Over the past few days have been looking into the iPhone and its baby brother the iTouch, and I have to say that they are both becoming very interesting.

Previously I haven't had much interest in either of them - particularly the iPhone - because while I am a big fan of PDAs (I would be lost without my LifeDrive), I have never been a fan of smart phones - the segment that the iPhone is pitched at. Every smart phone I have tried to date has made me feel like they were trying to do too much, with the result that they felt both clunky and oddly incapable.

Usability

That may have been rather unfair of me because the above problems cannot be ascribed to the iPhone. Say what you will about it, you have to concede it is very pretty and very comfortable to use.

And it's not just me; I note that Anup Murarka, director of technical marketing for Adobe, recently quoted a study that showed that 77% of iPhone users were "very satisfied" with their user experience.

I find Mr Murarka's remarks interesting because he said them at this year's Mobile World Congress at the "It's the user experience, stupid" panel, and were made in support of the suggestion that the industry should follow the iPhone model.

Apparently everyone on the panel agreed (I should point out at this point that I wasn't there - this is my analysis of reports from people who were), but it also seems clear that they didn't understand how they should follow the iPhone model, or even if they actually knew what the iPhone model was. The panel discussed identifying the "need states" of users, of creating "better" user interfaces, and even "tapping into a user's neural network"!

As off the wall as "tapping into a user's neural network" sounds, what I think Sarah Lipman (co-founder and R&D director for Power2B) was referring to in her comment was her own company's 3D input technology. No, I am not sure what that is either but if I had to guess then I would say that it aspires to be a "Minority Report" style input technology where you wave your hands about to manipulate virtual objects. If that is the case then I'm not sure how useful that would be in a mobile device, but I guess we will see.

Anyway, getting back to the point; iPhone users seem to like using the iPhone, and mobile phone people who listen to polls think their UIs suck (at least when compared to the iPhone's). A point I happen to agree with; most phone UIs do indeed suck.

It's the users - apparently

The panel then went on lament the fact that most users don't use most of the exciting features of their phones because they are too afraid of the eventual cost of these features. A point I happen to disagree with. Yes, users are sensitive to hidden costs (who isn't?), but most mobile plans bundle everything. What this is really about is the user experience. It can be so hard to use the "advanced features" of most handsets that unless the user really wants to use them then they justify their non-use to themselves, "cost" and "not something I need" just happen to be the top two.

I think that the reason iPhone users are so happy with their phones is because they can use them. I think the reason that iPhone users make better use of their phones is also because they can use them.

The fact that the panel seemed to get it at the beginning by noting the iPhone's ease of use (implying that industry has to improve the UIs), and then wound up in the comfortable cul-de-sac of the user is too scared and/or dumb to use advanced features (implying that the UIs are fine and they need to get the cost or marketing right), is symptomatic of the schizophrenic way the my industry looks at these problems.

Conclusion

What's needed here is a step-change in the way we look at human-device interaction. Minor improvements in UI design such as prettier icons, transparent backgrounds, and 3d perspectives simply aren't going to cut it.

Capabilities that are organised hierarchically by some form of categorisation only make sense if you already understand that form of categorisation. The introduction of icons at different levels of the hierarchy only makes things worse because now you have to understand the pictorial representation of a category as well.

Apple gets this, and it is capable of designing UIs that overcome this very hard problem. Until the rest of us catch up we are going to be stuck scratching our heads wondering why our customers aren't making use of all the cool toys we give them, and wondering how Apple "does it".