Klaus,
Thank you for your message.
The concern  that led to me writing the email to which you strongly reacted
(below) is that Apple design is often held up as an example to design
students of best practice of usability design for all forms of ICT.
Certainly, Apple products are excellent for some tasks. I've just been
travelling in Malaysia and an iphone4 was my preferred choice for using
maps, tour guides and as a camera. I would have also used it as a phone and
for SMS and internet  if Apple had unlocked it as they agreed before I left.
I can see that the iPhone is an excellent solution for me being a tourist
and being entertained  as content consumer.
In contrast, for the business parts of my travel, the iPhone simply doesn't
work and as I suggested, students should be aware that the iPhone usability
fails completely on many key tasks for many  business users. I described
some easy to test issues in my previous email, such as the failure to do
two-way sync with outlook and the difficulty in typing passwords. Other
types of phones provide these services better than the iPhone and it seems
obvious that different approaches to usability are needed to identify and
design for the needs of business users.
Why is it an important issue? It seems important to offer design students
better clarity and more detail about the pros and cons of 'best practices in
usability design'. Second, it seems important for design students to be more
aware that designs optimised for one user group may likely offer poorer
usability for other users. Third, on a practical level of those educating
organisation and business process  designers, the unthinking adoption of
iPhones (and tablets) in business and lack of clarity about the different
user issues may for some business groups adversely affect efficiency of
business processes and, in a widespread and potentially hidden manner,
reduce industry competitiveness at a national scale.
You implied in your post, that no one should undertake a critique of what is
considered a world capturing product unless one had designed one. This
doesn't seem to make sense. You don't need to be a world class coffee grower
to realise that instead of a 250ml cup of cappuccino one has been given 5L
of engine oil? For some, the cappuccino would be appropriate. Others,
however, would prefer the engine oil. The same with phone usability.
Your post seems to suggest that you  privilege the design of  'world
capturing' products over everyday design work?  Many of us designers enjoy
doing the ordinary day-to-day design work  necessary for the world to go
round rather than large-scale world capturing designs. For me, I enjoy both
everyday design work, and like many on this list, also enjoy doing designs
that are a bit  'ahead of the game'. Thank you for jogging my thoughts on
this because I'm currently trying to buckle down and create a cv (!). You
triggered me into thinking about designing in various teams where the
outcomes were designs that were fun to do and at least a bit 'ahead of their
time', and in a way might justify a bit for you my critical words about
iPhone usability :
* Design of new type of climbing safety harness (sit harness) in 1968
(common now)
* Design of new types of tents using thin glassfibre poles (1968-1970)
(common now)
* Design of several new design optimisation and automated design approaches
(1971-1974) (just starting to publish them this year)
* Creation of functioning system for computerised digital music recording,
storage and playback (1977) 
* Work on the design/research team for the ToroTrak/Perbury transmission
(1976-1978) (Torotrak won the Formula1 Engine prize 2010)
* Design work on 'reversed' 4 wheel-drive tractor with hydraulic yard and
plug-in implements (1978) (since the 90s now a common configuration in
agriculture and construction machinery)
* Design of new approaches to designing social support interventions based
on new real-time methods of assessment of social capital (1980s)
* Design of new approaches for understanding and intervening in complex
socio-technical systems (1970s and ongoing)

Many designers on this list, including students, have done much more. Some
have produced 'world capturing' designs, but many of us have aimed however
at simply designing whatever is the job in front of us. Regardless, all that
seems unimportant. It seems more important to maintain the dialogue on the
list in whatever messy way and style it evolves rather than to censor.
Best wishes,
Terry

-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Klaus
Krippendorff
Sent: Thursday, 26 January 2012 1:19 PM
To: Dr Terence Love
Subject: Re: product-driven industries versus one-off industries

my comment on terry comment:



For some of us, Apple products are dysfunctional, have awful usability and

are unable to do basic tasks that one might expect of them.   There are many

of us in the business and research worlds for whom Apple products are poor

quality and second rate  in terms of their practical use. In the limit, they

are slower and do not do many essential tasks.



The iPhone presents many usability and issues for the business and hard

using technical groups. It simply doesn't do many things that are needed.

For example, try :



cheap shots are easy.

my recommendation is to refrain from criticizing something unless one can
demonstrate the ability to do it better. i haven't seen a design from terry
that has captured the world.



klaus