The Touch & Feel of iPad 3G

As with the iPhone, Apple has created an excellent, simple software interface.  The tactile response is outstanding, and with practice the featureless multitouch keyboard becomes almost unnoticeably easy.  While the main finder interface can get cluttered when you have numerous apps, swiping left and right through pages of apps is better then diving into deep hierarchies of folders.  Although it’s a necessary change, I am a little sad that Apple is introducing a basic folder system to iPhone OS 4.0.  If only they could have magically figured out a better way.

While Apple will stick with a straight-laced layout, others are taking more 3-dimensional approaches.  Android interfaces like MOTOBLUR, and even the new Microsoft Kin sort-of-smartphone are going in promising directions.  Apple may have the right idea however… While Apple’s interface is less “Minority Report” cool than some competitors, I have NEVER seen a software title or OS get better with complexity.  I think it has something to do with engineers and designers working separately, or the perils of designing by committee.  Time will tell.

The other design similarity with the iPhone is pleasant looking but tactilely-challenged physical design.  First, there’s the metal.  I know Apple pioneered a great unibody milling manufacturing tech, but brushed aluminum is just the wrong material for a mobile device.  It feels pleasant and reassuring at first, but once you start actually using the thing, you cringe laying it on anything but a pillow or book.  Something visceral in me doesn’t like the feeling of metal on glass, stone, or other metal.  You just want to protect it.  I purchased an ill-fitting snap-on plastic case, and immediately felt more reassured using the iPad.  As the founder of a case company, I thank Apple for fostering the mobile case industry with the metal iPhone and now your iPad 1.0.  But as a user, I wish you’d wow us with some futuristic high-quality plastic.

Apple’s second problem is also inherited from the iPhone.  A quad-laterally symmetrical, tapered thin design looks fantastic.  It feels cool when you first pick it up.  It suck on day 5, when you are more interested in typing one handed while standing than admiring the thin sleek design.

We founded Dacha Works because the iPhone did too much too well to handle so poorly.  If we though Apple was omniscient, we would take this as a blessing for our pioneering the creation of form-factor altering smart cases.  Personally I think they just like making pretty things (Dacha Works LLC has no official position on the matter).

Apple has given us another reason for innovating a new case for the iPad.  It’s too heavy, thin and big to be used without some sort of grip adjustment.  And it’s too metal to be used extensively without some sort of covering.  We see the need, and are knee deep in the solution.

In the meantime, I’m mostly using Apple’s folder-style iPad case.  It’s got uncomfortable edges, but it beats the no-brand snap-on for usefulness.
Stay tuned for more installments of the challenge- I’m still working on the whole file-sharing issue…

-DW