An iOS 4.3 Gesture Wishlist
Reports have surfaced that the developer release of iOS 4.3 for iPad includes new gestures, including app switching (multitasking) and “Pinch to go to home”. But how those gestures work exactly is still a bit fuzzy. How many fingers? In what direction?
What would be the best way Apple implements these gestures? Which combination of finger movement would be natural and understandable?
How ’bout this:
- Three finger swipes: highlighting
- Four finger swipe up: home screen
- Four finger swipe down: multitasking (tray)
- Four finger swipe right: next open app
- Four finger swipe left: previous open app
This would match the way multitouch works on the Mac: three finger dragging, four finger (up) to the desktop, four finger (down) for exposé, and four finger (right or left) for the app switcher.
This poses a problem though. The multitasking “tray” comes up from the bottom, with the rest of the screen moving up. So, a four finger swipe up might be a better, natural choice for that function. Maybe it would be better this way:
- Three finger swipes: highlighting
- Three, four or five finger pinch: home screen
- Four finger swipe up: multitasking (tray)
- Four finger swipe right: next open app
- Four finger swipe left: previous open app
But would that prompt Apple to change Mac OS X’s multitouch gestures to match?
On that note, Apple: How about a better lock screen (one that shows Mail unread counts and the weather), and a better multitasking interface (that looks and feels like Exposé or WebOS’). Maybe Apple will save that for iOS 5.
Related Articles
- Apple releases iOS 4.3 beta for developers (macworld.com)
No iPad Home Button = Bad UX
Image via Wikipedia
There are unconfirmed reports that Apple might remove the home button from its iOS devices (the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch) and that it is to be replaced by a pinching gesture–probably a three, four or five finger pinch.
I find these rumors wacky and wouldn’t give much substance to them. Why? Because it would be bad UX (user experience) design to remove the home button.
Without a physical button, there would be no obvious or instinctual method of getting back to the home screen. Gestures that require more than two fingers are learned, having no a natural, real-world metaphor.
Whereas removing the Home button would render only one small benefit: making the iPad’s bottom bevel smaller. For iPod touches and iPhones, that benefit would turn into a drawback, since the hand position is aided by a sizable bottom bezel.
It would be uncharacteristic of Apple to implement such a poor UX choice. (Unless you’re talking about mice.)
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The “Gritty” Reboot
Image by Daniel Semper via Flickr
Some people refer to Sony’s attempt to relaunch the Spider-man movie franchise as the “Spider-man gritty reboot.”
Usually, I dismiss it when people put the words “gritty” and “reboot” in the same sentence. I’ve always believed that this was a knee-jerk reaction. An assumption. When people think “reboot” they automatically think “gritty”.
Why? Because the first reboot was Batman Begins, which was widely regarded as “grittier” than the Batman movies that came before it. This characteristic is thought to be why it succeeded. (I’m sure much of the industry–including myself–would disagree.)
Side note: Reboots are different from remakes. A reboot requires a relaunch of a set of movies with different plot lines. A remake is usually an updated version of the same plot line. The Karate Kid is a reboot. True Grit is a remake.
But a reboot doesn’t have to be gritty. Since there hasn’t a release of images from the movie’s production prior to yesterday, one couldn’t call it gritty without inside information. The Star Trek reboot wasn’t gritty. The Spider-man in comic books (usually) isn’t gritty. Why should this Spider-man reboot be?
Yesterday’s first look at Andrew Garfield and the movie’s new Spider-man costume offers a first glimpse into the style of the film. And surprise: Yes, it is a gritty reboot.
Well, it looks like that’s the case anyway.
Related Articles
- First Look At Andrew Garfield In The New Spider-Man Costume (cinemablend.com)
- Five Key Changes In Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man Costume (splashpage.mtv.com)
What Could an FBS Championship Tournament Look Like?
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The 2010-2011 Bowl season is fast coming to a close.
