What is special about Geospatial?

Apple introduced the Software Development Kit for their iPhone. Programmers can now produce third-party software for the Apple-Smartphone.

Apple has opened their iPhone for software applications of third party companies. Up to now all applications where closed and controlled by Apple. Apple CEO Steve Jops introduced Thursday the Software Developer Kit (SDK) for the iPhone. Additionally Apple wants to make the iPhone more applicable for business users. They are now in direct competition with the canadian Smartphone manifacturer Research in Motion (RIM).

With this SDK also LBS and mapping appication can be developed for the iPhone. I’m curious to see some of these appications for the iPhone. The official homepage of the SDK is currently (10.00 pm GMT+1) offline, but as soon as I can get some information I will blog about features that can enable LBS or mapping applications. Maybe there is something like in the Android SDK which manage location. The Location Manager is part of the Application Framework.

I think they are in direct competition with RIM but I’m not sure if they are also in competition with Google’s Android platform. On one side they use Google Services like Google Search or Google Maps on the other side both sites want to sell mobiles with their own platform. The future in the mobile sector is very interesting these days. All big companies want to be recognized on this market. If you think about the fact that more than 3 billons mobile phones are out there worldwide this is a big market for all business fields - there are also great challenges in the GIS and mobile mapping sector.

More and more people will get in touch with the internet the first time using a mobile device!

[apple.com]

Written and submitted from Home, using my 802.11g WiFi network.

Most Desktop GIS Systems use funtions like “(Fixed) Zoom In”, “(Fixed) Zoom out”, “Zoom to full Extend” or “Zoom Box” for zooming a mapview. In most online map services like Google Maps the zoom slider tool is used as alternative to these functions. It is straight forward to use and widely accepted by the users. One advantage is that it can be seen immediately where the current zoom level is and how far I can zoom in and zoom out.

But one problem is, there are two ways of interpreting it and they are the exact opposite of each other.
The question a user must ask themselves in the milliseconds before they interact with the tool is…

Which way zooms me in?

There are only two options; two kinds of people in this world.  You either drag that handle up or you drag it down.  Aside from the visual cues of a “+” and “-” at either end of the track, there is a preference deep down in all of us as to which way we want to drag that handle to zoom in.  And depending on which way your primal urges want you to drag that handle, you are either a Flyer or a Reeler.

Flyers
Flyers perceive themselves as the slider handle.  They are hovering over the earth and can dive down closer to it, or fly up away from it.  The earth is stationary; the scale of the map is a factor of how closely they position themselves to it.  To zoom in, flyers want to drag the handle down.

Reelers
Reelers perceive the earth as the slider handle.  They, themselves, are the stationary entity and they pull or push the earth nearer to their position or farther from their position.  To zoom in, Reelers want to drag the handle up.

1) If the metaphor used by the most common zoom tool out there is misinterpreted half the time, then isn’t there a better way?
Yes.
2) Some interfaces have abandoned the track and just have the zoom in/out buttons that you click and hold.
Even if the zoom tool does not have that linear zoom track, the Flyer/Reeler bias will still be evident depending on which button is on top.
3) What about a horizontal orientation for the zoom widget?
A fine idea; Some does this based oth the argument that many folks follow a left-to-right workflow, which lines up with the broad-scale then fine-scale principle of map zooming.  But it does have a Western bias.

The Future
The zoom slider is handy, especially since the interactions allowed by a common mouse are rather limiting.  My sense is that the Reeler method’s days are numbered and the Flyer method, which is a better fit for immersive 3D interfaces, will survive longer.

Written and submitted from Home, using my 802.11g WiFi network.