jadespace

Having transitioned to living in a post PC world, I find myself feeling very PC (positionally correct) when it comes to the iPad. Using an iPad as my primary computing device, it’s not the limitations that drive to distraction but the conscious choices made by Apple, one of the most annoying turning up every time I turn the iPad.

This is not an iPad. It is an iPhone in portrait mode, and by turning it either left or right it’s possible to demonstrate Apple knows it is engaging in an unnatural act.

While it’s true the iPhone ignores the fact that it is being viewed on its side, that may not be the fault of developers. They could be like those expensive mice you can buy as pets that are bred with an inner ear imbalance, so they get up on their hind legs and spin in circles from time to time. So the lack of awareness can be forgiven because no one is screwing with the natural order of things… except for the mice.

This is an iPad in portrait mode, which looks a lot like the iPhone in portait mode, except no one could be bothered to allow a sensible number of icons, or at least enlarge them so there’s not so much dead space. Except for the Dock. You can put six icons in the Dock, which ironically is the only place I don’t want more icons. Nor do I want some half-ass orthographic projection of three dimensions, but, again, I can live with that. What I can’t abide is this.

I’m pretty sure Rick Santorum would be be vomiting the contents of his stomach over this way more than JFK extolling the virtues of separation of church and state, and rightly so. Apple abandons the traditional concept of graphical computing: you move something and it stays moved until you move it again (resized Finder windows excepted, of course).

This is what should happen when I turn my iPad left to landscape.

And this is what should happen when I turn the iPad to the right. The icons stay where you put them, rotating in place. Muscle memory is more than capable of recalling position when the axis is tilted, but not so much when some kind of unmentionable jerking of circles as icons run hither and yon takes place.

I’m not even asking for this to become the default behavior, just an option of a “pegboard” preference. If the rest of the world wants to burn in UX hell, they can go ahead, just don’t make me watch.