TCU has done the unthinkable: won against against an Automatic Qualifying team, Wisconsin, in the “grand daddy” of the bowls, the Rose Bowl game. The record for Non-AQ teams against AQ teams in Bowl Championship Series games (BCS: the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Fiesta Bowl and Sugar Bowl) is now 4-1. (The one loss came when #10 Hawaii lost to #5 Georgia.)
The TCU win has reinforced the growing criticisms against the whole BCS system. Many have to wonder if #3 ranked TCU could have played (or even won) the national championship if only there was a play-off system for the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS).
To this spirit, Dallas Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban, is looking to fund an alternative to the current BCS system. His efforts might be for naught though. The commissioners of the FBS conferences maintain that a play-off or tournament post-season won’t happen any time soon if ever. If the BCS system is going to change, money won’t be its prime motivator. The conferences have plenty of it. Instead, change would have to be coerced; possibly by the US Legislative or Justice departments.
People who don’t benefit (fans of schools that do not AQ) bemoan it as unfair, monopolistic, anticompetitive and opposite of what NCAA sports is supposed to be. People who stand to benefit from the current system (schools and conferences that automatically qualify for one of the five big BCS bowl games) defend the system by pointing out their conferences are much more competitive than others.
If the teams in AQ conferences are really that good, however, then they should have little problem advancing in a championship tournament. NCAA sports that do have tournaments (practically all of them but football) tend to have the same eight teams in the finals year after year.
If a playoff was established, what could it look like? How can we assure fairness to all schools? How can we sustain relevancy to regular season play? Should the NCAA copy the 20-team Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) tournament? Should we completely abandon the BCS rankings system. What would happen to the bowls games that we all love?
I propose the following terms and conditions for a FBS (Division 1-A) NCAA Football Post-season Tournament:
- Automatic berths of the 11 conference champions (to keep the regular season relevant)
- 21 wildcard berths (to make the tournament field at 32 teams)
- All teams in the top 25 BCS standings should receive berths (to keep non-conference games and the computer-driven BCS Standings system relevant)
- At least one wildcard berth from each conference depending on conference standings, unless precluded by the previous condition
- Teams without berths but with six or more wins may have a non-playoff affiliated bowl game.
- Top 16 seeds should be determined by BCS standings
- First round games supported by existing bowl game committees and paired by traditional conference tie-ins when available (for example, a match-up between an SEC and Big Ten school should be overseen by the Capital One, Gator of Outback Bowl if possible)
- First round game would be held over a two-week period. No more than two games per week day. No more than five games per Saturday. No games on Sundays (no conflicts with NFL scheduling).
- Respect tie-ins between teams and bowl invitations (for example, if Notre Dame receives a berth, its first round game would be the Sun Bowl, as designated by contract)
- Quarterfinals (Elite 8 ) supported by the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Fiesta Bowl and Sugar Bowl (all shown on different days)
- Two-week intermission period between second round and quarterfinal games
Related Articles
- Dalton leads TCU to first-ever Rose Bowl victory (cbssports.com)
- TCU triumphs in Rose Bowl, finishes 13-0 (msnbc.msn.com)
- College Football’s Future: A Playoff System We Can All Agree To (bleacherreport.com)
Why did ‘Stargate Universe’ Fail?
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SyFy has cancelled Stargate Universe, and for the first time since 2002 the network will not be running a Stargate series on the air. Like SyFy’s other marquee franchise show of last year, Caprica (a spin-off of the Battlestar Gallactica reboot), SGU didn’t last long: only two seasons.
I watched the show almost to the end of its first season before giving up. At the end of each episode, I found myself saying, “Okay, I’ll give it one more episode.” Sadly, that “one more episode” turned into “this isn’t worth my time.” There’s something wrong when one of the best episodes shows the entire crew dying.
SO WHAT WENT WRONG?
A lot of things can contribute to the success or demise of a project.
Sometimes the network itself can get in the way of creativity. They can demand certain plot points or aspects on the way episodes are written, shot or edited, which can hamper the producers’ creative process and decision making. (Since I do not work for MGM nor SyFy, I do not know if this was the case.)
