On the iPad Interface
Just a brief note—the kind of brief note that I should post more of—but if you haven’t tried Google Maps on the iPad, you should. I think there are a lot of problems with the iPad, particularly with regard to its “walled garden” approach to software, but the direct connection between your body and the interface is unprecedented. In the case of Google Maps, go into the photo view and then try panning around. Now go back to your desktop or laptop and try using the mouse or trackpad. You’ll see instantly: having lost the mediating element of the mouse or trackpad is huge. Korg’s iElectribe instrument is similar and is worth the $10 download if you already have an iPad. It allows you to see the possibility for devices such as the iPad to act as “universal Turing interfaces,” that is as interfaces that allow you to control anything else. In this case, the iPad also acts as a musical instrument, but there is no reason that it couldn’t be controlling a nuclear reactor, a space shuttle, or your automobile. Obviously questions of robustness come to mind, but the potential is there. And yes, the iPhone and tablet computers don’t give you an adequate taste of the possibilities for rethinking interfaces with such devices.
