Some ideas for the accelerometer

[David Pottage]

On Friday 12 October 2007, Oliver wrote:
> I've had similar ideas, but haven't posted them yet. Here's one:
>
> Imagine you're surfing the internet, or checking a map, or something like
> that. We don't have a multi-touch screen, so we can't zoom out with our
> fingers like iPhone users. Zooming out, though, is something we really
> should be able to do. So just hold a hardware button and bring the phone
> closer to your face!
>
> The site/image should be shrunk in such a way that you'll think it is
> stationary "behind" the phone, and the phone screen is a window through
> which you can view this image/site! When you've spotted something you want
> to focus on, somewhere else on the page, don't scroll, just keep holding
> the button bringing the phone/window down to that place. If you stop
> holding the button, the image can either stay where it is, or go to it's
> original zoom-level.
>
> Just imagine, if you think of the screen as a window, what incredibly fun
> games you could develop for the phone!

I think a better idea would be to think of the screen as a mirror that you are 
using to view a much larger page behind you. That way you can intuitively 
scroll both vertically and horizontally a large page or map by tilting the 
screen, and without using the touchscreen. (Which can be reserved for other 
functions).

A lot of UI ideas here are coppied from other touch screen devices. That's 
fine where appropriate, but the Neo 1973 is the only phone with built in 
accelerometers, and I think we should make use of them where we can. We 
should not just copy the iPhone or whatever, that only uses it's 
accelerometer as a tilt sensor to make the display image the right way up.

-- 
David Pottage