Another bite of the Apple

The downside of success is that it sets an expectation in people's minds that you'll do even greater things next time. And sometimes it's just impossible to improve on near-perfect: just ask Harper Lee. Her Pulitzer Prize-winning classic To Kill a Mockingbird topped a poll of librarians' 'must read' books, ahead of the Bible, and yet remains her only published work to date.

This observation struck me recently while I was playing with a friend's new iPhone4. Soon after the launch of Apple's latest device, users reported a problem that caused mild panic among some of the more alarmist elements of the media. What was the fuss about? Had Apple leaked two million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico? Apparently not. Did it stand accused of distributing counterfeit baby milk? Worse than that: it turns out that, because of a design fault in the external antennae of the iPhone, there is a slight possibility that you could lose reception if you hold the phone in a certain way. This is more likely to happen if you're left-handed (I'm waiting expectantly to see the article that accuses Apple of institutional prejudice against lefties!).

So, what to make of all this fuss? Well my point is that it wouldn't have happened to a lesser brand. Take Microsoft for example. It's almost a standing joke now in the IT community that you don't touch a new release of Windows until you've given it some time to sort the bugs out. And, if like me, you've ever tried to load a photo onto Flickr, without swearing or banging your laptop against the nearest interface designer, you'll know where I'm coming from.

That's not to say that I think everything about Apple is brilliant. This ability to produce great devices is what has given Apple its dominant standing today. It's rightfully earned, but it doesn't mean it's not annoying sometimes. For example, Apple's super-power status means it can happily disallow Flash media player from sitting on any of its hardware. For a video production company like ours, that's an irritant because we like to use Flash for our website training video previews. Apple does this because it likes to exert total dominance over its hardware and the software that runs on it; and because it can.

That said, Apple, for me, is a shining example of what can be achieved when you go all out to create the perfect meld of form and function, and put the user at the centre of your design universe.

That holds true as much for designers of rapid deployment e-learning, for example, as it does for makers of mobile devices. What would the learning technology world look like if it abided by the same principles as Apple? Does your e-learning portal, learning management system or mobile learning courses inspire the same level of evangelism in your users as Apple's products elicit from its? Would your learners queue through the night to be the first to experience your latest e-learning offering?

If the answers are what I think they might be, what aspects of the 'Apple way of doing things' can we adopt? What steps can we take to put the learner at the centre of our learning-design world? Sometimes these are more achievable then we might realise. It could mean looking at ways to make learning more visual and visceral. It could be looking at ways to literally piggyback on Apple's success by creating some compelling mobile learning for your touch-screen mobile users.

And the negative reaction to the antenna issues? Well, that seems to have been solved by something as simple as a rubber band, though I'm with Steve Jobs, who responded with the advice that: if you lose reception because you're covering the antenna with your hand then… stop covering the antenna with your hand.

I'm off for another bite of the Apple.

Martin Addison is MD of video training and e-learning company Video Arts. He can be contacted at maddison@videoarts.com or via www.videoarts.com