Comfortable browsing on the iPhone

Mobile web browsers like the iPhone have great advantages due to portability and being immediately available anytime. But, they are darn small to display web pages. The first image is of the regular New York Times page on the iPhone. It is all there and quite easy to move around, but the page is designed to be viewed on a regular size screen. So one is in effect looking at the page through a window about a quarter the size of the normal computer screen. This works, but is not fitting design to function very well.

The touch screen brings a lot of navigation advantages but it is irritatingly easy to accidentally trigger a link when you are just trying to scroll the screen. So crawling back to where you meant to be is a regular activity.

Then lo! along came the NYT application, which converts the reguar display to the shape of a moble device. The image on the left shows a much simplified display with the story teasers one under the other. This has proved much easier to navigate. It is not as attractive as a whole as the full computer screen display which is a truncated view for the paper newspaper display, but I have found is much better for the reader. I am now reading a lot more of the content than I did on a laptop. The buttons along the bottom of the screen link to 4 main headings and a More display which is the next image on the right. This provides a very simple menu to almost the entire paper. I have been a regualar NYT reader for years and found it very satisfactory to continue reading on the iPhone. The ability to be reading the 'paper' while watching TV is great for me, and the unobtrusive size of the iPhone made is easier and more comfortable.  But I must admit, not as quick as on a laptop.

The buttons along the bottom of the screen link to 4 main headings and a More link to a simple menu of sections of almost the entire paper.

The lesson for me is to further convince me that our future is a mobile one. The convenience and simplicity of accessing the web is very persuasive. Being able to just grab the device like a magazine and browse for what you want is very powerful. It shows how constrained we have been by the bulk of a computer. First desktops in one location, and even laptops with wireless connectivity. I have wireless at home and at work, and so can cope with a modest 3G limit (150Mb per month). I am viewing and reading more and enjoying the experience more.

 

Tags: iphone mobile learning multimedia
Posted at 08:33PM Sep 04, 2008 by John Travers  | 

iPhone, the path to mobile learning?

The icons on the main screen give a hint of what is to offer. From the top: Photos can be a large image collection, Camera is modes but effective - inserting images into your large photo collection, and they can be emailed immediately too. Maps provides satellite views and maps of the whole world. App Store is the magic feature. Here you can find a quickly growing collection of free or cheap applications that do everything immaginable and some that are not. SpeakEasy is a very simple and powerful voice recorder that can attache images from your photo collection! Reader is a link to your collection of RSS feeds to whaterver you are tracking. FileMagnet is a storage place for Word, PDF, Excel files: small view but readable. Molecules is an example of the Apps that are coming on stream. Drag your finger across the screen and you rotate and maginfy the image of DNA. More protein molecules can be downloaded.

The bottom row, Phone, Email, Web and a complete iPod for audio and video. Storage for the small one is 8Gb - enough for thousands of images and hundreds of audio files.

With wirelss internet access it is a fast and cheap web browser, giving access out of the pocket. I think this is the most impressive aspect of mobile devices, that they can be operated immidiately, from anywhere.  Navigation is the second key feature. The touch screen means that manipulating the image, Zoom in and Zoom out are intuitive. I regularly read the New York Times on my iPhone and all in all it is a better expereince than from my laptop, becuase it is discrete, and drops into the pocket when I want to do something else.

Another free app is an eBook reader, and downloading War and Peace took about 30 sec. The actual size is slightly smaller than this image. The screen is more then double the resolution of a normal computer screen so it is a quite good eBook format.

Navigation is again by touching the  screen to the right or left. It is not as convenient as having paper, but is is more convenient than having a 2 Kg folder in on'es bag.

The view of my blog shows that the mini screen is quite readable, and one can zoom in for a closer look.

The iPhone is a fully fledged computer with navigation and viewing affected by the small size. Typing is on an on-screen keyboard and as one types away with big thumbs making a lot of mistakes, 90% of these are corrected by the predictive text. Correction is easy with the use of an amazing maginfying glass.

I think tools like this will be front and centre in the classroom within a year or two. By the way, they are cheap and about $230 nominal price. If students/parents are responsible for phone costs and home and school provide wireless access, these are very practical learning tools.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: mobile learning multimedia literacy iphone
Posted at 04:23PM Aug 15, 2008 by John Travers  |  Comments[1]

The fourth screen - the coming mobile wave

This is a quite powerful story that is actually an advertisement for Nokia about the evolution of screens in our lives.

 

Might be self-serving for Nokia, but I suspect it is true. As my Affair with my iPhone matures into its 4th week I have changed my mind about mobile phones and schooling. I think the 4th screen is a valid concept. It is definitely an expressive tool, enabling me to annoy people on a regular basis by whipping it out to show off grandchild pics and a graph on global temperatures to prove a point. It is it's personal nature that is different: always in the pocket, ready to record, connect, find and snap.

Tags: smart phones mobile learning
Posted at 04:07PM Aug 08, 2008 by John Travers  |