.cross.wired.mind.

iPhone owners use Google more frequently than other mobile device users.

Google on Wednesday said it has seen 50 times more search requests coming from Apple iPhones than any other mobile handset — a revelation so astonishing that the company originally suspected it had made an error culling its own data.

“We thought it was a mistake and made our engineers check the logs again,” Vic Gundotra, head of Google’s mobile operations told the Financial Times during this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

iPhone owners are using Loopt more frequently than than other device users.

… Loopt, a location-based social-networking startup, reached 100,000 iPhone downloads only about a week after the App Store opened. The average iPhone user also is 47 times as active on Loopt as those on other types of phones, said Loopt cofounder and CEO Sam Altman.

“You can make such a beautiful app, and it’s so nice to use, so quickly, on the iPhone,” Altman said.

But this exchange the article on thestandard.com sums it up for me …

“The statement that somehow the Web has not been mobile until the iPhone showed up is absurd,” said David Rivas, vice president of S60 software technology management at Nokia. He also said the company’s current S60 software platform can do most of what the iPhone can.

Tapulous, a vendor of iPhone applications including the Tap Tap Revolution game and a Twitter client called Twinkle, is already beginning to exhaust the relatively small user base of the iPhone, said Bart Decrem, CEO of Tapulous.

“I wish there was another place where I could offer this experience,” Decrem said.

“I’ve got a couple hundred million devices for you,” Rivas said.

“Oh, yeah, if you could give me a developer environment … and a delivery channel,” Decrem shot back.

Even Rivas acknowledged that Apple has broken new ground by establishing a new kind of relationship with carriers, in which it can run its own online software store.

(emphasis added)

… and there it is.

I have often heard that friends (who shall go unnamed) opine that the biggest weakness of the iphone is that it is a consumer device and not an open computing platform. The reasoning goes that they should be able to install whatever apps they want from any source they want.

I have also heard many, like David Rivas, that compare their own functional specifications to the iPhone and wonder what all of the fuss is about.

Two dynamics are at play here and they both have to do with the barrier to entry. Is the iPhone the only device that can run Loopt? Nope. But it is the only device that allows me to get Loopt from a source I trust (Apple) and the iPhone is the only device that makes the installation and execution of the software so incredibly easy that the experience is a joy and not a laborious task. Add to that the automated notifications for software updates and Apple has just lowered on more barrier to use.

The more open and flexible the system the more expertise it takes to operate it with any level of efficiency. It also takes a great deal of domain knowledge to know which source is a trusted source for the software that runs on the system. Deep expertise and domain knowledge are critical components to mad geek-fu skillz but consumers do not always have the time or motivation to acquire them.

Here is a tidbit from MicroSoft CEO Steve Ballmer …

In the competition between PCs and Macs, we outsell Apple 30-to-1. But there is no doubt that Apple is thriving. Why? Because they are good at providing an experience that is narrow but complete, while our commitment to choice often comes with some compromises to the end-to-end experience.

I think Senior Ballmer misses a key point - Apple is not just about “narrow but complete” experiences. Apple designs products, services, and systems to be used by people that do not have the time or motivation required to wade through all of the choices to discover the magical combination that works. When I say “works” I mean it figuratively, as in “that works for me dude”, and as in it literally functions. I once installed a print driver back on Wndows 95 that shut down my video driver. That was ajoy to troubleshoot.

It is more accurate to say that Apple (and many other companies like Netflix, Starbucks, and the like) has lowered the barriers to use rather than simply providing a “narrow but complete” experience. Apple has taken the time and invested the money to learn how people use things and they have designed devices and systems that function in way that matches those patterns of use. They provided a phone with a truly intuitive operational interface and they have now provided a trustworthy source of applications to extend the use of their device in a multitude of directions.

A bulleted list of functional specs is not good enough. Yes, I am talking to you David Rivas.

It was hard to be a media consumer today and NOT hear about cuil the new search engine from some ex-googlers. Their chief selling point is the claim that they index more unique web pages than google. I decided to give cuil a go to see how it does.

Since the web is a key part of the success of my toy company I decided to test it out by searching for my flagship product My Little Cthulhu …

Nice. Kinda the anti-google. But how will it perform?

Hmmmmmm. Not very promising considering the results from Google …

Looks like the claim of “more pages indexed” is not quite accurate. But I would like to see how they handle search results so I will try another set of keywords …

waffle house - no results

Ok - how about king of prussia ..

Very nice UI. A few key features stand out to me. The related searches in the tabs at the top are very promising. Quick access to refine my search is always a plus.

I also like the explore by category box although more than a few of those links serve up the “no results page”. Not sure why you would provide a link that leads to a dead end like that. You would think that they would avoid placing a link that their own search engine could not resolve. Regardless the idea is solid.

I also like the multi-column presentation of search results. The ability to select 2 or 3 columns is a nice touch. It’s also good that it automatically switches from 3 to 2 when the window shrinks. It does not expand automatically and a page refresh seems to send it back to 3 even when the window is too small to handle the display. But again, good idea.

The other controls seem to be well thought through. The pagination is clear. The safety setting is prominent. It seems to be a solid design.

It seems to lack an image/video search function but the presence of small thumbnail images in the results helps. Hopefully cuil will roll out more features as they grow. However, they really need to get better with the results. I can’t remember the last time google hit me with a “no results” page.

