I’ve always thought of it this way: a good writer reads a lot of books. They see how other writers solve problems. They pay attention to what’s happening now as much as they pay attention to the classics. Good writers are readers first, but eagle-eyed, careful readers.

I think good developers are the same: they look at other apps. They “read” those apps, the problems they have and how they solve them. They notice trends, they notice new solutions, they notice when things work and when they don’t.

Not every developer does that. Some do, but pretty much limit themselves to Apple apps, which means they’re missing some interesting things. And some developers try but haven’t yet developed the close eye it takes. (It just takes practice.)

There may still be some developers who say there’s no place for style and fashion in UI, that usability is usability and that’s that. They’re mistaken, because part of human nature is to get tired of things and want fresh things, and UI is where the computer meets human nature. Human nature is not going to change on this matter. And I’m glad about that.

It seems to me that from a UI perspective, the problem of multitasking in iPhone OS has already been solved. Both Safari and the Springboard (Home) app have the ability to slide from window to window, or screen to screen. A similar solution could be used to switch between running applications. Let’s call it ‘App Switching Mode.’

The only major UI detail to sort out is how to enter App Switching Mode. Presumably it would be triggered by some touch gesture. For example, perhaps you could hold the home button while swiping left or right on the screen. What the exact gesture might be is anyone’s guess; for the purposes of this proposal let’s just call it the ‘App Switching Gesture.’

Performing the App Switching Gesture would shrink the current app screen down, revealing the screens of other running apps on the left and right. Then you’d use the familiar left and right swipes to move from app to app, and then tap an app to bring it forward. Like I said, very similar to pages in Safari.

See it in action

Here’s a quick demo I put together with the helpful magic of jQuery. Since it’s a pain to imitate multitouch gestures in Javascript, I just created buttons as stand-ins. Click ‘App Switching Gesture’ to see the demo, then click ‘Swipe Left’ or ‘Swipe Right’ to move from screen to screen. Then tap an app to bring it forward. (I only tested this demo in Safari and Firefox, so I make no guarantees that it will work in other browsers.)

Clicking the ‘x’ on an app would close that app, just as pressing the home button does currently. Switching to the Home app would allow you to launch any other app, which would then show up as another screen in the app switcher. If you launch an app that’s already running, it would just switch to that app rather than spawn a new process, similar to Spaces on Mac OS X. In fact this whole concept is similar to Spaces, except that there is only one app per space, and only one space per app.

One nice thing about this solution is that it wouldn’t require users to change their existing behavior whatsoever. They can click the home button and use the Springboard app as a rudimentary app switcher, just as we all currently do.

One thing this demo does not address is how to limit the number of running applications. (If Apple ever implements multitasking on the iPhone, I assume they’ll still place a limit on the number of running apps, similar to the limit of 8 pages open in Safari.) Say they set the limit at 8 running applications. What happens when you try to launch a ninth? That’s a bit of a stumper. Hopefully they’re working on it.

One thing that might help solve that problem is a more robust notifications framework. Hopefully they’re working on that too.

Obviously there are some technical hurdles, specifically CPU usage and battery life, that make multitasking on the current iPhone impractical. Presumably those issues will be mitigated with time. But it may also be the case that Apple doesn’t feel that the convenience that multitasking provides would outweigh the UI complexities that accompany it. The iPad, which has a killer CPU and great battery life, doesn’t have multitasking either — which may be an indicator that Apple doesn’t plan to implement multitasking even when CPU usage and battery life aren’t an issue. I hope I’m wrong on that count.

When you click the reload button, it is replaced with an integrated ‘Loading’ indicator that also contains a stop button. It’s a nice touch. Even nicer, the loading indicator fades to a lighter gray (not shown) once the page has mostly loaded and is ready for you to interact with it.

Still, the reload button feels like a small target. I miss having a nice big reload button. Here’s how I think Apple should treat the reload button, borrowing from the Add Bookmark button on the left side of the address field.

Ah, now that’s a reload button. Cmon, Apple, what say ye?

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But this leads me to wonder about something. The investor class has historically favored Republican candidates for President, at least in terms of campaign contributions. (I should find a source for this, but for the sake of argument, lets assume that statement is true.) Do you think, given the above information, investors are likely to change their ways and throw more of their campaign dollars behind Democratic candidates in the future? I tend to think not.

I wonder if this might stem from the pervasive sense of exceptionalism that Americans hold about themselves. American exceptionalism is often a force for good; we tend to believe we can achieve our goals even when the odds are against us, and sometimes our determination helps us beat those odds. But I think exceptionalism causes us to act foolishly as well. On the macro level, for example, there is our heavy-handed foreigh policy. But sticking to the micro level, the level of the invidual, I think a sense of exceptionalism leads many to participate in the lottery even though they know it is a losing proposition. They somehow hope that they can be the one, the lucky one. Lotteries would have zero participation were it not for exceptionalism.

Perhaps investors are a victim of this exceptionalist thinking as well. I don’t have a source for this either, but it seems to be accepted fact that the very wealthy do better under Republican administrations than under Democratic ones, when it comes to tax policy and billion-dollar military contracts and such. But the charts above refute the idea that all investors do better under Republican rule. Perhaps the bulk of investors give their campaign dollars to Republicans in hopes that they, too, can win the lottery.

(Via Daring Fireball)

John McCain:

Courtesy of http://wordle.net/create

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“The campaigns already had agreed to suspend television advertising critical of each other on Sept. 11. The McCain campaign has said it will air no ads that day.”

I guess that’s only kind of advertising McCain has…

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I wonder how they decided what order to show them in? Maybe McCain has to be in bed by 8:30.

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And how delicious is that, exactly?

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