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-James

Buttons buttons buttons

Posted by james on Sep 6, 2007 4:13 PM

Recently on Buzz-out-loud, CNET's podcast of approximately 50-minute length, they talked about how Steve Jobs has a <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118532502435077009.html">phobia of buttons</a>. He wants as few buttons on his devices as possible, to the point of ridiculousness. This has been one of my complaints about Apple products; their near-irrational aversion to buttons or anything complicated. I guess the problem here is the misapprehension that complicated things are bad.

Granted, Apple has been successful partially (or perhaps mostly) because of their stubborn adherence to simplicity. I admire how their gadgets "just work" and are usually high quality. But there's almost always a tradeoff between simplicity and efficiency, and in this arena Apple has shown itself to be uncompromising. If you look at professional-level specialized physical interfaces (like multi-track studio audio mixers, POS registers, or even just keyboards) they often have a great deal of complexity... lots of buttons! Modern cash registers always amuse me because sometimes there's a button for each food (McDonalds) or for each individual action (return, exchange, gift card, etc). With a simple device, you can learn it more easily (assuming it's well-designed) and get up and running quickly, compared to a more complicated device. However, there's also an upper limit for these devices for their top efficiency. A way to think about it is my iPod. I have a 3rd generation, which means it has 4 buttons (previous track, menu, play, next track) a scroll wheel, and another select button. Great, looks simple, and it's easy to use. But I always wish it had a "random/shuffle" button. I'd love to be able to play through my songs randomly and then turn off random so I can just play whatever album it landed on. That's how my old carputer did it (more on that in a later rant).

Another poster child for Apple's stubborn simplicity-religion is the apple mouse. For the longest time they've had a one-button mouse, and even in the modern era they stick to it. It works for the most part, but the problem is that you really do have to right click sometimes. OSX has many places where you need to right-click to get to something, and it's very useful. Granted, you can Command-Click to simulate it, but that's a horrible idea from an efficiency/human-computer-interaction (HCI) point of view. You can think about it like this; say you have a computer and someone gives you the option of either a 2 button mouse where each button does a different thing, or another mouse where you have one button and have to press other keys on the keyboard at the same time to do different things. Which one sounds simpler?

The Apple model works if you like the appearance of simplicity, or if the user is simply a techno-simpleton that will rarely if ever investigate the whole "right-clicking" thing. For everyone else, it's a step back. The problem here is that it's not truly simpler. There is a shift in complexity, not a straight out reduction of it. In the iPod example, you can turn shuffle on/off by clicking the Menu button (a few times till you reach the main menu, since it's also a Back button), scroll down to Settings, scroll down to Shuffle, click the Select button a few times to turn it on/off, then click Menu, then scroll down to Now Playing, and click the Select button. On my carputer, you clicked the Random button once to turn random on, and again to turn it off. In the button example, you have one button that can do dual-duty as two buttons once you add in a keyboard. The complexity is not gone, it's hidden. That's great if you don't need extra functionality and/or are intimidated when looking at buttons. It's bad if you are comfortable with technology and like to do more with it.

Of course it's a compromise one way or the other, and of course it's personal preference that has more to do with your personality and usage traits than with the objective "goodness" of any given product. But Apple is a good example of being a bit too far in the hidden, simplistic, simpleton-friendly fashion.

Most of this is a bit obvious. The new part is that the wall street journal article vindicates my feelings that Apple sometimes has a subjective and illogical attitude towards buttons and complexity. My next mp3-player will probably not be an iPod. I want to be able to do more with my player, and I want more convenience. I don't need a device with tons of buttons... just the ones that make sense.

Because I Said So

Posted by james on Jul 24, 2007 4:58 PM

1

WTH? It looked like a sappy and slightly annoying mother and daughter coming-of-age flick. It turned out to be unadulterated therapy-room crap. The problem isn't that this is a chick flick. I can handle those, and some are quite good. But this isn't a movie, it's more of a collage of strange scenes folding into a badly layered movie that views like someone sitting nearby telling you how horrifying their mother is, and how they don't do anything to fix the problem. Why should I pay to see this? I'm sure I can get this for free just about anywhere, just talking to friends.

Diane Keaton excels at being really annoying. Mandy Moore excels at being vague and almost likable, but too weak to really empathize with. The director (I can't even be bothered to look up their name) excels at creating a film with the consistency of a music video, just a collage of suggestive but incohesive random clips that suggest but never form anything larger. What plot surfaces is just confusing. I understand what's going on on-screen. I just don't understand why I was expected to care.

Why spend any more time thinking or typing about this movie?

Ratatouille

Posted by james on Jul 18, 2007 2:33 PM

7

This is a funny one. Computer animated films from Pixar have grown a bit legendary, thanks to Monsters Inc, Toy Story, etc, but so far they've all been comedies. I'll admit that I haven't yet seen Cars, which is probably something I should do soon to get a better feel for the direction of Pixar's evolution (pause while I add a movie to my Netflix queue...)

But still, it's reasonable to expect a hilarious comedy from this movie, especially after watching the previews. I went to see the movie at a 2-for-1 drive-in theater (Johnston, RI... one of the few still in operation and doing well it seems), along with another movie that was little more than a waste of projector-bulb life (more on that in a later rant). The movie was good, the plot well constructed and fluid, good characters, and of course good animation. There were a few really funny moments, especially the rat controlling the boy's body (I'm a sucker for physical humor). But during the movie, I couldn't help but be a bit confused at the mix of humor vs. can-do-it saturday afternoon movie. I guess the real measure is that you realize you really haven't been laughing much. Sure there's funny moments, even hilarious, and you're never really bored. But you spend more time watching the story unfold and following the plot. It's not bad, just... confusing and not what I expected. Still a very good movie, but definitely not the comedy I was looking for (obligatory; this isn't the comedy you're looking for... you can go about your business).

Worth a watch, and shows a different direction for Pixar. What's next, an animated action movie? Mother and daughter coming-of-age meets animated bobble heads? Who knows.

Live Free or Die Hard (aka Die Hard 4)

Posted by james on Jul 17, 2007 2:42 AM

9

I can't believe it, but the last Die Hard movie was in 1995... 12 years ago? When I heard about it, I first thought this was going to be one of those lame second-rate revivals to glean just a little more money from a dead horse. But the previews looked really promising, and come on... It's Die Hard.

I went to a steak restaurant beforehand, but had chicken wings. That is completely irrelevant.

In a word? Awesome. Bruce Willis doesn't miss a beat, and is completely believable in possibly his most archetypal role (if you can believe that all these things would keep happening to the same guy, over and over and over...). And Justin Long, far from his Dodgeball and Jeepers Creepers days, does a great sidekick. Not the best geek/hacker type, but still good.

The entire movie was like the old series on crack, with a non-stop plot that rarely stops to breath and some genuinely impressive special-effects scenes (not an easy feat in these days). A really nice touch was the parkour-style acrobatics of Cyril Raffaelli. I remembered him back in an old Jet Li movie, I think... had some cool martial arts moves back then, and now has more of a neo-Jackie Chan style. Really used well in this movie, too.

Overall, a worthy successor and follow-up to the originals. Definitely more over-the-top, more action oriented, maybe a little less heart. But at this point, more than a decade later, we're not really looking for character development. We want action! It's good.