6/4/2023 0 Comments Phone candybar design![]() But PDAs were not connected and had to be docked to a computer to sync. The personal digital assistant was a touch device - though most were used with a stylus or pen - with an interface much like we have today on smartphones. The first smartphone was more often called a PDA phone, because at that time everyone knew what a PDA was. Why? Because the smartphone didn’t burst onto the scene fully formed, but it transitioned and offered multple solutions to people’s information and communications needs. And perfectly good BlackBerry and Windows devices hung on with good market share in some regions for years longer. It was a full six years after the iPhone launched before the then-ubiquitous Nokia Symbian S60 OS was overtaken by iOS. This simple Android/iOS market distinction was not always true and took a long time to settle into its current shape. Android holds a bit over half the US market, and closer to 75% of the installed base worldwide. The hardware matters, but the underlying OS is the same, and pretty much all apps will run on any device of the same age. It barely matters which manufacturer, in the same way you probably barely care who made the Windows PC on your desk. When you encounter a smartphone anywhere in the world, it is probably an Android phone. Android and iOS smartphones ( Large preview) Something like one of these in the picture below is certainly in your pocket, or lying next One of the more common assumptions is that mobile means a touchscreen smartphone. ![]() Let’s start by defining what a mobile device is and examining the scope of how understanding mobile technology and use patterns is important when designing for the huge number of mobile devices in the world, as well as because the world is changing. Changes in the technology of touch over time mean that many assumptions and standards of how to design for touch from just a few decades ago are no longer relevant - and may be actively misleading or dangerous. Touch is also not a direct analogue of “traditional” pointing devices like a mouse or trackpad, and there is no ‘one’ type of touchscreen. ![]() Touchscreens and our standard paradigms of interaction are not the same as the real physical world touchscreen behaviors are as learned as the use of a mouse or a doorknob. As children we all had to learn - for years - how to touch, feel, and manipulate real-world objects. ![]() To many designers and developers the process of designing for mobile assumes that touch is natural, so we don’t need to pay any particular attention to the design of touch systems. Usually today this means internet connectivity, cameras, GPS, and so on, but they are distinct from smartphones.) With the majority of Internet access via mobiles, in just another decade almost everyone will use touch as their primary interaction method, worldwide. (Feature phones are mobile phones with extra features. Today, about half of mobile devices are smartphones, and some of the remaining feature phones are also touchscreen. Mobile phones are rapidly becoming touchscreens and touchscreen phones are increasingly all-touch, with the largest possible display area and fewer and fewer hardware buttons. Mobile devices have always been different from “computers” in that they are always on (there’s no need to turn them on to start or end work), always with us (not just close at hand, but also personal devices), and aware (by being connected, and full of sensors). The personal computer (PC) is still assumed to only be used at a desk-like workstation, in discrete sessions of work with the user focused entirely on the computer. In our brand-new Smashing book, Touch Design for Mobile Interfaces, Steven Hoober shares his in-depth research about designing for touch with guidelines and heuristics you can apply to your work immediately. ![]()
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