November 1, 2017

2017.11.01
Slate:The iPhone X Takes Hand Gestures Too Far

I've never been a fan of gesture interfaces, and life with an iPhone X requires a whole new slew of them. (Conversely, I've always been a big fan of the home button; an easy to access "lets take it from the top" escape hatch can be enormously centering, like how when I click on a website's name in their header on any page I go to the site homepage.)

That's one of problems with the designer's dream of being such world-beater designers they they can stop having to actually, you know, design- having achieved the zen of "a piece of featureless glass"... the phone then just consists of an OS and apps - but having to designate certain finger moves as "ok, now you're communicating with the OS" makes a less known reliable channel, and one prone to accidental invocations, and takes away from the language of gestures that apps are allowed to use.
"America lacks that common sense. It has extraordinary sense instead, which is why, even now, even in the middle of its great darkness, artists and entrepreneurs still love America, still need it, still want to move there. America is the place where you can come up with your own meaning."
But, you're entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts. This is why Scott Adam's "Where Facts Don't Matter" stance is absolute anathema to me, one of the most immoral ways someone can be.