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the iPhone user experience revisited

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Last week, after Steve Jobs announced that the current development path for the iPhone is to develop web apps, I was asked by a young Mac-head why web apps aren't good enough. I see that the Cult of Mac blog is singing the same song, pointing out the crop of apps that have appeared on the iPhone application list. Of course, some of the iPhone apps are a bit on the lame side -- why exactly do I want a t-shirt search engine on my iPhone? And how exactly can PhoneDango claim to give you 'the look and feel that you're used to on iPhone'?

The lameness of some of the pre-launch iPhone apps aside, it's not that web apps aren't good enough. You can do some great things on the web (Pandora, YouTube, Twitter, MySpace, ...). The problem is that you're limited to the web metaphor for navigation: links, forward, back, etc. With a touch screen, the iPhone's interface is ripe for innovation. App developers just don't have access to the full power of the interface if they are limited to developing web apps.

Should Apple decide to make an iPhone SDK available in the future, one of the first games that we'll see on it is Breakout, which we can view as a nice little nod to the early part of Woz's career. Take a look at the interaction for Breakout. You've got a little paddle at the bottom of the screen, and you move it around to keep the ball in play. This is an absolutely perfect game for a touch screen, and will work well on such a small screen. Will this game even be possible as a web app? I did a quick search and only found Java apps, which the iPhone doesn't support at this time.

The iPhone interface promises to make some fundamental changes to the user experience. Some of them are quite subtle (how you scroll, for example). Some of these changes aren't subtle, and that's where application developers should come in. We Mac lovers have a lot of innovative apps available to us. Just think of the innovation that we would see if we let Mac developers loose on something like the iPhone.

And that's why I want an iPhone SDK. There's a lot of opportunity in the iPhone, and I want developers to be able to fully take advantage of it. This doesn't preclude some great web apps specifically developed for use on the iPhone; full apps and web apps should complement each other.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    June 19, 2007
    The irony here is that the metaphor for creating Vista Sidebar gadgets is web based as well. Most of the useful sidebar gadgets use external Dlls to get their info... I guess we'll see if iPhone apps can be as useful without that ability to drop down to the system level.

  • Anonymous
    June 28, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    June 28, 2007
    You somehow managed to come up with an example that would be PERFECTLY IMPLEMENTABLE using DHTML! I'm sure many people have already implemented breakout in HTML and JavaScript. I would have thought you would have said something about multi-touch, but no, you managed to PROVE THE POINT you were arguing against.

  • Anonymous
    June 29, 2007
    Thanks for being insulting.  That's always an excellent way to prove your point (or, if you prefer, PROVE YOUR POINT).  

  • Anonymous
    July 01, 2007
    The comment has been removed