Apple Patent Confirms 1.1.3 Jiggly Icon Moving Scheme
Big ups to hrmpf.com for remembering a certain Apple patent: “Portable Electronic Device with Interface Reconfiguration Mode.” Basically it shows a portable device clearly letting you know you’re in “reconfiguration” mode by way of jiggly icons. While I personally don’t much like the jigglies, I will admit that, as rener and archie say, it does make it unmistakable that you’re in the “move stuff around” mode.
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January 2nd, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Cheers!
And I think Apple realizes that sometimes they’re dealing with users who take the iPhone back because the “ringer stops working” after they (inadvertently or not) flip the Treo-esque silent mode switch.
Hitting people over the head with state, even swinging/wiggling state, may be a necessary bloat at times.
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:54 pm
What about a color change? Or a few bright, flashy arrows underneath the icon you want to move?
I dunno, it still seems inelegant to me. If only because it gives me the jibblies
January 2nd, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Sure, the metaphore is always debatable (and good UI artists probably fuss with the arguments a lot). The patent mentions a detaching and floating above the surface, which is pretty real-world. Wiggling abstacts that some.
The icons they use in favorites and other apps to change sequencing isn’t that intutive (at least to me).
Hey, they could always steal a page from Mii management and have all the icons line up at whistle-blow.
Color/saturation/transparancy or minicon (like the plus or numbers or arrows) are all good ways, though arguably not as fun or conversational