Quote:
Originally Posted by Sregener
I think you're missing the point of what Apple did and continues to do. They put usability at the top of the feature list. They spend a tremendous amount of time and effort making sure everything they do works with the human interface. What made the iPod amazing wasn't that it could play MP3s, what made it amazing is that it made it so easy for people who weren't technical to do it.
The iPad took the world by storm for a bunch of reasons, and they were all innovative. Why 10"? Because that's the ideal tablet interface size. Just read from the people who find the iPad Mini to be lacking for some uses. Why a 4:3 form factor? Because it works the best for how people want information presented.
And then there's IOS. Sure, there were other mobile OSs out there, but none had the consistent user interface that made it so easy to do things with. The interface elements were consistent across all apps made by many different companies. That only serves to increase usability.
Physically, these devices have been made to be pleasant to hold. They look good. They feel good.
Now, we can all say, "Oh, they just took a bunch of good ideas, cobbled them together, and it's not really anything new." Just like the Model T wasn't really original...
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I am apple's no. 1 critic on a series of fronts, and no one can be a better critic than someone who's invested so much in their ecosystem and follows what they have been doing for the past 15 or so years. The last thing one can claim (despite it having stagnated for a while now, ios that is) that the ipad with ios wasn't a truly revolutionary/evolutionary device with so much effort and care having put into it. I think it's apple's it just works motto personified. You really can't make something as capable as the ipad, more simple than what it is. It was the culmination of years of creative work, and the epitome of the jobsian ethos of ease of use. And that's something really, really hard to come up with.
You pick up any android tablet and it's still a mess of conflicting ui ideas, and mind you, that's coming from someone who thinks android has surpassed ios in many ways and will be looking to buy an android device next.