Tom de Grunwald

I’m sitting in Spitalfields drinking coffee and getting used to writing on the iPhone’s touch interface. I’m keeping it short as there’s no copy and paste, and there’s little that’s not been written already about this particular toy, sorry, piece of high consumer technology.

Suffice to say I’m loving the cocktail of connectivity and syncronisation, ease of use and rich media experience. I like the way it has got software developers excited and brought a unity to the mobile platform which has been sadly lacking in all my previous smart phones.

It is not without its flaws - again, well documented elsewhere, but perhaps most significantly the charge that it is a closed and tethered device that could threaten creativity and/ or go towards creating a new Market monopoly. But I sincerely hope that it acts as a catalyst to other makers of mobile devices creating truly usable interface. The iPhone has moved the goalposts, now it just needs worthy opponents on the field.

On a more personal note, this is actually my first iPod and I haven’t enjoyed listening to music so much since I stopped buying vinyl. I think this is because it brings a sense of intimacy with the record back into the experience, where other players have made a music collection feel like a set of data files - still possible to enjoy as music, but despite the interface rather than because of it.