Edward Tufte seems like he has a love-hate relationship with the iPhone. On one hand he loves the way the iPhone functions, but on the other hand he wants more information that looks more organized.
Some of his comments are useful, but others don’t really add much to improving the iPhone. His comment on the pictures in the photo gallery seemed very nitpicky. He wants there to be 1 px of space in between each picture in the Camera Roll and thinks the space between should be grey instead of white. It looks completely fine the way it is.
I rarely mess around with the Stocks app that comes on the iPhone but I can see where he’s coming from saying that it looks like a cartoon. Now it has been changed so that there isn’t a bar graph, there is just a section with news at the bottom. I wasn’t a big fan of the picture he was comparing the app with because the information and charts were so small.
I agree with Tufte that the ability to use your fingers to slide across the iPhone to control it is one of the best features. It’s especially useful for navigating and scrolling, whether it’s a website like the New York Times or going through a photo gallery. It’s a unique feature that really makes the iPhone the iPhone because it was the first smart phone to function in that way.
I thought his suggestion to enhance the Weather app was his best critique. I’ve been using the Weather Channel’s app lately because they go into more detail and show maps, the hourly forecast and the 10-day forecast, whereas the Weather app just shows highs and lows as well as an image of what the weather will be like. I want my weather app to include a lot of information and I want it to be organized. The example Tufte showed for the Weather app was perfect because it included an animated radar map showing the current weather. I think that would be a beneficial upgrade that Apple should make.