Our Techno-Victorian Future?
I have a love of the Steampunk genre, from writing like The Difference Engine to the amazing homemade creations that I come across, mostly on BoingBoing. While exploring my newly acquired iPod Touch (purely for work, of course, and not as a placeholder for an iPhone at all), I was delighted to find that the Clock app sports two interfaces with a decidedly steampunk feel to them: the timer and alarm.
The steampunk aspect is found in the tumbling dial controls. It might just look like a sweet piece of retro-fusion design, but this analog model works nicely on the touch interface. Apple is certainly taking on a darker, more subdued aesthetic posture in the Leopard UI. This can already be seen in the Apple TV, iPhone and iPod Touch, and iLife and iWork ‘08. Blending in elements from analog devices and giving them a mechanical feel while maintaining usability makes them much more interesting, and for a steampunk fan, all the more fun.
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