[OT] Copying the iPhone, or what not to do in phone UI design

[Marcel "MadJo" de Jong]

Nishit Dave wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 6:59 PM, Michael 'Mickey' Lauer
> <mickey at openmoko.org
>> wrote:
> 
>> Am Tuesday 16 September 2008 17:33:23 schrieb Nishit Dave:
>> > http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone
>>
>> Fun, but comparing apples and oranges. The iPhone UI design is stellar.
>> Yes,
>> it has warts, but less than anything else on the market.
>>
> 
> I saw the Samsung Instinct touchscreen phone in the US.  Like other phones
> here, it has been crippled, but I was dismayed to see the similarities
> between its UI and the one in OM 2008.8 / Qtopia.

Indeed. I have been using the Neo Freerunner as my daily phone for a few
weeks now. And I can say that the Iphone-esque graphical user interface is
starting to annoy me. 
The front screen gives me very little information. Yes I can see what signal
strength I have and what time it is. (and whether Bluetooth etc are turned
on) But then I get a list of icons of which one is always selected, and
scrolling through the list feels sluggish.

Other than that. I don't get to see that I have messages that I have clicked
away, nor that I have clicked away phonecalls. Nor any other statusses that
might be helpful.
The 'today' screen of the 2007.2 was a lot more informational.

What I'd like to see is to have a screen that shows me the date and time
(could be a clock with a similar look and feel as the one currently found
under Settings), how many missed calls, how many unread messages (both text
and email) and my next few appointments/tasks.
And easy access to the dialer.

And keep the signal strength and a smaller clock in a bar on top of the
screen.

Then if I want to start up applications, I slide that screen to the left to
see a list of applications (that can be done in the icon style we have now
in 2008.x) and then slide to the left again to see the rest of the
applications if there are more than fits on the first screen.

I realize that that is not exactly friendly for rotate, or something.
Perhaps instead of really rotating that screen, it shows a slightly
different view. with icon-buttons that show just numbers instead of
descriptions, next to the clock, when the screen is rotated.

I'm not a developer, so I have no idea how feasible this is with the
Freerunner. But that would be my ideal.

---
Marcel de Jong

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