I don’t want an iPad because I don’t want to carry around a big device just to read. I want to read on my iPhone. With one hand. (Settle down now. I need the other hand to hold a glass of wine.) But the iPhone has a small screen. Sure I can zoom, but that requires finger gestures and also scrolling to pan around. Tradeoff? Maybe not so much:
Imagine a box. Laying on the bottom of the box is a piece of paper which you want to read. The box is closed, but there is an iPhone sized opening on the top of the box. So if you look through the opening you can see part of the paper. (There is light inside the box, don’t get picky on me here.)
Now imagine that you can slide the opening around the top of the box so that even if you can only see an iPhone sized subset of the paper, you could move that “window” around and see any part of the paper. You could start at the top left of the box and move left to right and then back to the left side and read.
Suppose you can raise and lower the lid of the box so you have two dimensions of control. You can zoom in and out, and you can pan the iPhone-sized-opening around.
Now, forget about the box. The iPhone has an accelerometer. It can sense when you move it around. With software it can perfectly simulate that experience. I can read anything on my iPhone with text as large as I wish, without scrolling, by just moving the phone around. With one hand.
This should be the main UI metaphor for the whole iPhone OS.
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March 10, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Matthew
It’s a shame that when I’m using my iPhone for reading, I’m typically on the bus or subway. So:
1. Get on train.
2. Begin reading.
3. Suddenly and unexpectedly reach end of document.
March 10, 2010 at 4:51 pm
jeff
🙂 ok, we’ll have to work that one out.
March 11, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Hank Leber
Interesting idea, but Matthew has a good point.
That, and it seems the iPhone accelerometer is designed to sense tilt, not so much lateral motion. That seems like a job for the gps really, which is still only good to 200ft accuracy (give it a break, ok? It has to go to space and back).
I do agree with your not wanting to carry around a fragile, cumbersome item simply to read.
Two solutions seem to be available. And it’s not new technology:
1) pico projector – the technology has been out for at least 2 years. Everything can be a screen.
2) iPad sized flexible screen, so that it’s more like a rolled up scroll or folded up piece of paper in your bag/pocket/etc. Sony has had a prototype working since 2007.
In any case, the iPad will be a good gateway product because it will likely change the way we consume media yet again. For instance, now that it’s fully interactive and connected, will the job of magazines still be to simply tell us about the world?
March 12, 2010 at 2:41 pm
k5.user
I have no doubts that such ideas are already patented, and probably held by some IP holding firm that only exists to sue other companies.
March 18, 2010 at 8:40 am
Anonymous
not to be picky, but that would be 3-dimensional movement control!
-Naveen
June 21, 2010 at 12:54 am
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