Originally Posted by
IB-Dick
Not at all. The design team tried to make a delicate balance between features and real estate. While some may think that they are trying to do too much with the interface, the majority of feedback has been "more features". Given how powerful the forum is, I think they did a pretty good job. Still, improvements will be made.
I'm not sure what your definition of "delicate balance" is, but it seems to imply that there should be a bare minimum amount of content to justify even posessing the app, while as much "stuff" as possible should clutter up the screen at all times. Nearly 2 out of every 3 pixels displayed by the FT app are devoted to stuff that is not actual content!
No one is asking for features to the exclusion of content. Be smart about screen real estate, and add features unobtrusively, in ways that do not detract from the actual content people are here to consume.
Consider the example of another data-heavy application designed for users to consume large amounts of text: Email. Compare Apple's implementation of "all data, all the time" to FT's version of "shovel in the features." I would challenge the app developers to work on flipping the ratio above, so that the majority of the screen is content, and the cruft stays out of the way until it's needed.
Originally Posted by
IB-Dick
Very good excuse for leaving it out: Screen real estate problems are significantly exacerbated when using landscape mode without drastic UI changes. It was decided to not roll it into the product until it was more polished. I'm sure that if we had added it it would have been on this list.
Perhaps the real estate "problems" would not be so severe if there were not such a rabid desire to stuff never-ending features around the content. All of the high quality iPhone apps have managed to execute here and have a quality experience in portrait and landscape orientations (some of my favorites are Facebook, Evernote, IMDB, and PCalc). I would expect no less from IB and FT.