Well spotted the guys at P@ssioneMobile - S60 have updated their S60 Touch UI demo video with many more examples of the UI in action. Good stuff, although dragging down the web browser screen to make the content move up seems counter-intuitive - is it just me? The video is embedded below the break here.
Read on in the full article.
Scrolling in the internet browser isn't kinetic, that's why it seems contra intuitive.
Nice touch.
I just loathe
the tiny onscreen keyboard buttons (it's a must with a narrow screen like that to type in landscape mode);
and the inversed scrolling direction.
Regarding scrolling: Pulling down to scroll up is the normal way your PC works - look at the scroll bar to the right of this page, you pull it down, the page moves up. It seems more intuitive to me than the other way.
Also, I was hoping this was going to be a finger based touch UI, not stylus. I think Apple's is so successful due to that. Even the LG Viewty's doesn't need the stylus. As it is this is too much like PocketPC or UIQ.
Finally, I hope they still make physical keyboards. Touch screens still have too many drawbacks for many people. I like keys!
A touch interface requires a complete overhaul of all graphical interfaces. Making a part penbased, part fingerbased version is really annoying. Let's hope Nokia are working hard on depenning the touch OS. Apple did that very right. A pen is nice for drawing and sketching, bit of note taking on the quick. But that's all.
First of all, this isn't necessarily an either/or situation, if Nokia's latest internet tablet interface is anything to go by, the S60 touch interface will give you the option of entirely using your fingers or the stylus, or a mixture.
Secondly, some people say stuff like "Nokia's got to change their interface because they're losing to Apple", but this just doesn't match up to reality. Nokia's market share is 40%, but Apple's is somewhere below 1%. Nokia's profits are going up in every department, but Apple has yet to make any money from their phones. Beyond the media hype, where is this triumph of Apple?
The truth is that the phone world consists almost entirely of cheap phones, and the features that do best are the ones that are available on the cheapest models. Apple doesn't sell any cheap phones, so they have almost no direct impact on the phone world. Apple might influence the design of others, and others might influence their design too, but in terms of consumers very very very few of them will be buying any of Apple's current products.
Apple hasn't sold very many phones yet, their achievements have been in hype rather than sales. And at the prices they're charging, I don't think Apple have any intention of selling large numbers.
Nokia's position is totally different, they DO sell a lot of phones. For every Apple phone sold, there are 50 to 100 Nokia phones sold. A LOT of people are used to the Nokia S40 and S60 interfaces, which seem to be converging into one. You can't just abandon an interface which is so widely-used, because you will risk losing the customers you've got. The answer is to evolve the interface rather than totally replace it.
Thirdly, there's nothing wrong with a stylus!
Apple basically just wanted some bit of hype to make people think they'd reinvented the wheel, so they started spreading this "stylus bad, finger good" idea around the place and the media started accepting it without any critical thinking, like so many other things about the iPhone and Apple's products.
I've got two Nokia internet tablets, some of the apps are finger-based and some are stylus-based, and there's not really any practical drawback to the stylus ones.
Even on the web browser I preferred being able to just point directly at a small-sized link without having to zoom in first.
I've also had a Nintendo DS in the past and the stylus is excellent for gaming, it allows very precise movements.
There's the old chestnut about what do you do if you lose a stylus, but as they only cost a few cents to make that can be solved by including plenty of spares with the phone, and by offering free replacement styluses at all points of sale.
Apple did that very right. A pen is nice for drawing and sketching, bit of note taking on the quick. But that's all.
...so you think people shouldn't be able to take notes or draw pictures on their phones? You want to dump those features completely?
It's a seriously bad user interface. I agree that Nokia is completely clueless about user interface design.
Well, as a mobile software developer and heavy S60 user (and being familiar with the iPhone), I'd say that looks like a great improvement on S60 (which is already good). I'm really looking forward to that handset, or something like it. The only difference with iPhone is multitouch. Quite how Apple got patents for that I'll never know when there was/is so much prior art about, but then the US patent office is as corrupt and useless as they come, so it's no real surprise. Still, it shouldn't be that difficult to engineer around it and still effectively give users multitouch. Also you could kind of offer it without being blatant about it, and let individual users activate it - then let Apple try and sue millions of separate people if they want.
Anyway, it's a good interface. I hope people realise a.) It's an alpha or beta, and b.) if you don't like the scroll direction I'm sure it can be reversed - it's known as software, remember? This isn't a mechanical object that's been engineered a certain way.
Krisse's right, Apple and iPhone pale into insignificance compared with Nokia handset sales (and always will). Let's not even bother arguing. Still, Apple have the occasional nice design idea that is worth stealing.
(Macboy's a troll, why hasn't he had his account deleted yet?)
Alex
phonething.com
krisse wrote: Thirdly, there's nothing wrong with a stylus!
