Here are my predictions for this year’s iPod event. Mostly based on rumors and intuition.
Certain
New iPod touch and nano
New iPods. iPod touches are guarantied, so are nanos. I believe that the rumors of a touch-based nano is true, but I don’t know if the screen is the only input.
The iPod Touch will be much more like the iPhone 4, certainly on the inside but also partially on the outside. At least one camera should be a given, but I won’t say for certain if it will be front, back or both. My gut feeling is that there will be both, but that the back cam won’t mach the iPhone 4′s.
Likely
iPod classic and shuffle
I don’t know about the iPod classic or the shuffle, but my guess is that the shuffle will be replaced or dropped. The classic is dependant on how much the storage is increased in the touch.
New iTunes
I haven’t read anything to suggest this, but I believe that Apple will launch a streaming service and iTunes X (10) to follow. It will have both music and movie streaming.
iTV
This rumor comes from the almighty Kevin Rose. The Apple TV will be redone based on iOS and renamed to iTV. It will be a part of the grand streaming plan. It will be priced to sell at $99.
The only rumor I won’t buy is the 720p limit. It would be downright stupid to have such a limit. It would put of many buyers, me included.
iOS 4 for iPad
This would be very possible. This hasn’t been mentioned in rumors, but the time is right. Media features may be the excuse for launching it at this event.
Unlikely but possible
- New iPhone with fixed antenna
- iTV is an actual TV
- New Macbook Air (with iOS?)
Edging to impossible
- Steve jobs uses the word “sorry” related to the antenna issue
My nuke station
Every IT department should have a way to securely erase old hard drives before you throw them way. This is my suggestion for a DIY solution.
Find some free desk space
It helps to have a permanent place to do this. It can be dual-purpose as a test lab, but should not be someones desk. A great dual use is to use the same desk space for fixing problematic computers and preparing new ones.
Find a spare monitor, keyboard and mouse
These doesn’t need to be any good, just usable. I use an old HP 17″ flat screen and old PS/2 keyboard and mouse. If I weren’t using a permanent nuking machine, I’d go for USB instead.
The nuke machine
Here you have two options. You can either bring every computer to nuke to this desk, or you can take out the hard drives and have a permanent machine at the place.
I chose the latter one because many of the hard drives I need to nuke are in non-working computers.
Preferably the computer you choose has both SATA and IDE connectors. If not, you can find many nice external disk connection kits that use USB or firewire (or use E-SATA).
I use an old Dell Optiplex small form factor computer, because it is easy to open and replace the drives.
The software
Screenshot of DBAN. I use the autonuke option.
You can probably buy some expensive software to use, but I prefer to use Darik’s boot and nuke. It is free and very secure. Nobody will ever be able to recover the data when DBAN is done. The computer you use must be able to boot from a CD for this software to work.
Just download the CD image and burn to a CD, and you’re ready to go. Put the CD in the CD drive of the “victim” computer, and restart.
You might need to set the CD to a higher boot priority in the BIOS if the software doesn’t automatically run.
I use the autonuke option, because it is easy and will thoroughtly clean the system for all data.
Tips
- WARNING: All attached drives will be ereased, including USB drives!
- The time it takes to nuke a disk depends on the capacity and speed of the disk.
- Don’t use this for SSDs if you plan to reuse them! This can permanently degrade the performance!
- You can connect multiple disks at once.
Safari launching on an iPhone (it took many tries to get this screenshot right!)
More and more gadgets use fancy animated graphics. From your cellphone to your high-end Linux box running Compiz Fusion, they’re all looking better than ever. But animation is more than looks. And today I’m going to cover many of the benefits of animations in software, from multiple angles.
Animations are exciting
Animations makes people go “Ooh” and “Aah”. This makes people happy, and they’ll be more likely to like the software. Even Vista with all its problems was famous for its Aero flip 3D. Bringing animations to your software also makes it seem more professional and complete. Static software is boring, animations are not. Too much is not good either, so finding a place in the middle is important.
Using animation to hide slowness
Everybody hates slow software. Animation is a great way to hide this. Of course, the best solution is to make software faster. But when this is not possible because of limitations in hardware, animations can be a great solution.
A very good example of this is launching apps on an iPhone. You zoom from the springboard (desktop) to the app. It may only take milliseconds, but it gives the app some extra time to start that doesn’t annoy you. Many apps are ready to use when the animation is done, making the launch seem instantaneous instead of having a tiny delay. This gives a great user experience, and is one of the “secrets” to why people love the iPhone.
Using animation to give feedback
Animations is a great way to give users feedback on their actions. When you click something, you expect something to happen. A good example is the jumping dock icon on Macs when you launch a program. Another one is minimizing windows on almost any operating system.
On Windows 7, you get outlines when dragging windows to the edge of the screen, highlighting that you are about to invoke the Snap feature.
Using animation to show relations
Animation is a great way to show how things are connected. A perfect example is switching screens in a table-based iPhone app. When you press an item in a table, the table slides off to the left and a detailed view comes in from the right. When you go back, the opposite happens. This gives the user a sense of relations between objects on and of the screen. The app seems more logical and self explanatory.
This works so well because we humans are wired to see relations between objects. This is also the reason why interfaces inspired by real world examples often work well (provided they are well executed).
How to implement the correct animations in your software
Knowing that animations can be used for many things is good and well, but how do you use them the right way? The easiest way to know if animating something is the right thing to do, ask yourself these questions:
- Are you sure it won’t impact performance too much?
- Will it help users understand what happened?
- Will it make the software look better?
- Will it make the software seem faster?
- Are users going to be excited by it?
- Is it fast to implement?
If the answer to at least three of these questions are yes, you should really consider implementing animations.
Finding the right animation for the task is even harder, but this is so different from case to case that I won’t recommend anything specific. A great general tip is to look at software you love to use and learn from it.
Often used animations most people undestand are zooming, bouncing and sliding. Be careful not to let the animations become the main focus. They should generally last for under 1 second and be gone. A bouncing icon that repeats over and over until you click is not a good user experience.
Debate, test and ask
Are you unsure about animations in your software? Do you want to learn more? Debate with friends, test software yourself and ask people what they think. Hit me up at twitter if you have any specific questions, or leave a comment below.
As an experiment I’ve made a basic HTML tutorial. Please watch it and tell me what you think.
