The mobile industry is full of excitement about music. Nokia, SonyEricsson and Samsung are all making an assault on music with their latest models.
But converging all these functions that are now possible into one device opens up major design problems.
What the industry should be coming up with are more innovative ways to get at these functions, thinks Mr Jenson, in ways that understand the kinds of experiences people want. It is about simplicity through design.
....The problem facing the technology industry is how to design devices that do what they are supposed to do, easily.
....To him, design is not just about looks. It is about removing obstacles of use for everyone.
...."From a software point of view they were very clever about acceleration. If you scrolled a little bit, it was obvious. Then when you scrolled faster, it got to the bottom.
"So you could go from top to bottom of 3,000 songs in 10 seconds. And no one really even noticed that - it was invisible design"
Essentially, it did so many things without the user having to think too much about it and knocked down barriers to getting at functions.
"The device basically became effortless. That didn't mean it had value, it just means it didn't suck."
...."You don't want to carry eight batteries and eight screens. At the same time you don't want a device that is just horrible at everything. And how do you balance that? I am not sure what the answer is."
Jo Twist, "Designs on less complex mobiles," BBC News, 13 May 2005 via Tomalak.
