5typos.net
All your screens belong to the browser
The Safari 4 beta got some people talking about how some it features would make a perfect fit (or not) for a touch device. The features in question are Top Sites (basically Apple’s implementation of Opera’s Speed Dial) and Cover Flow. Although this could perfectly true, I believe these features reflect more what’s coming into the AppleTV than into the iPhone or “iPad Tablet”
A recent patent regarding the AppleTV makes it even more compelling. With a Wii-remote like controller to point at things in the screen you can see how interacting with busy applications like a browser becomes viable in a set-top box. Having Opera already installed on my Wii, I’m more than convinced of the usability and usefulness of this.
Browsing on your TV is no more unnatural than watching youtube on your desktop. Notice how with notebooks most at home browsing has shifted to the sofa in front of the TV. I don’t think that an internet browsing AppleTV will become the center of your home browsing. But I do imagine something like this happening:
You are watching TV and chatting with a friend on your mobile phone. Somebody sends you a link and instead of opening it in the phone you “pass it along” to your TV screen. You can now continue to chat, share the link with anybody else close by (hopefully the link is SFW) and shift you attention back to the original video on the same screen.
The irony of integrating functionality into one device could be that by being able to do everything, they end up encouraging the use of other devices that are better at each specific function.