User Interfaces

The Multitouch Patent

When the Apple introduced multitouch on the iPhone, it was wildly successful. Once users got used to features such as pinch-to-zoom, it seemed obvious that other kinds of interaction were inferior. However when Google released the first Android phone, they did not include multitouch support because they didn't want to deal with patent litigation, even though multitouch hardware was available. Interestingly the Palm Pre included multitouch anyway. One Palm representative commented, "If we're faced with legal action, we're confident that we have the tools to defend ourselves," likely alluding to Palm's own massive mobile patent arsenal that it could use to counter-sue. The patent cold-war is as prevelent as ever when it comes to user interfaces, and unfortunately this means that the companies who get control over our interfaces, and ultimately the information available to us, are often the ones with vested commercial interests.

Universal Interfaces

UI elements across mobile platforms are converging. Multitouch isn't the only thing that has spread to other tablets. Just as desktop operating systems have converged to use a similar set of interactions and metaphors, tablets now have similar app stores, photo viewers, scrolling behaviors — even the overall look-and-feel of tablet OS's is starting to solidify. When it comes to information availability, this means that the information we can access is all being filtered through the constantly mutating interfaces of our devices. Whoever has control over interface, has control over our data.

Page: 1  2  3