tablets and touchscreens are a big part of the future, for sure. when the ipad was first announced, i was among the crowd who was a little quietly disappointed that it wasn't the tablet-style but fully powerful macbook that had been rumored so long ago in the messageboards. but as the ipad has taken hold, and as other tablets join it in the marketplace, i've really begun to understand its niche better. these tablets are not supposed to be heavyweight computers. they're not supposed to be hyperactive, teeny-tiny smartphones. they are a middle-weight something totally different, an intuitive container for all sorts of media, a bridge between reading/watching/listening and physically participating. they open doors to new ways of learning and interacting with information, new ways to explore ideas and experience situations.
there are a lot of super-nifty things that ipad design allows for that nothing else really does right now. a few that i'm excited about are the dimensional aspects (not just 2d, but 3d, and also 4d!), the potential for lateral instead of just linear organization of information, and really deep integration of primary and supplementary information into a single, compelling, personalizable experience.
all layout design deals with two dimensions, given that you're arranging "flat" shapes on a "flat" surface. you can move your elements up/down or left/right, or maybe overlap them to create the illusion of some space... but with the digital surface of the ipad, the third dimension of depth really comes out to play. it's especially fun because we continue to treat the ipad screen for the most part like a flat surface, so when something 3d does happen, it becomes this really exciting, unexpected moment. a good example of this is in advertisements where, instead of a nice hi-res image of a car or a camera, they embed a 3d model to allow you to spin it all around, see every side. there's also a fascinating allowance for time-based (4d) components, even still within the 2d layout, like in time magazine's covers... a video plays under the titles and standards rather than simply a still image, making for an interesting interaction between what we expect from a cover design and what we expect from a film clip.
another interesting possibility is the idea of lateral organization of content rather than page by page linear organization. it looks like lots of ipad magazines are already doing this just in their content order, that you scroll laterally side to side to change topics and scroll deeper down to get the full story, so that the row of opening pages are all equivalent and they occupy locations rather than durations. this makes so much sense and has, in my opinion, always been a thing that's somewhat difficult about magazines as they are.
finally, the most exciting thing of all about ipad design: totally integrated experience. your magazine is no longer a one-way street. advertisements aren't just obstinately there, glaring at you. every moment invites you to participate, to move through the content at your pace, and puts you in charge of the revelation of additional information at your leisure. where previously a mostly a's-mostly b's-mostly c's personality quiz may have been, now you can plug in your own answers and receive the explanation tailored to your input. where previously a single image may have been, now a whole paradigm of images might shift through, one by one, or even a film clip. if a picture is worth a thousand words, image when a short video must be worth! advertisements no longer need you to remember and pursue their products at the mall next week because they can win you over in an interactive experience and then link you to a page to buy the product right then and there while you're still excited about it. hyperlinking, expanding/collapsing footnotes, extra information... without being tied to a static page, the content can stretch out and back up any way it needs to.
anyway. i think this stuff is pretty cool.
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