Shake, Rattle, and Roll
I will be getting an iPhone 3G Friday morning. That doesn’t, however, prevent me from finding this a bit silly:
One coming program, called iCall, will give you free phone calls when you’re in a Wi-Fi hot spot. Another, called G-Park, exploits G.P.S. to help you find where you parked. Yet another, Urbanspoon, is “a cross between a magic eight ball and a slot machine:” you shake the phone, and it randomly displays the name of a good restaurant nearby, using the iPhone’s G.P.S. and motion sensor.
Why not just press a button a pull up a list ranked by user ratings? Is the shaking and arbitrary selection really necessary? OK, so it’s neat, but does Apple (and its cadre of external app designer/programmers) really think we’re such dupes?
Yes. Also, why have a magic eight ball when you could just list of all the possible responses to a question and go through them one by one with a team of rabbis?
— southpaw · Jul 10, 05:15 AM · #
OK, so it’s neat, but does Apple (and its cadre of external app designer/programmers) really think we’re such dupes?
Ummm … they’re not doing it for you. They’re doing it because it’s the kind of thing that appeals to them.
Geeks by and large code for geeks. That the rest of you find it occasionally useful (and thus are willing to pay for it) is just a side benefit.
— MouseJunior · Jul 10, 06:15 AM · #
Yes, and they’re right, and that’s why you nerds are waiting in line for iPhones.
— Sanjay · Jul 10, 12:36 PM · #
I have a shakey button on my Sony Walkman Phone. The shakey button is appealing specifically because it is only neat, and serves no logical function. (Yes, you can use your Walkman as a pedometer, and you can shake your Walkman to shuffle your songs, but fundamentally a shakey button is cool because and only because . . . SHAKEY BUTTON!!!!)
— J Mann · Jul 10, 05:47 PM · #
Yeah, and why does Apple keep changing their iMacs. Isn’t a simple beige box good enough for them? And why do pinball machines have all those lights when just a simple counter would tell me all I need to know? And while we are at it, what’s the point of all those different clothes when a simple uniform of a cap, a jacket, and roomy slacks would perform the function just fine?
— phasearth · Jul 10, 10:59 PM · #
MouseJunior, actually a design that ties an action with a prototypical gesture appeals to a much wider population than to geeks. Shaking up a set of options before making a selection is such a gesture. We shake the dice before rolling them; shake a box of names before picking a winner; shake the magic eight ball before getting the answer; etc. The action makes sense, and it’s fun to do it on an electronic device because it’s unexpected.
— phasearth · Jul 10, 11:27 PM · #
You don’t find randomness fun? It’s called gambling. You may have heard of it. Many people find it quite enjoyable.
— Wilson · Jul 11, 05:10 PM · #