idsgn (a design blog)

Abracadabra, Apple’s ‘magical’ device appears at half a million homes this weekend.

Here at idsgn, we’ve been fielding mixed reactions to Apple’s newest major product launch: the iPad. On first glance, we reacted to the user interface that seemed to regurgitate the iPhone’s functionality without much consideration for the iPad’s larger size. We questioned if the iPad will deliver a ‘shake-up’ to traditional publishing and user interface design industries, as many have speculated. But, for the most part, decided to reserve judgement until we could actually see the device in ‘real life.’ After a weekend of intense (sometimes obsessive use), our impressions remain, well, mixed.

It’s hard to escape the buzz around this week’s Apple iPad announcement. While everyone is making jokes about the name, it’s really the user interface that has me baffled.

Sure, the physical device is sleek—I don’t know about “magical and revolutionary”—but it really feels like Apple missed an opportunity with the design of its new UI.

When the iPhone was first introduced in 2007, it revolutionized the mobile phone. With a screen at 3.5 inches, a smartly designed interface provided access to thousands of applications at your fingertips. So after years of speculation, when Apple finally announced the iPad, it was shocking to see an awkwardly familiar, scaled-up iPhone home screen.

For web designers, it has always been a struggle to make websites look the same in every browser. With new technologies like web fonts and forthcoming versions of HTML and CSS, it’s even harder to keep up with the numerous browsers and devices out there. And that’s okay.

At the Future of Web Design conference yesterday in New York, web designer Dan Cederholm showed off some ‘fancy’ new tricks made possible in the latest versions of Safari and (to a slightly lesser extent) Firefox. Transitions, rotation, opacity, shadows, and rounded corners are just some of what’s possible now, but as Cederholm’s presentation boldly stated, “None of this stuff matters.”

After Yahoo pulled the plug on GeoCities this week, millions of horribly designed websites are gone. It’s the end of an era, but it’s an eyesore we could stand to lose.

I remember creating one of my first websites on GeoCities in the mid-90’s. Making myself a home on the “SunsetStrip,” the website likely remained untouched for more than a decade—like an embarrassing time capsule filled with animated GIFs, tiled backgrounds, and (of course) Comic Sans.