“ Evidently, shooting video is as easy as it is with a Flip, the ingenious device made by Pure Digital (recently purchased by Cisco). ”
—Peter Burrows, speculating in BusinessWeek that the new iPhone that will probably be announced in June will offer video creation as a headline feature.
No. With a Flip, you press one button to turn it on, and then press a second, big, red button to start recording.
Two button presses* into getting the iPhone out of my pocket and it’s unlocked, ready for me to start using it. The only way to make it as easy as the Flip is either to add a big red video button that you can use without unlocking the phone—which would be very un Apple**—or to create some new magical unlocking method—which I’m skeptical is possible, and which they probably would have done the first time round if it were.
Just for comparison, to take a photo on the current iPhone, you have to:
- Press the home button,
- Slide to unlock,
- Tap on the Camera icon,
- Tap the shutter release icon.
And that’s the best case. If you have an unlock code, or don’t keep the Camera on your first screen of apps, it’ll be more presses.
The next iPhone may turn out to be a wonderful video creation device, but if it beats the Flip, it won’t be through simplicity of recording.
*Interface interactions, more strictly.
**And also crap. I don’t want millions of videos of the inside of my pocket.
(via Daring Fireball)
