At the Apple store in my city, it was a sea of people. Grabbing the latest iPod accessory, marveling at the slick, giant widescreen monitors, they were enthralled by the sleek sexiness of everything around them. Waiting to checkout, I was reminded of the way things used to be for Apple.
Circa 1984: I was a sophomore in high school. In my geometry class, we had an Apple IIe in the corner of the room. We were impressed by everything the green monochrome-screened machine could do. Over the years, Apple had a strong presence in schools with their user-friendly computers and quirky style. When I graduated, I went on to get a degree in computer science, where nerdy elitist reigns supreme. If you didn't know every Unix or DOS command line tool, you were unworthy. And when Windows arrived, we scoffed at it's cutesy interface. Who needs fancy graphical interfaces for programming in C as long as you have VI and a command reference a mile long? I was big into PC gaming where DOS was king. My friends and I would spend hours creating boot disks that loaded just the right hardware drivers to get that buggy demo to work. It was complicated and messy....and we loved it. Apple and their cute Mac were the butt of our jokes. PCs rule, Macs were a niche at best.
Present day 2008: After 12 years of writing forgettable software for greedy companies, I quit to become a special education teacher in an inner city school. In that time, I've gotten married, gained weight, and became a father. Technology has gotten even more powerful and complicated. Since my time and energy levels are more limited, I do anything I can to simplify. Instead of upgrading my PC every year to play the latest and greatest games, I bought an Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS so I can just slap in a game and play with no headaches. I used to be the only one at home who could program the VCR correctly. Now, I get mad when my DVR doesn't automatically pick up the time change to get the latest episode of Heroes. My parents got a new plasma TV and I couldn't help them program the remote. I used to spend hours ripping my CDs and searching through Napster clients to discover new music. Now I'm updating my son's iPod playlist with lullabies, listening to an audiobook on my Shuffle on the way to work, and watching video podcasts on my Touch every night before bed.
We live in a complicated, time-crunched society where our time is extremely valuable and limited. We want our entertainment when we have time for it, not when the media giants say when prime time is. In all of this, I've noticed that even in the face of more powerful technology, the user interface is king. People want simple and easy over powerful and complicated. We don't have time to read through manuels, download drivers, and searching through help forums. We want to turn it on and getting it working in the easiest way possible. Apple and Nintendo have known this for years and the rest of us are finally figuring it out too. Those PC vs. Mac commercials are brilliant. My wife loves them and I laugh too even though I used to be just like that PC guy. Microsoft has billions and makes powerful software. But after working in the software industry for a long time, I learned the term "feature creep." It means that you keep adding things to software until it becomes bloated and complicated. Windows Vista is the culmination of this problem and Apple is capitalizing on it. After being left for dead, the Mac is making a comeback and they owe it mostly to the iPod. We love the simple and smooth interface with it's sleek lines in minimalist style. I got an iPod Touch for Christmas and it's almost become like a little laptop for me. I love being able to get RSS feeds from my favorite sites, check the weather, map stuff, listen and watch podcasts...without having even turn on my computer. The interface is an organic experience with the flicking and pinching and tapping.
I won a Mac when I was in college and sold it a couple of month later, vowing never to own an Apple product again. Now my next computer will be a Macbook Pro. Well done, Apple...you've converted another PC geek.
Nintendo is doing almost the same thing. Sony's PS3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360 are very powerful and fantastic game consoles. As a diehard gamer, I bought a 360 last year and love it to pieces. But I have to admit that I long to own a Nintendo Wii. Nintendo has paralled Apple in going a different route from it's competitors by focusing on the interface. Even before the Wii, let's look at the best-selling console system....it's the Nintendo DS. The DS and Gameboy lines have continually fended off every portable system for years. Why? The are simple and have great games. The PSP is powerful and sleek but the duel screens and touch sensitive DS is still the king. As for the Wii, even though it came out a year later, has far less power than the 360 or the PS3, it's whipping them both in sales. Why? The interface of course. Simple, different, and fun. No controller with a million buttons...just one that looks like a TV remote. There is no better gaming system for a group of people than the Wii. The only time I've seen anything like it was when I had a party with Guitar Hero as the centerpiece. It was a huge hit...why? The INTERFACE.
I guess my point here is that we need companies like Apple and Nintendo to keep the complication of technology in check. They've both shown that you don't need the most powerful hardware to be successful. In the end, the user wants an enjoyable experience from their technology and the interface is a big reason.
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