John Gruber, from Daring Fireball, tells it like it is. For example, his thought on people wishing for larger 4-inch iPhone screens:

Apple decided on the optimal size for an iPhone display back in 2006. If they thought 4-inches was better, overall, as the one true size for the iPhone display, then the original iPhone would have had a 4-inch display.

I agree. Jony Ive probably had a bunch of iPhone foam models with different sizes and the model with the 3.5-inch screen probably felt the best in Steve Job’s hand.

John also shares some good insights on how and when we can expect a new iPhone form factor:

Apple isn’t going to make a new form factor just for the sake of newness itself — they make changes only if the changes make things decidedly better. Thinner, stronger, smaller, more efficient. If they don’t have a new design that brings about such adjectives, they’re going to stick with what they have.

[snip]

Apple is a company of patterns and cycles. These product cycles keep the machine functioning at a steady pace. They broke one pattern with the iPhone 4S: all previous iPhones were released in June. But they’ve added a new one: a two-year cycle that starts with a new form factor (3G/4) followed a year later by a new phone with the same form factor but significantly improved internals (3GS/4S). If next year’s phone is named “iPhone 5”, then I’ll expect a lookalike iPhone 5S in 2013.

John’s comments mirrors my own thoughts in my earlier article on mobile phone brands copying iPhones. I never really expected the new iPhone to have a change in its form factor. However when I called it the new phone the iPhone 5, what I missed was that Apple only changes the number when the form factor changes such as how the iPad evolved to iPad 2.

Finally, I like to say that Siri intrigues me. Is it strange that I keep on wondering how she looks like for real? Is she even a she? Function wise, I’m excited. Since it can do speech to text, it looks like it can help me with a faster blogging workflow. But I’ll hold off my judgment until I get a chance to play around with it. How about you? What are your thoughts on the new iPhone 4S?

If you can’t see the video above, please click on this link.

Check out this great little video, by Aaron Trinder, on how designers or creative people work within a space and how this may impact how we design desks in the future. Some food for thought?

Suitably inspired, I though I might also share my space at home with you. It’s mid way between clean and cluttered. I’m a working pile kind of person as you can see with the stacks of mail, books I’m reading and a sketchbook etc. on the right. Up top (not in the picture) we have two shelves of books. I’ve got a broadband modem, jacked into my laptops for maximum speed, seated next to a bank of power plugs. I’ve also got a bag of munchies for my late night cravings. Yes it’s 12.13am here.

Via: Herman Miller.

If you can’t see the video above, please click on this link.

Insert expletives of awe here!

Finally, you can now sketch on real paper, with a real writing instrument, and get your artwork converted seamlessly into an Illustrator or Photoshop format. Here take my money…

On the flip side, here is a brand that is willing to do some major re-thinking of their product range in a bid to innovate and grow. Even if it means potentially making some of their product, like their drawing tablets, obsolete. That takes guts.

Here is another thought. They have kept traditional sketching on paper alive, especially in this iPad dominated era, by evolving it into something the enjoys the strengths of both the digital and analog worlds.

Via: @Madebyanonymous

Amid Moradganjeh, a Masters student at the Umeå Institute of Design, dropped me an email with a link to his thesis project done in collaboration with Microsoft. Rimino, is a next generation mobile device interface concept that wants to be intuitive, prioritizes human needs, and focuses on enhancing the human experience.

Project Rimino redefines mobile experience through human factors research and design thinking. Informed by human experience, the project is guided by both observational and experimental design research methods.

The Rimino concept is an E-paper mobile device with a user interface inspired by print posters. Historically, as technology has progressed, devices have become more conspicuous. Rimino challenges this trend and presents the alternative: technology that is more integrated and more sensitive to the human experience.

Rimino basically solves one of the biggest problems we have using touch screen devices today, and that is not being able to see what is happening under our finger. With the Rimino, we tap the back of the device instead. While some of his ideas are not entirely new (especially when taken separately), the device ends up being a collection of interesting interface solutions that includes using the corner of the device as a writing tool, and the use of a flexible soft body as a way of entering commands.

Despite the technology still being at least 5-10 years ahead of us, the video of the persona and scenario story is nevertheless pretty cool. For more information on the Rimino and Amid’s extensive design process, check out Rimino.com.

EDIT: On hindsight, and after reading the boat loads of information on the Rimino site, I found that the project looked less like a research thesis and more like a design project, abet an in-depth and extensive one. As mentioned earlier, I did not see a lot of original thought, but instead a collection of ideas that was nothing really new. Data collection and testing seemed anecdotal at best, but the process was well thought out.

If this was then a pure design exercise emphasizing a designer’s critical insight, I wonder if the design of the physical phone could have been done better. There were at times in the video that I though the screen was going to peel of like a sticker (which it probably was!). But let’s not be too harsh, it is clear that the focus of Admid’s thesis was on the interface design; he was in Umeå’s Interaction Design Program after all.

The Vol portable speaker designed by Hironao Tsuboi is a work of beautiful precision crafted electronics that will appeal to any designer (or non-designer) music aficionado that grew up during the era of turntables and hi-fi. Made of aluminum and reminiscent of car radio volume dials, the speaker turns on with a twist and then continues to rotate as a volume control.

My favorite part is the bottom housing that epitomizes “form follows function”. The portable speaker runs on a lithium ion battery that is recharged via a mini USB slot, and has a microphone jack that accepts your latest tunes.

Via: designboom.

Six months ago I called the consumer electronics (CE) industry ugly after they launched a plethora of computing tablets to compete with the iPad. I’m happy to say that my faith is slowly being restored by not one, but two CE industry stalwarts.

