| Friday, July 31, 2009 |
05:54 - They should call it the 7GS
http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/29/ifr-developing-ipod-like-interface-for-infinitely
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Now there's a good use of appropriate interface elements:
Race cars and many sporty street cars have had (near) infinitely adjustable suspensions for a long time now, but not so many can be so tweaked from behind the steering wheel -- and none outside of an international racing series can use GPS to auto-configure themselves to best suit any upcoming corner. That's what Spanish boutique automaker IFR is developing for possible future inclusion in the company's radical re-imagining of Colin Chapman's classic Lotus Seven, called the Aspid, and also for licensing to other marques. Drivers would use a "dial similar to that of an iPod" to tweak suspension damping to manipulate handling and could also modify the engine's timing and other parameters to make it torquier for short circuits or more powerful to blast down long straights.
Wait. Then again, what's wrong with a knob?
Remember how the whole iPod interface discussion centered on fundamental differences between physical and soft interface elements? How it's pointless and counterproductive to try to replicate a tangible object—like a volume thumbwheel—in software, just because we think it'll give a new user an affordance and a clue how to use it, even though it's dismal from a control and usability perspective?
I applaud IFR for recognizing that a continuously variable, linear adjustment is best made using a rotary control with visual feedback to indicate where in the rotation you are. Just like an iPod scroll wheel. And also just like a volume knob.
Sure, if there's some compelling reason for them to replicate a physical knob as a touchable, strokable LCD—for example, if the adjustment wheel has to share very limited space with other controls that can take its place, or if it has to have visual feedback to describe its functionality in several different modes, I can see how a touch-sensitive scroll wheel might be useful. (Clumsy, mind you, since as many readers know I've never liked the stationary electrostatic touch-sensitive wheels anywhere near as much as the first-generation iPod wheel that actually rotated on a spindle, keeping your finger in constant contact with the same point on the wheel as it rotated and guiding your finger in a circular motion, rather than making you consciously trace out a circle on a simply funny-shaped yet otherwise undistinguished laptop trackpad; but useful.)
But if they're doing this just because it means they get to use words like "iPod-like" in press releases...
If that's the case, then I'm afraid they're late to the party. Even Microsoft couldn't get a proper grip on those coattails.
Still, that's a pretty bitchin' Seven.
Via JMH.
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Brian Tiemann
