Amidst the buzz surrounding Apple’s announcement of iPhone, there is a something more important happening which will change the way we communicate, entertain ourselves and organize ourselves.
Since last many years, gadget evangelists had been predicting marriage of phone, music player, video/TV player and PIM into one device. Though there are devices in the market with these functions combined, those never really took off. The reason for their sluggish market share: complicated interface which makes it hard to interact with them.
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However, it seems that such devices might actually go mainstream in this decade. This will happen not because of new features, operating systems, software applications or whatever but because of ease with which we will be able to interact with our devices. Apple did great job with iPod and since then a lot of progress has been made in simplifying human-device interaction.
One such example: Synapctics (which is better known for touch pads in our notebooks) recently released a concept device called Onyx. Though the device is only a concept and will not be manufactured, it presents a completely new idea for device interface design.
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There are other companies working on this design innovation as well and I believe soon another revolution in interface design is going to happen. We may no longer need a QWERTY keyboard (like on Blackberries, Windows Mobile devices etc.) or a scroll wheel (like on iPods), or a stylus (like on most PDA phones). It will be something completely different and new.
Innovation never stops, it changes its pace. Right now it is in the fast lane.