Both have similar backgrounds. They once enjoyed market leadership, but have since fallen out of favor. Their businesses struggle in the red against a competition that is stealing boatloads of their market share. They have Design in the DNA, but it was lost and now rediscovered as they looked to design and innovation as a means to resurrect their brand from the ashes. They are Sony and Motorola, and I believe they will shine again.

Sony Vaio Z

The brand new Sony Vaio Z is what I would call the next archetype evolution between a desktop and a laptop. This “ultraportable” boast a carbon-fiber chassis, 13.1″ 1600×900 screen that runs on a 2.7GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 256GB SSD, and 8GB RAM. It uses a “sheet battery” that allows the Vaio Z to run for up to 7 hours. (Sorry, I got carried away with the specs! )

Before you scream MacBook Air COPY, take a look at their Power Media Dock attachment that boosts the computing power of the Vaio Z with an AMD Radeon 6650M GPU with 1GB of dedicated memory connected with Sony’s own Thunderbolt type technology called “Light Peak”.

So instead of building a MBA copy, it looks like they are creating a hardware modular ecosystem that may allow them to carve a new computing paradigm for themselves. Is this the start of modular computing or modular product design? I can also imagine a range of add-ons that could include faster CPUs, snap on HDD for additional storage and even displays. Oh my, many computing concepts of 10 years past are rushing back to greet us!

Motorola Atrix

Here is another interesting proposition that made me look twice. When the Motorola Artix smoothly slots into it’s revolutionary Lapdock, the Lapdock automatically fires-up to allow you to continue your mobile activities on a bigger screen. This is not an entirely new idea, but it was unexpected in this era of tablets. Together with the Lapdock, the Artix is basically an archetype that allows for users to bypass the need for tablets.

Not only that, when you have phones that are as powerful as computers, why would you need to own both? I’m sure many of you will dive into the software details and the things you can do with the Lapdock, but if you consider again the long term computing potential of mobile phones the possibilities become endless. Best of all Motorola just has to leverage on their strengths in mobile communications and the way forward is starting to become clear.

———-

I’m actually really excited to see the CE industry do something they have not done in a long time, and that is to think, design and innovate ahead of the competition. Hopefully, the general sickness of “follow the leader” can now finally come to an end, well unless it is a strategic competitive advantage to follow the leader. Now please excuse me while I go and try to get my hands on one of those gadgets!

Ticket Gate by Makoto UMEBARA

Muji Labs has launched a wonderful project in the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. They are not only trying to raise the chins of Japanese, they are also trying to encourage Japan to become a nation that runs on smart energy.

To translate this belief into action, MUJI approached a number of designers around the world and asked them to provide a design idea as an expression of support for Japan. Each designer was asked to draw his or her idea for energy in daily life within an “Enjoy! ( ) Energy.” framework, and describe it in terms that fit within the parentheses.

Here are a few of my favorites.

Eco-Plug by Yeongkyu YOO

Don’t Print, Write by John MAEDA

Bright by Sam HECHT

Sundial Wristwatch by Yasuhiro SUZUKI

Check out the rest of the wonderful ideas and, I must say, cool sketches at Muji Labs.

You might have heard that the Google Chromebook will be launched on June 15 this year. I’m rather excited but also pretty disappointed. If you watch the video above you can see the huge potential of an operation system that hosts your data and applications online.

The main consideration is actually a physical one. The ability to have a light weight OS running on an equally light weight computer, makes the Chromebook probably a generation ahead of a Mac OS Lion and MacBook Air combo. In fact the physical manifestation of the computer that houses the Chrome OS can be almost anything the user requires. How amazing is that?

So concurrent to the launch of the Chrome OS, there could have been a huge opportunity to define a brand new laptop/netbook archetype! Imagine an awesomely designed ultra thin notebook, or tablet, or a hybrid of both, that could have rivaled even the next generation MacBook Airs? How about a fashion and materials driven communications tool? The opportunities are endless.

Unfortunately for us, the Chrome OS gets married with dinky el-cheapo Netbooks from Samsung or Acer. They could have done a Google Nexus equivalent with the Chromebooks, but instead we got a merger of new world technology with an outdated body.

What an anti-climax. But this is what you get when have one group of people design the software, and another group design the hardware.

Dutch design studio, GRO, has shared what they call “seven unique studies around the concept of time”. I’m continued to be amazed at the amount of design and creative work still possible on simple products such as furniture and, in this case, watches. Here are some of the more interesting ones.

kaleidoscope – time in colour

timeline – the bigger picture

lifetime – a new culture of time

Check out the full range of 7 watches at the GRO blog. Via Core 77.

We love watching our competitors and admiring what they do and how they do it. This keeps us humble, on out toes, and constantly pushing ourselves to do our very best. Moleskine, one of Spaces for Ideas’ admired competitors, has recently launched 3 collections of non-paper products that celebrate the nomadic aspects of their brand and iconic notebooks.

Designed by Giulio Lacchetti, the 3 collections (writing, traveling and reading) take visual cues or design languages from the classic Moleskine notebook and applies them on to bags, pencils, pens, reading glasses, computer cases, a rechargeable reading light and an e-reader stand.

The Writing Collection

The Traveling Collection

The Reading Collection

Furthermore, in addition to the 3 collections, there is a range of small accessories such as clips and holders that pull these non-paper products back into their paper cousins’ hold and tie everything together into a nice workable package.

Leveraging off the success of their iPhone/iPad cases, these collections signal quite a significant change in business direction as Moleskine has finally broken out of the box by seriously expanding their product range into non-paper products. If we consider how they are marketing their collections, they do seem to be logical range extensions. However there are still financial risks, and only time or the market will tell how well they will perform. Regardless, it is very exciting to see the strategies that Moleskine is employing to keep their brand and product range alive in a very competitive market.

Check out the rest of the images, as well as some cool concept sketches, at the official Moleskine Flickr account.