Apple’s MagicMouse – Most usable mouse ever

MagicMouse is a great a very well designed device. I got it on the first date they were available and spent about 10 days using it. The mouse is great. Very responsive and  precise. Still runs on the original batteries with about 40% charge left which means it will go for about about 3 weeks.

The gestures work great. Very usable . Especially swiping back though web pages. Scroll with momentum works and feels exactly as one in iPhone, which is very intuitive and beats Logitec’s Hyper-fast scrolling feature.

Apple's MagicMouse

The only 2 things bother me so far and they are really minor. First is that the thumb is positioned over 2 movable parts which creates a strange feeling that took me few days to get used to. The other thing is that if your hand are wet for any the fingers won’t “swipe” over mouse plastic making gestures almost impossible.

So if you live in a hot place with high humidity without an air conditioning MagicMouse not may be a mouse of choice for you. In any other case – highly recommended.

OpenOffice Mouse – 7 buttons for each finger

After debut of Apple’s Magic Mouse - a super well and smartly designed piece of hardware  OpenOffice Mouse produces mixed feeling. The bulky and very impressive design that places 7 buttons under each finger might require an extensive training to use. (Piano players will have a definite advantage using it). Thumb button makes it look like a toy form Master Mind.There is differently coloured version of on OO website but it doesn’t really help.

Design in use – Rozetkus 3D

Here is a good example of what design should do for us making our everyday life a bit easier. Art Lebedev – a russian design studio that come up few years back Optimus Keyboard (1257.14€) is back with a useful concept that does solve a real problem in hand. Rozetkus 3D looks like any other socket but with a push of the button above, it pops our giving you access to additional sockets. Smartly done concept and seems to be simple in production.

Art Lebedev's Rozetkus 3D socket concept

Touch screen tactile feedback and user satisfaction survey

A survey recently conducted (France, Germany and the UK) showed 38% were planning to get a touchscreen on their next mobile phone while only 47% of people who already owned a touchscreen said they would get another one. In other words, less than half of touchscreen owners thought they’d stick with the technology on their next purchase. Apple has a high customer satisfaction rate and since iPhone is the only available device iphone users don’t really have a choice.

As a designer I can’t help but love the idea of one surface that becomes what one needs it to be at the moment. I’m not moving back to physical keyboard. At least on my phone.
I don’t play many games on my iPhone and when I do tactile feedback is not something I miss.

The possibility of tactile feedback was mentioned in the original iPhone patent application and last year Apple filled “Keystroke tacility arrangement on a smooth touch surface” patent. It desscribes various tactile feedbacks on a smooth sureface keyboard such as:

• Braille-like dot pairs or bars at key centers
• Articulating frame that protrudes at key edges during typing
• Articulating frame that deforms surface cover at key edges during typing
• Rigid frame under key edges with compressible key centers

We may see it implemented in rumoured Apple Tablet Mac that supposedly should surface in next few months. So it looks like touchscreen are going to become smarter and more “user-freiendly”.

Microsoft Tablet (Booklet)

Surprisingly good industrial design sets Microsoft’s Tablet (Booklet) apart form Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble nook, Cybook Opus, PRS-300 and other book readers. It is hard to judge how usable it will be without having one in hand but it sure looks good.

If MS comes up with good software support it definitely will attract many customers. Apple, your move!

Microsoft's Secret Tablet

Microsoft's Secret Tablet 2

Microsoft's Secret Tablet 3