Apple’s iPad Case is Badly Designed: How to Make It Better

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When I bought my iPad on day one, I also bought the official Apple case along with it, and the official Apple docking station (doc). I’ve already hacked up my case to make it compatible with the doc, but I’m about to get out the scissors, again.

After using this iPad combo for a few weeks, I’m having two problems, one big, one small, speaker coverage and orientation-lock blockage. The case has little holes so that sound can escape from the speakers, but, at least on mine, the don’t align with the speaker grill. The iPad fits in snugly so there really isn’t any wiggle room. The holes are simply in the wrong spot. WTF?

Secondly, and more importantly, the case has a sort of annoying and uncomfortable flange around the body. The flange seriously blocks the orientation-lock switch, and, to a lesser degree, the volume control. I’m going to hack these real-soon-now(tm).

Fix 1 (optional): Docking Station Compatibility

Fix 2: Uncage the Speak Grill

Before:
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After:
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Fix 3: Free the Volume and Orientation-Lock

Before:
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After:
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Now, my hacks are pretty ugly, I know. The rubberized case isn’t very easy to gracefully cut with scissors, and, truthfully, I didn’t put too much time into it. Yours will probably turn out better.

Everybody Loves Robots

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Recently, while tinkering with spare electronic parts with my six year old son, I decided to try to get him involved in a local chapter of some robots-for-kids program, but I couldn’t find anything for him. Ok, you may not be surprised, but I was. After some searching, and researching, we ended up starting a Lego based robot club at his school, which, so far, has been very well received. My son is pretty lucky to have an opportunity like this, but I wish more kids, across the country, could benefit from a engineering-focused, after-school, program.

So, I’m kicking off, under the sponsorship of Elegant Technologies, the non-profit Everybody Loves Robots. Everybody Loves Robots helps kids gain the confidence, competence, passion, and resources to make robots, and other cool stuff. Students will work in small teams with like-skilled students and a grown-up coach to go through a set curriculum of foundation projects, with the coaches helping the kids when they get stuck, and helping the kids understand the more interesting parts of their creations.

Inspired by USFirst, the new organization is called Everybody Loves Robots. Enjoy.

PS – I’m taking donations to help scale the organization, so give until hurts and don’t be a wimp about it.

Grope Control, Better than Voice Control when Walking

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So, I’ve been designing an app that is basically meant to be used by car drivers.  It’s tentative going to have full Voice Control for enhanced usability and safety.  It’s going to be a great app. I think.

Although I can totally identify with my lead user, a salesman type of guy that drives all over town, the app wasn’t really resonating with me now that I work out of my home office and spend most of my ‘commute’ either walking, biking, or on mass transit.  My automobile time is often with wife and family, so Voice Control would be terrible in-effective over the dins of a car full of talkers.  So what about me?

I’m a big fan of Apple’s new Voice Control, but although society apparently now accepts hearing one side of a phone conversation from people walking down the street, are they ready to accept that somebody saying, to no one in particular, ‘Next Item’, ‘Back’, ‘Postpone’, ‘Play songs by the Shin Shins’, isn’t a little crazy, or at least a little socially inept?  I’m not ready to be that bold trend setter.

Some grope motions we can recognize

Some grope motions we can recognize

So, how can we interact with our mobile devices while walking down the street?  If I presume that I’m wearing headphone, then I can image holding my phone in my pocket and using my phone for input if my app is giving me adequate audio feedback.  The phone could say into your ear “Your next appoint with Mr. Smith is in 15 minutes.  Tap once to acknowledge or tap twice to remind you again in 10 minutes.”  I’m excited about this and can image a whole set of utilities and games that I can use while moving around the city.  I’m calling this method of input “Grope Control,” though I’m hoping to get suggestions for a more politically correct name.

For the sake of completeness, I’ve started to enumerate some common input and output methods and came up with some names for some of the combinations, namely Classic Control, Voice Control, Grope Control, and Spy Control.  I like to name things.  I think the introduction from The Non-Designer’s Design Book put it well when it’s introduction concluded that “Once you can name something, you’re conscious of it. You have power over it. You own it. You’re in control.”

[TABLE=2]

We’ll ignore mouth and nose as useful output options, though its fun to think about.  Hmm, my phone smells musky, and tastes bitter, it must be time for my 3:30 appointment.

[Table=3]

[Table=4]

[Table=5]

Implications for the app producer

  • Know your user personas.  How and where will they be using your app? Ask yourself whether you want to limit your app to a single I/O combination, or do you want to allow, and budget for, multiple IO combinations?
  • You might also plan on spending some extra marketing effort in explaining and showing the benefits of your non-classic I/O options.  Can you imagine the virus buzz you’ll get as the first Spy Control app published.  Can you make a killer YouTube video to go along with it?

Implications for the app programmer

  • You’ll simply need a solid gesture library.  Apple is clearly working in this direction and now has a built-in and refined “Shake” detector.
  • Have a standard voice control browser for your platform would be useful.  You can test your voicexml stuff at voxeo.com’s site before putting into your app.
  • What would the voicexml equivalent for SpyControl be?

Implications for the DoD

  • Patent 6899539 addresses putting a trackball onto a weapon to provide (http://bit.ly/Patent899539) some mechanism to get feedback into a computer w/o taking your hands off of a weapon, say, your rifle.  The trackball approach presumes that your see a screen, which means you are not focused on your target.  Fundamentally the soldier needs more combat appropriate input methods.

    Image from patent with rifle and trackball

    Image from patent with rifle and trackball

  • Software robustness: If, say, a screen is damaged or, untrusted, should there be another input method available to the operator?

Making money on the iPhone App Store

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If you haven’t read it yet, Pinchmedia recently release a good report/slideshow on the market dynamics of selling products on Apple’s app store.

You can see it here:
Title: “iPhone AppStore Secrets – Pinch Media”
Link: http://www.slideshare.net/pinchmedia/iphone-appstore-secrets-pinch-media

I have about 10 published mobile apps at this point, and although I think the Pinchmedia presentation is great, and validating, I still think that they see the world through a certain prism that filters much of reality.
From my own experience, I had created my deck on lessons and experiments of publishing on the app store. I’ve identified about, oh, twenty experiments that i’ve performed, with more to come, and put them into this short slidesow. Since it contains a lot of confidential information, I’m saving it for in-person meetings, so contact me if you’re in the Boston area.

So here are two charts from my deck:
An with pretty decent staying power.
screenshot_04.png

An app with less staying power.

screenshot_05.png

I’ve put about 10x the energy into the second app. The interesting question is, or maybe the next question is, “What make the linear decay app” vs. “What makes the exponential decay” app? I think I know the answer. I think other people know the answer, too. I think that the answer knowers aren’t talking.

Now, knowing the answer, and monetizing the answer, are, of course, two differing things….