Saturday, May 29, 2010

Irrepressible, Art

After only 1 day playing with my iPad, it's clear that the "beautiful" apps own this space. I'm sure we will see the same deluge of fart apps and just plain ugly apps that we have on the iPhone, but on iPad, the really gorgeous UIs stand out more than they do on iPhone. And with the higher price tags that for now seem to be the norm, users will expect more and demand better.

But "beauty" is not a requirement to publish apps on iPad, it's an impulse—an irresistible urge. To me at least, it seems that if you give some people a canvas, they cannot help themselves but create art.

Take TV advertising as an example. The job is simply to tell people about your product, and how they can get it, within the time constraints imposed by the platform. But many ads on TV stand up on their own (without the product) as beautiful art. It's a similar story for printed ads, buildings, built-in computer alert sounds, business cards—basically any human activity where discretion is allowed. People are addicted to their own creativity, and everybody benefits.

I wrote before that Apple gave iPhone OS developers a forced lesson in UI minimalism. And now there is no excuse for getting it wrong on iPad. There are oodles of pixels to work with, plenty of grunt to push them with, and a big reservoir of power in its twin batteries. To help even more, the typical iPad usage session is many multiples of the iPhone. You have the full attention of a comfortably seated, wide-eyed audience.

Better give them art.

- posted from my iPad

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