For quite some time I have been a big proponent of clear and explicit content that sets the right context for the folks that use the sites and apps I design. If you want folks to rely on your site to learn about saving so their kids can go to college do not beat around the bush - make the purpose of the site clear and unambiguous. This seems like a simple idea but I am constantly taken aback by sites that take quite a bit of interaction before their purpose and limitations become clear.

So rather than drone on about the boring old interwebz I ran into a very odd story on the BBC that demonstrates how language can actually influence use.

In summary the story goes like this - a caller to 999 (the UK equivalent of 911) reported a big shiny object hovering near their home. The police arrive only to find that the UFO is actually the moon. This, apparently, is not an uncommon occurrence. Non-emergency calls to 999 seem to be fairly routine.

The solution was truly elegant - state at the outset of the call why you should be calling.

Instead of saying “South Wales Police, how can I help?”, control room staff now say “South Wales Police what is your emergency?”

Since the change, they have reported a 10% drop in 999 calls.

Superintendent Kevin O’Neill said: “There is no doubt in my mind that the public have taken on board the message we sent about making inappropriate 999 calls and thought twice about dialling the number in a non-emergency situation for which we are extremely grateful.

“Thanks to the public we have been able to answer calls, concerning real emergencies, quicker,” said Supt O’Neill.

Between January and June 2008, the force answered 86.4% of calls within 10 seconds compared to 76.2% in the same period last year - an improvement of just over 10%.

The lesson I take from this is to let people know exactly what your system will do for them.

I had an interesting experience yesterday. I was surfing on my iPhone and I pulled up CNN to check out the news (I normally use the BBC but that’s a long story). I was shocked when I was forced into the mobile version of CNN and could not find a way to get back to the regular page. I do appreciate that CNN is trying to look out for me, but their assumption that I would rather view a “mobile optimized” version of their site is a bit presumptuous.

I prefer to use the full version of nearly every site I visit and many of the sites I have encountered have provided the means to leave the mobile version for the full version, or leave the full version for the mobile version. Facebook did this particularly well. I understand that many mobile web browsers lack the capabilities of their fixed computing cousins but that does not mean that all mobile devices and browsers share in those limitations. I also understand that many mobile devices still sit on very slow networks and bandwidth may be limited, but that is no longer a given.

I hope that product teams begin to realize that the choice to use the mobile or full version of any site is an important factor in the overall user experience. I think the choice to make the mobile version the default option (upon detection of a mobile browser) is prudent but the user should be allowed to make the choice that is best for their needs and for the capabilities of their mobile device of choice.

In UX design and product development there is quite a bit of talk about convergence - the notion that products or platforms that were very distinct begin to become so close to each other that they merge. The iPhone is one device that creates quite a bit of convergence buzz.

It seems to me that convergence is just a distraction from the real dynamic at play in the digital world - metamorphosis. Currently the iPhone is seen as a phone that has some very powerful elements that add value to its core identity as a phone. What we are seeing is that the iPhone is just a caterpillar to the device that will emerge from the change that has started with the 2.0 iPhone software update.

Applications are and web access are at the heart of the iPhone. Sure, you can take calls and get SMS messaging but the fact that it is a handheld computer is the real power behind the device. It is that factor - that it is a phone with the soul of a computer - that will drive the process of change and take the iPhone from its current crude state to the form of a mobile platform that will make laptops look like monstrously large anachronisms.

With the iPhone I can blog (as witnessed by my previous post), track my social networks, keep up with my ever-growing task list (thanks to OmniFocus), manage my flickr set, read office docs (FileMagnet), and keep all of this data in sync with my laptop (which I rarely need to carry anymore). All of this is happening and the iPhone App Store is just over a week old. Imagine when developers dig in and begin to push this device to its limits. Imagine what will happen when Apple improves the iPhone or creates new mobile computing platforms that take the best of the iPhone and iPod Touch and truly give them wings.

Convergence still has its merits but I would rather focus on what happens after convergence than what leads up to that point. I, for one, am going to think in terms of metamorphosis from now on.

Well. The killer app for the iPhone just arrived. Well - killer app for me at least. The Wordpress app just hit the app store. Now I can blog on the run. Maybe I’ll be able to post more frequently.

When the use of a wonderful technology comes back to bite the user - in this case a Chinese restaurant.

… and very poor.

As you may know from a pervious post I am a big fan of Robert Hoekman Jr.’s first book Designing the Obvious. Well I finally got around to picking up his new book Designing the Moment. Just like his first I was absolutely floored by the time I hit page xiii. Yep, not even into the real numbers.

This passage in particular had me picking my jaw up off the floor because it captured a core belief I have always held about user experience design but have never been able to say it quite this concisely …

Each moment has the potential to increase a user’s confidence or destroy his trust in a product or a company, and each one is an important piece of the whole experience.

Why? Because the task a person is attempting to complete at any given moment is the most important task to that person, at that moment.

It is our job to make sure nothing goes wrong.  To make sure that moment is enjoyable and productive, and helps our user feel smart.

- Robert Hoekman Jr. from Designing the Moment page xiii

This book is a fantastic follow on to Designing the Obvious.  His first book gave us the expression of the qualities of great web apps and the framework to create them.  Designing the Moment gives us an approach to creating great solutions for our users so that they will be truly and deeply satisfied with their experience.

I said this after reading Designing the Obvious and it is also true for Designing the Moment - if you have anything to do with the conceptualization and design of web applications, sites, or even traditional software then you should immediately buy this book.  This book presents some fantastic tools you can add to your user experience design tool box.