What's Steve Jobs got against buttons?
The buttonless iPhone, and the sleek styling of other apple products, has taken the Wall Street Journal to musing, "What's Steve's Beef about buttons."According to the article, Jobs' blood-lust for buttons goes back further than you might imagine. "Mr. Jobs was adamant that the keyboard for the original Macintosh not include "up," "down," "right" and "left" keys that allow users to move the cursor around their computer screens, giving it a sleeker appearance," at the cost of utility.
But, in a world where multi-touch technology is allowing buttons to disappear, it looks like real Steve is getting his wish.
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Alex Polonsky said 10:40PM on 7-25-2007
good, i hate buttons too.
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Dr Rumble said 10:46PM on 7-25-2007
Apple... Pssh.
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Eliot said 11:12PM on 7-25-2007
Tactile buttons? Bah, what are you blind?
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Andrew Cunningham said 12:11AM on 7-26-2007
> Mr. Jobs was adamant that the keyboard for the
> original Macintosh not include "up," "down,"
> "right" and "left" keys that allow users to move
> the cursor around their computer screens, giving it > a sleeker appearance," at the cost of utility.
Actually, my understanding was that they wanted to force the users to use the mouse instead of the arrow keys.
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Andrew Cunningham said 12:14AM on 7-26-2007
Oops, justread the article and they actually mention my above point!
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Schmappel said 4:20AM on 7-26-2007
"Ooooh... What does this button do?"
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johnnyg0 said 9:41AM on 7-26-2007
Playing games is sooo much easier without those annoying up/down/left/right buttons, they're always in the way!
I just can wait to see the next touchscreen Xbox360 controller.
C'MON PEOPLE! Don't you understand buttons have a purpose? Have you ever wanted to change the volume on an iPod without having to take it out of your pocked and look at it? Have you ever used a touchscreen TV remote? Tell me you still hate buttons after using one of those..
Too much buttons can be bad, but none can sure be annoying.
I'm sure even Steve's TV remote has buttons.
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Peter Kirn said 12:28PM on 7-26-2007
In Steve's defense (well, sort of, anyway), the "Cursor Keys" incident was not some kind of anti-button tirade. The situation is well-documented in Mac lore. The concern was -- probably rightful at the time -- that people might rely heavily on the cursor keys instead of using the mouse as a pointing device. Sleekness I think was a secondary benefit.
Yeah, it sounds silly now, but if you imagine yourself at that time, you can see the argument.
What it DOES demonstrate is that Steve is willing to jettison conventional wisdom (good), sometimes reducing functionality in the process (can be bad).
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James said 6:07PM on 7-26-2007
Of course, in Steve's infinite wisdom, he ignored that maybe people would use cursor keys instead of a mouse because they're vastly more efficient for a number of tasks. As johnnyg points out, there are some tasks you wish to perform "eyes off", and without tactile buttons, well, good luck. Nobody will ever, ever, *ever* win an international text-messaging championship with the iPhone keyboard, because your body just works better when you can feel where things are.
I hate the move towards touchscreen everything. Consider the grocery store: how many times did you hit "OK" or "YES" on a credit card terminal with raised buttons and had the button press not go through? How many times did that happen when you tap the "OK" or "YES" button on a touchscreen? If you're like most people, the latter happens a whole lot more often than the former, because you know exactly where you can touch the real button regardless of the angle you're looking at it from, and a well-designed tactile button will give you a "click" feeling when you have activated it. Touch screens are 0-for-2.
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