When Did I Become a Fan Boy?

Sometime, months after I bought my first apple, and just before I bought my first apple laptop, I caught the fever. I just don’t know how I got to the point of being so geeked up for a product introduction. This tablet, though, has me spinning.

I ran across an article today that speculates about the tablet’s user interface. The author makes some great points about the focused, single purpose UI. Rightfully, he credits Jeff Raskin with that concept.

He saw touch interfaces, however, and realized that maybe, if the buttons and information display were all in the software, he could create a morphing information appliance. Something that could do every single task imaginable perfectly, changing mode according to your objectives. Want to make a call? The whole screen would change to a phone, and buttons will appear to dial or select a contact. Want a music player or a GPS or a guitar tuner or a drawing pad or a camera or a calendar or a sound recorder or whatever task you can come up with? No problem: Just redraw the perfect interface on the screen, specially tailored for any of those tasks. So easy that people would instantly get it.

link: The Apple Tablet Interface Must Be Like This – apple tablet – Gizmodo

Fundamentally, the iTablet must use the iphone development model. Never before has a platform had such a high growth rate of developers and applications. To turn away from such a model would be fool hardy.

So, the same sdk will drive the user experience on the iTablet. Sure, there will be enhancements and extensions to the platform. However, the iTablet platform will, most assuredly, follow the iphone development model.

Multi process will be a must. So, that will introduce some new features into the platform. I don’t expect the same sort of work around that they made on the iphone. I expect them to take advantage of the new OSX feature involving invoking expose by clicking and holding an icon for a second. That seems to be very touch compatible. I expect that whatever they add will be part of the OS and not change the programming model meaningfully.

The rumors of a new release of iphone software at this event adds to the anticipation. What other goodies there may be in the new sdk? How will one code for the different environments? Will the applications be portable between an iphone and the itablet? I wonder if the tablet will create a new application gold-rush or if developers are too jaded right now.

Fun Days