Product designers live in a cruel world. The distance between delightful and disaster is very small, but like an egg balanced on the peak of a roof, it only takes a fraction of an inch to be rolling the wrong way. I have had a Droid X for a few months now and there is no doubt it is a well engineered device and that Android is a viable operating system. Unfortunately for Google and Motorola, it is not a delight to use.
I don’t have an iPhone, but I do have an iPod Touch and it is a delight to use. I first got it in 2007 and it still just feels good when I pick it up. I rarely ever find myself staring at it without knowing how to do what I want to do. Even after three years I am still regularly amazed by the elegance of its design.
This is the mastery of Steve Jobs and he is so very far ahead of everyone else. If you want to be inspired, read this great blog post about Steve Jobs and Edwin Land, the founder of Polaroid.
The idea is that great designs already exist in the universe and people like Steve Jobs and Edwin Land discover them.