Sometimes a lack of funds will stop a series’ ability to tell a story correctly. Somehow, I seriously doubt this was the case here. SyFy would have placed a lot of weight behind this marquee series, if it had half a brain.
Sometimes a lack of talent is the cause. SGU had a great cast, though. Brian Smith, Elyse Levesque, Alaina Huffman certainly brought glamour to the show, and Robert Carlyle, Louis Ferreira, Ming-Na Wen and Lou Diamond Phillips certainly brought talent. The show was nicely shot and decently edited. So we can’t blame the show’s failure to lack of talent.
Instead, I think the demise of the show boils down to two words: poor writing.
There was only one likable character.
When you’re writing a television show, it’s a pretty good idea to entice your audience to keep watching by making it a priority to build likable characters. You want your audience to be able to follow and fight for the protagonists of your story.
In spite of that, of all the characters, there was only one character that exhibited good personality traits: Eli. I can’t recall anyone but him cracking a single joke. Eli was the only character that was humorous, loving, smart, and honorable.
Glamour aside, every other character was riddled with traits that would rival the seven deadly sins: jealousy, anger, power-lust, cheating, back-stabbing and distrust. It would’ve been fine if these traits were mere character flaws, but instead they dominated personalities. How could any audience identify with any of the cast when we end up hating them at the end of every hour?
It had no clear antagonist.
Many viewers were probably asking this question after every episode: “so who’s the villain again?” Was it those mysterious blue aliens? Is it the shady Dr. Rush? (Was he hiding something?) Was it the conniving Camille? Was it the ship itself, the Destiny, as it was falling apart around them. Was it the Lucian Alliance?
The absence of a solid enemy only left a sense of no direction.
I think the show’s producers were going after a “man versus himself” scheme instead of a classic “man versus man.” I applaud that, but this was supposed to be science fiction. A science fiction show with no strong alien enemy is like a samurai flick without swords; it doesn’t quite work.
It featured people trapped in a box.
Tell me if you see a problem with this logline: “This is a story about a group of people trapped on a ship that goes nowhere.”
The crew of the Destiny was given close to no control over the ship they were riding. Much of the series was spent figuring out how to control the ship; something that they didn’t manage to do until half-way through the second season.
Instead, we were given a story about a ship that was blindly going further and further into unexplored space without any milestones of success to gauge the progress of the crew. It’s hard to care about the adventures of the Destiny, when we don’t know where the Destiny is going. Yawn.
It alienated their fan base.
If anything, you’d figure that the writers of the new series would build on the characters, technology, and alien cultures that the first two series had painstakingly built. Coincidentally, Stargate Universe had very few connections to the Stargate universe.
There were only two things that SGU had in common with SG-1 or Atlantis: the gates themselves and the fact that the Destiny was built by the Ancients (even though we never meet any Ancients). Even the directing, editing and basic story structure was radically different than the techniques employed by the first two series.
In effect, the already existing fan base was tasked to adopt a whole new ecosystem. Fans were used to the warm waters of Pacific, but were forced to swim in the cold, choppy waters of the Atlantic.
It tried to be something new by copying the wrong aspects of something else.
It’s easy to understand why the producers of SGU decided to make the changes above. When Stargate Atlantis ended, the familiar formula was getting tired. They needed something fresh. So what did they do?
They tried to be Battlestar Gallactica (’03-’09 remake).
Much of the stylistic cues–the photography, editing and sound design–seemed to be ripped directly from BSG. Even much of the writing seemed to mimic their SyFy rival, centering much of the plot on politics.
Unlike SGU, though, BSG was blessed with right decisions. From episode 1, it had a clear enemy (the Cylons), and had end-goals for each plot arc (find Earth, retrieve the arrow of Apollo, escape New Caprica, identify the Final Five, etc.). Not to mention a fleet of Raptors and Vipers–shuttles and fighter ships that made battle scenes exciting. SGU writers forgot to write-in any of this. (Oddly enough, this is why the Battlestar Gallactica’s spin-off, Caprica, failed: It had too much political intrigue and not enough “blowing shit up.”)
WHAT SHOULD IT HAVE BEEN?
