One to one.
Way back in the 80s, right after Apple had introduced the world to the graphical user interface all of the other PC companies scrambled to add windows and mice to their machines. For years when you sat down at an early Windows machine you saw this: you move the mouse and a bit later the pointer on the screen moved. As machines got faster the lag went away, until eventually it was gone.
But the magic thing about the Mac was that they had practically zero latency on lesser hardware from day 1. And when I say practically zero I mean that there was no perception that you were controlling a mouse on your desk. It was a one to one, hand to pointer, as if the pointer was directly connected to your hand. It was magic.
Apple put the human interaction first. The mouse and its movement were built into the hardware and software at the lowest levels. The Apple guys knew that if the mouse seemed to lag behind the user’s actions, even for just a split second, the magic was broken.
Fast forward to today. The Kindle fire reviews are pouring in and it looks like a great little device. Amazon certainly has a clear answer to the iTunes Store/App Store. But in watching the videos its clear that it’s still Android underneath. Scrolling around in the browser looks more like a gesture than a one to one interaction. The user swipes, and a moment later the content moves. Just like those Windows 1 machines, you feel as though you’re interacting with the device, rather than interacting with the content on the screen. There’s no one to one, and no magic.
