This post is philosophical and doesn’t necessarily carry solutions to the problems it presents. I know it’s not my usual kind of writing, but hey, it’s better to get ideas out there than it is to keep them to yourself. Tread carefully.

Brian Oberkirch just posted about the flow of information and where we’re heading to by connecting the web to the objects we carry with us daily. This topic has been on my mind since when I first heard of the Chumby about 2 years ago. Connected devices like the chumby, stuff by Ambient Devices (that I’ve never seen live, unfortunately), the iPhone and Arduino bring us closer to data that we generally pay little attention to.

These days the web isn’t something we’re always plugged into or connected to. We just tap into it when we want information - still some of us do it more than others. The web is leaking into the real world (as Matt Webb hinted at in his Movement presentation) through connected devices and services like Twitter, Dopplr (or Birdie, which we’re building around here - more on it later, promise).

There’s still barriers between now and a future where the online world and the real blend into each other completely. Brian mentions some of the problems we’re solving now like identity and usability. A lot needs to happen in the interaction world as well. The way we connect to the cloud (cloud being online data) is still open, vastly unexplored territory. We’re building devices that get us closer to the data, but I keep feeling like our use of screen-based media is often limiting. We’ll see a lot more of products like BUG labs than we will of services in the future.

My guess is we’ll have specialized devices connected to specific bits of data - much like we use our cellphones to connect to GSM networks and call people. What those will be and how they’ll look is still unknown, but it’s an exciting time to be working on platforms, devices and the web.

How things have changed. A year ago, just about every device was closed and locked behind closed doors and proprietary information. Now we’re seeing Android, the Chumby, and now Bug Labs. It’s exciting that people are waking up to the power of allowing people to hack - and to have a device as platform. Bug Labs in particular is getting me very excited.

Fred Wilson has been blogging a bit about these guys (they’re a part of the Union Square Ventures portfolio) for a while, but this morning he’s posted a video by Robert Scoble that got me begging for one of these:

I’m not even going to ramble about how this project is going to create a whole bunch of new hardware hackers (which is fantastic) and getting people to try out new ideas and prototypes for future devices - because that’s all obvious if you watch Robert’s video (or read his post). I just want our team here to get one of these and hack away at some ideas we have.

Bug Labs guys - please don’t pull a Chumby on me. I was on the initial list for the Chumby prototypes but because I moved back to Europe, I never got one. Not one of the first limited few (which they kept emailing me about), not one now that they’ve launched. I can’t order the damn thing. Be smart about this, please?

Remember the old days when we were promised jetpacks, flying skateboards and the mobile web? Well we still haven’t got the Back to the Future gear but some would argue that devices like the iPhone do bring us closer to the internet, anywhere.

The iPhone gives you the best experience browsing the web on a mobile phone although contrarily to what some people seem to believe, that’s because it doesn’t need iPhone-specific pages to feel right. Apple did a terrific job at crafting a device that gives you the web (as it is today) in your hands. And that takes me to my main point: which is that designing pages exclusively for the iPhone is a dumb idea.

Dumb? But it’s the iPhone!

Here’s a hypothesis: Google launches their own mobile device, say, tomorrow - and it’s so beautiful you need to have it. In fact, it’s so amazing you’ll be throwing that iPhone out the window. Suddenly you get it, all those iPhone-crafted pages are suddenly useless, because they are built specifically with one device in mind.

The mobile web never really took up because designers tend to design for what’s closest to their hearts - and right now that’s the glassy phone with the Apple logo. As most people will tell you, being “closed” is a lousy way to get wide adoption - and this is just about as closed as you can get. Think about it, you’re designing pages specifically for a $599 device and expect huge visits? Oh, come on.

Design for the experience, not the device

A better idea is to design for an experience, not a specific device like the iPhone. Just like you design for desktop browsers by assessing constraints (like window size) and building an experience based on those constraints, why not do it for mobile devices in general? Truth is carefully crafted pages can actually display perfectly both on the desktop and the mobile web (iPhone or not).

The iPhone actually goes a very long way in making sure pages today work great. Instead of building a page specifically for the phone, why not one that gracefully scales to fit the device’s screen? It guarantees you’re not spending resources building for a specific device and effectively means you can focus on building one experience that’s maintained across all platforms. Give it a try.

PS: Have you also noticed how most of these iPhone-specific pages are trying hard to mimic Apple’s design too? Sacrificing resources and a brand just to make something blend in on one device is a lot worse than spending those resources on maintaining quality across the board.

You were likely following the news, so I’ll cut things short - today was the WWDC, and together with a bunch of other cool news, Apple launched a new website. “Great!”, I hear you say correctly. The new website is beautiful. Except for where it isn’t - content organization.

The screenshot above portrays the new navigation scheme on Apple.com (specifically, the new iPod+iTunes page). I have to wonder what crossed their minds that made them mix products (like the iPod models) with accessories and user actions (”Download iTunes”) in the same navigation bar. I mean, that’s mixing apples (pun intended) and oranges.

I know once you do something cool - like that awesome new navigation - you want to use it everywhere, but this is Apple - come on guys, you sure as hell can do better than that in terms of information architecture.