I know you said you're working on a blog post, but I'd be really interested in if you could elaborate on the challenges inherent to building tablet software -- I build big enterprise-y software that is on Windows Mobile phones and Windows tablets, and I find the tablet part to be much easier in terms of designing a usable interface for the form factor.
Are there particular things you have in mind that are much easier to design for a phone than for a tablet?
It's a focus thing, really. I suppose it depends on perspective.
With a phone, right, you have this 3-4ish inch screen to work with. You absolutely have to focus. You've got a gun to your head requiring focus, commanding the basic flow of the application fit tidily within the confines of this small space, this teensy viewport the user has into what they're working on. Now, it's still possible to make crap (definitely) but the kinds of mistakes you're able to make are limited by both space and what the user can realistically accomplish with the limited time and tools inherent to the phone form factor.
Now. You get to tablet land. Holy shit! Look at all this room. I can put things here, and over here, and this place is nice – and then you have this jumbled, unfocussed mess. For me, the tablet gives you a lot of rope to hang yourself. Since the form factor isn't compelling focus and clarity, now you have to do it yourself.
I love the luxury of creative constraints. Tablets just have fewer constraints. A blessing and a curse, to be certain. Lots of great stuff you can only do on a tablet, too.
Not hard/easy, constrained/unconstrained. For decades now constraints have been recognized as drivers of greatness and innovation. By relaxing the constraint, you make greatness harder to achieve, because the developer has to make more choices, and precision/accuracy/focus suffer.
It's like a laser. If you put lots and lots of light in a very small (constrained) pinhead-sized surface, you can cut steel like it was butter. If you put as much light in a surface the size of a plate, you might barely heat the surface.
We've been developing for desktop/laptop computers for years now. They also give developer plenty of space to play with. From your comment I conclude that developing for desktop must be the hardest thing ever, not talking about the 27' iMacs.
Well, the quality of the "typical website" (aimed at desktop browsers) certainly seems to support that conclusion...
There's certainly a very different mindset you adopt when developing for a phone sized screen, and the constraints require super tight focus on the site goals and processes that is often missing from the planning and requirements stage of less-constrained web development.
Google the "mobile first" movement, and pay particular attention for the writing of Luke Wroblewski - while not fully subscribing to "mobile first" myself, I'm seeing some _strong_ benefits from at least considering it at the very early planning stages of any new web project.
> developing for desktop must be the hardest thing ever
Among the hardest challenges you could ask for UX-wise, definitely. That's why so much desktop software has been shit since the 80's. As a guy who specializes in mobile, desktop stuff is horrifying. You have to consider all kinds of screen resolutions, interactions with other apps, huge variations in system performance, printing... On and on. No constraints to speak of.
I mean, Office only recently (last five years) emerged from mediocrity into something decent. And even then, it's not awesome. Though I'll always have a place in my heart for Excel. What a great product.
Meanwhile, look at Skype. The latest Skype for Mac is utter shit. This is not easy work.
Are there particular things you have in mind that are much easier to design for a phone than for a tablet?