10/22/2008 07:16:20 AM 
(4) 
(4) 
A have a couple of thoughts on this.
1. It's almost as if we cherish these icons as perhaps relevant relics from the past and revel in the irony that we are installing them on an uber-sophisticated piece of technology. "Look what my iPhone can do"- and humanizing the technology.
2. There's value in show. Turning on an application and showing someone you have a lighter or a pint of beer has share and social value. They can be talked about and the obvious joke is that they aren't physical things or they have limited functionality compared to the real thing.
3. It's also about the emotive power of design in the physical world and our desire to hang on and keep a little bit of this. The first software for the iPhone had a calculator that was modeled on the original Braun, the latest version uses the classic HP scientific calculator, both are iconic and in the real world versions.
4. Perhaps if there's one weakness of the digital world, it's hard to experience the sense of "touch and "feel", these applications remind us of the power of the feeling we have in an analog world and an acknowledgment that it's something we are losing.
5. It also serves as a reminder to designers that perhaps the most powerful applications aren't so high tech, but instead ones that stir up emotions and feelings inside us- such as nostalgia.
Clock via Core 77
Posted by Ed Cotton
there's something about the iphone
great point and something i totally overlooked- i guess developers are playing with a new "tactile" experience based on the inbuilt technologies of the accelerometer and touch screen. Perhaps this is worth another post.....
Posted by ed cotton on 10/23/2008 12:19 AM
great point and something i totally overlooked- i guess developers are playing with a new "tactile" experience based on the inbuilt technologies of the accelerometer and touch screen. Perhaps this is worth another post.....
Posted by ed cotton on 10/23/2008 12:19 AM
Other benefits of analog
Maybe the difference between users who put analog clocks and things on their iphone and myself (though if it matters I have an ipod touch instead) is that I'd rather use the actual analog object rather than simulate one on a screen. This is because analog objects often still have some advantages over digital ones. I take pictures with a camera from the late 1950s because it doesn't depend on battery power to operate (the light meter does, but the camera will still operate without one) and their are never any firmware bugs. This is just a quick example and I admit that digital has plenty of its own advantages (let's edit that document instead of retyping the whole thing), but my point is that analog does have certain advantages over digital.
Posted by Number9 on 10/23/2008 05:28 PM
Maybe the difference between users who put analog clocks and things on their iphone and myself (though if it matters I have an ipod touch instead) is that I'd rather use the actual analog object rather than simulate one on a screen. This is because analog objects often still have some advantages over digital ones. I take pictures with a camera from the late 1950s because it doesn't depend on battery power to operate (the light meter does, but the camera will still operate without one) and their are never any firmware bugs. This is just a quick example and I admit that digital has plenty of its own advantages (let's edit that document instead of retyping the whole thing), but my point is that analog does have certain advantages over digital.
Posted by Number9 on 10/23/2008 05:28 PM
Kindle as analog/digital example
Reading this post made me think of Virginia Heffernan's piece in yesteday's NYT Magazine, "Pump Up the Volume," on the Amazon Kindle. That gadget is sort of digital, but with a purposeful analog function/look/feel. Serious readers (speaking as one myself) will really respond to that because no matter how much they use digital technology for their work or other aspects of their lives, they're hesitant to give up the tactile/retro experience of reading.
Posted by Andrea Learned on 11/03/2008 06:16 PM
Reading this post made me think of Virginia Heffernan's piece in yesteday's NYT Magazine, "Pump Up the Volume," on the Amazon Kindle. That gadget is sort of digital, but with a purposeful analog function/look/feel. Serious readers (speaking as one myself) will really respond to that because no matter how much they use digital technology for their work or other aspects of their lives, they're hesitant to give up the tactile/retro experience of reading.
Posted by Andrea Learned on 11/03/2008 06:16 PM
It appears you don't have Flash installed.
ed, this is an interesting observation. while not highlighted in your example of the clock, the gestural interface of the iphone (flicking, touching) and the accelerometers allow for these kind of analog ui paradigms to make sense on a computer. try using half the ui widgets on the iphone in an emulator on your desktop, and they just don't transition. apple knows this and is preaching to the developer community to embrace this paradigm. at the iphone user experience session today, analog widgets were called out as examples that take advantage of the platform and just feel better from a user experience perspective.