Saturday, January 13, 2007
That’s to say that there are an awful lot of opinions out in the blogosphere about the new Apple iPhone, and that I intend to be one of them. However, in the interest of trying not to be a total clone, I will restrict my opinion to just one facet of the iPhone, and that is the hubbub about 3rd party applications. There are quite a few people who seemed to be worried about whether the iPhone will support 3rd party software. I’ve read several opinions that the iPhone really doesn’t even constitute a smart phone without “real” office applications. There are also some people who think that the lack of a keyboard will be a problem. These people have really missed the boat, in my opinion, because what the iPhone does more than any other “smart” phone can is make the network the computer.
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Thursday, February 17, 2005
Steven Johnson recently pointed to a review of his book Interface Culture (a groundbreaking text and still a frequent reference for my own writing). In his review, William Blaze, questions the existence of an interface avant-garde subculture that Johnson discussed in his work. Blaze claims that there seems to be a microculture(s) but nothing that could constitute a subcuIture. I have to leave the distinction of microculture and subculture up to the cultural critics simply because I don’t understand it, but I do understand what constitutes avant-garde and I think a lot of innovation in interface design and art has already happened. I think part of the reason for a lack of awareness of this fact however, is do to a general misunderstanding of what constitutes interface design and what defines media.
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