[IxDA Discuss] The problem with the iPhone

Wed Jun 13 21:40:24 PDT 2007

Hi Will,

I always like it when I can provoke an impassioned reply from a blog entry.
;)

Firstly I'd like to agree with Morten's comment that there isn't a "right"
way to communicate. People communicate for different reasons, in different
social situations, in different physical environments, with different
numbers of people and about different content. Clearly one size (or medium)
doesn't fit all.

But to follow up on a few points:

   - There is a big difference in how different age groups use devices.
   Your love of voice calls is obviously not from the perspective of teens, who
   are some of heaviest and most creative users of many new communication
   technologies. Voice often works better for adults for a number of reasons. A
   significant reason might be that they were raised on land-lines and are more
   used to placing phone calls than finding chat rooms. Teens use SMS, IM,
   online communities, mo-blogging and a lot of other text based systems.

   - Potentially annoying aspects of voice communication: synchronous,
   time consuming, unneeded social introductions and closures, high bandwidth
   (with corresponding cost), loud, not private, interfering with others,
   potentially rude, not usable in loud (or especially quiet) environments,
   confusion with other simultaneous voice communications with other (present)
   actors, increase in cognitive load while simultaneously doing other
   activities (also true for typing, but at least people don't try to type and
   drive usually), language barriers and more difficult translation, large time
   to produce content, large time to receive content, discontinuities between
   received sound volume (heard) and volume spoken resulting in loud voices. I
   can go on...

   - I think some of the synchronous and asynchronous labels you use are
   misapplied. Voicemail is asynchronous regardless of what order it is
   accessed in. It might be non-sequential. IM is an interesting example where
   it is flexible between synch and asynch. I know people that have
   conversations stretching weeks, and those stretching 30 seconds. It can be
   used in many ways.

Voice certainly has it's place, but for group collaboration, usage in many
common mobile environments, and facilitating truly mobile work, it isn't
cutting edge, and it has many problems. Admittedly it does still have quite
a following.

-Jeff

On 6/10/07, Will Parker <wparker at channelingdesign.com> wrote:
>
> On Jun 9, 2007, at 3:09 PM, Jeff Axup wrote:
>
> > My main argument is that Apple doesn't understand the need for
> > serious text
> > entry, integration with community, or designing an overall mobile
> > experience. However, they have produced a ground-breaking new piece of
> > disruptive technology that is really beautiful.
> >
> > The article is here:
> > The problem with the iPhone
> > http://mobilecommunitydesign.com/2007/06/problem-with-iphone.html
> >
> > Any comments appreciated.
>
> I'm writing during a lull in a hot-deadline project, so please
> forgive any typos or omissions. Please also forgive any acerbic notes
> that creep in. I'm channeling my spiritual relative, Dorothy Parker,
> and I can't at the moment let her loose on the deserving.
> ----------------------------------
>
> My particular must-have in a mobile commo device is that I *NOT* be
> required to use it for heavy text entry, that nobody expects me to
> get into an extended IM session, and that I can respond when I bloody
> well want to. At this very moment in my long workday, I heartily wish
> I could claim to be dangerously allergic to cell-band radio waves.
>
> In your article, you call voice communications 'old-school',
> 'difficult to use', 'annoying', and 'synchronous'. May I take it from
> your list that you would prefer to communicate via IM rather than
> voice? I happen to have a very different response to voice versus IM.
>
> The I in IM indicates that one can expect an instant reply, and
> indeed, I've founded most IM'ers I've known get quite testy when you
> don't respond immediately, whereas voicemail, if not happily accepted
> by most callers, is at least a known quantity.
>
> Personally, I see IM texting as only theoretically asynchronous,
> especially when a group is using it as the primary com channel.
> However, please note that the iPhone SMS implementation looks like a
> darned good way to force asynchronous text messaging. Also, please
> note that the iPhone voicemail implementation lets you pick only the
> important callers out of your voicemail, so VM allows the iPhone user
> to treat voice communications as partially asynchronous.
>
> IM, except among the true keyboarding adepts, requires enough of your
> attention centered on the device that any multi-tasking is flatly
> impossible. I can stay in production mode for well-known tasks while
> communicating via voice channels _because my hands and eyes are free,
> and because I can be at least a few feet away from the com device. IM
> ties me up badly, and it kills any chance I can take notes during the
> IM session.
>
> Voice is certainly difficult under certain situations, but most
> people learn how to avoid or mitigate those when using a phone. For
> those situations where you're socially obligated to not use a phone,
> you are also almost certainly socially obligated to be engaged with
> the local situation (I don't actually want the Crackberry
> experience.) For the rest (irremediable noise, using the voice for
> other things, etc.), IM is still available -- but perhaps you should
> be elsewhere in those situations in any case.
>
> For times when heavy text input is truly required, I have to ask for
> cases where you really can't postpone response until you're near a
> 'real' keyboard.
>
> Ummm - I don't know how to respond to the idea of voice as
> "annoying". I happen to like the voices of all the people who call me
> regularly, except for the folks who're trying to sell me "protection'
> for my domain names.
>
> So what is it about voice communications that's annoying, in your
> estimation? Is it the wait states in natural conversation, or the
> telephony-specific aspects? If the latter, which?
>
> - Will
>
> Will Parker
> wparker at ChannelingDesign.com
>
>
> "I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check. If
> that were the case, then Microsoft would have great products." -
> Steve Jobs
>
>
>

-- 
Thanks,
Jeff
____________________________________________________________________________
Jeff Axup, Ph.D.
Principal Consultant, Mobile Community Design Consulting, San Diego

Research:    Mobile Group Research Methods, Social Networks, Group Usability
E-mail:        axup <at> userdesign.com
Blog:           http://mobilecommunitydesign.com
Moblog:       http://memeaddict.blogspot.com
____________________________________________________________________________