AC9B 0A23 C61A 1B4A 27C5 F799 A681 3C11 D0D8 C2E8
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