The concept was sound: lost in an unfamiliar setting, forced to battle your way back home. In fact, it’s been done before. Lots of times: Lost in Space, Robotech/Macross, Star Trek: Voyager, and BSG. All of these shows featured compelling characters working together, with a goal in sight.
But instead, we got a story unwilling travelers with no control over their own ‘Destiny’. Imagine if Lewis and Clark had no Pochantas and were bickering at each other as they stumbled across the wilderness.
Instead:
- The crew should have had control of the ship from the beginning.
- The ship should have started on its way to Earth from the beginning.
- Destiny should have been pursued by a strong alien enemy from the beginning.
- They should have had a fleet of puddle jumpers (and some fighter pilots) for battle scenes.
- The crew should have been flawed soldiers instead of whiny children.
Placed on a ship with remarkable technology, and what was the best that SGU writers could come up with? A system that scoops up solar energy and floating cameras? Really? Sad.
Related Articles
- SyFy Cancels ‘Stargate Universe’ (screenrant.com)
- Stargate Universe is A 5 Year Series (abbaskarimjee.wordpress.com)
- Stargate Universe Producers Not Giving Up on Show (escapistmagazine.com)
Does Video Skype for iPhone beat Apple’s FaceTime?
Image by seanbonner via Flickr
Skype has just released an update to their iPhone/iPod touch app which brings video calling into the mix. This leaves the security of Apple’s video calling technology, FaceTime, in doubt.
Here’s the scorecard:
Skype can do stuff that Facetime can’t:
- works on 3G (doesn’t require Wifi)
- talks with people on Windows
- works on older iPhone models
- Android version (for select models) on the way, as soon as they solve fragmentation problems
FaceTime can do stuff that Skype can’t:
- integrated into the phone app, making it easier to use (only a phone number or an email address needed)
- always on: doesn’t require you to be logged on to a particular service
- better QoS (because of the Wifi requirement)
Andy Ihnakto talks about Skypes new video release for the iPhone in his article, ‘Skype adds video calling to iPhone in new app‘:
Today, Skype releases a new version of their iPhone chat client that adds video to its existing stable of features. With this move, Skype hasn’t exactly solved the problem of mobile video chat, but they’ve certainly made it a lot tougher for Apple to establish FaceTime as a new standard.
Frankly, I think Apple missed an opportunity by not making FaceTime an open standard. Apple could’ve had an army of developers integrating Facetime into their services.
Can both services coexist? Sure. Skype might prove to be the gorilla in the future landscape, however.
Related Articles
- Skype for iPhone now with video calls (blogs.skype.com)
Should Computers Determine NCAA Volleyball Tournament Seeding?
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The NCAA Women’s Volleyball Tournament Selection Committee should be a little embarrassed about the way this year’s tournament turned out.
Here are the facts:
- The seeding was dramatically different than the AVCA Poll rankings.
- Five of the sixteen seeds didn’t make it to the Sweet 16.
- Half of the top eight seeds failed to make it to the Elite 8.
- An unseeded team made it to the Elite 8.
- The first and second seeds were booted before quarterfinals.
- Those teams were defeated by the 16th (lowest) seed and an unseeded team.
- Analysts correctly predicted an easy road for the No. 4 seed (who eventually won the championship) due to what analysts were calling an uncompetitive bracket.
- The top four ranked Pac-10 (the dominant conference in the sport) teams were placed on the same half bracket.
- That half bracket lead to the four Pac-10 teams playing each other in the regional finals.
Much of this is about balanced the teams were this year. Practically anyone in the top 10 of the AVCA rankings could’ve won the national championship this year.
This was more the reason that the committee should have been extra careful this year. But they didn’t, and could have adversely affected the results of this year’s tourney. Much of the success of a team in the tournament is determined by their bracket placement. Keep in mind that winning a hard match leaves you emotionally drained and makes it exponentially more difficult to win the next match.
I think they should implement a BCS-style computer method (based on the AVCA poll) to figure out seeding. The NCAA is supposed to be about fairness, isn’t it?