It is in my book, if you use it for navigation or text entry. I prefere a mobile phone that I can use one handed and blind on touch too. One handed allows to keep hold of something which is very practical. Blind on touch means those functions are quick to access, at least things like accepting calls, redial, incoming message viewing, agenda/task/memo check etc... the same is valid for two hand mini-qwerty keyboards.
In my book one handed finger touching is a good compromis when trading a T9 pad for extra screensize. Few people realize the speed of a keypad for navigating:
Reconfiguring the Symbian Menu on my N95 I can actually start any of 144 applications within 3 button clicks. The menu has 12 positions mapped to the 12 keys of the T9-keypad. The menu button is one click, 12 folders at the first level (2nd click) x12 applications (3rd click) per folder allows for 144 different applications to be accessed by 3 button clicks and there are currently only 84 apps on my phone. Now once your motor memory has stored how to start a certain application blindly you can time that against getting your pen out, locating tiny fields to touch and navigate to start a application.
If Symbian applications and the native configuration menus would support this kind of navigation throughout the OS. Navigating would be a lot faster.
I'v owned and used Palm OS, UIQ and Windows Mobile 5 and mini-qwerty devices as my main mobile PIM/Phone thingy.
krisse wrote:
so you think people shouldn't be able to take notes or draw pictures on their phones? You want to dump those features completely?
No that is not what I said. I said a pen is nice for writing, sketching and note taking. Not meaning crummy handwriting recognition. Still those functions are below par on my N800 and the Dell Axim X51v. The digitization is still too course and slow. In that quality I could just as well do without. They don't really add for better text input.
I say it again. Pen input sucks for menu/application navigation or text entry. We need nice big finger sized menu touchfields to navigate touchscreens!
Logical rant ended...
Nokia makes phones in all from factors for different input preferences. Apple only supports, at the moment, one form factor and one input method. Apple have therefore limited their market by this decision. I know a few people with iPhones and some have a Nokia as well! Like Blackberry users tend to have two phones as well. This is because form factor and real life usability (e.g. one handed) are important to real people with real functional needs, not just fashion fulfilment.
It's a prototype, could change a lot between now and release.
I won't be wanting a touchscreen interface though, I'm glad Nokia continue to offer a variety of options.
I have to say that I'm not overly impressed with what I've seen of the new S60 interface. I'm sort of torn at the moment trying to decide what to get now that my contract is due an upgrade. I considered holding onto my N95 until April(ish) when the rumoured Touch UI NSeries should be hitting the shelves, but that's a long time to wait.
Apple are meant to be anouncing the 3G iPhone on Monday so I'll see what that has to offer. I think a lot of the turn off for people about the iPhone has been due to the lack of 3G/not too good camera and the hefty price for both the phone and the O2 exclusive contracts. Well apparently the new chipset they've included can support up to 5MP cameras and GPS so we'll see what they can come up with. They're also rumoured to be cutting the price and in some countries no longer taking a cut from the networks each month. With a few of these hurdles out of the way I think the only way is up for Apple.
Apple = Hype and Hot Air
Nokia = Sales and Satisfaction
ajck wrote:
(Macboy's a troll, why hasn't he had his account deleted yet?)
He doesnt have an account, you dont need one to write in this section. He doesnt realise though that hes doing apple harm, since hes helping along the rabid fanboy image quite nicely. I'll just delete his posts when i see them, hes hurting no-one but his beloved apple.
I dont think anyone is going to win a touchscreen argument, unless they bring out a number of phones with different methods.
Look at the iphone, its obviously got a touch screen interface that very good, but theres still a huge amount of people that dont like it.
I dont want a touch screen, because it will mean getting rid of my keypad, which Im quicker on. And if you just have keypad and touch screen, it means the screen isnt as tough, and your still using keys some of the time anyway.
Whatever they bring out, they are not going to please everyone. Even though I wont be having a touchscreen phone for many years, Im still very interested to see what nokia come up with, and put it side by side to some of the best other touch screen devices.
The only way to find out which will have the better interface is to try them both yourself.
Because even if the person reviewing them is unbiased, they are quite possibly going to have different preferances to you. This is the same situation for any phone/feature, but for some reason a lot of people dont realise that with touchscreen.
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No doubt a Nokia touch will see a mini-qwerty version. Current 'fashion' for smartdevices seems to be a touchscreen with mini-qwerty (HTC-Touch pro, Xperia X1, N810 etc...) . If they let the qwerty slide out to the right of the phone you might still use the center part of the qwerty keyboard righthanded when holding it in portrait mode (another smart use of the accellerator). It'd allow us to still use T9 with real buttons on the phone! For lefthanded people the accellerator will sense the phone is upside down 😉 Or perhaps a real lefthanded version might be sold!
I do hope Nokia reads this!
I feel sorry for the poor animal, part touch, part pen, part buttons. Nokia have shown before that these creatures are usually infertile and bear no further offspring. Lets hope the suffering ends soon.
That woman looks like such a knob when she stabs her handset repeatedly with the stylus, i think maybe it wasn't a working device.
Flat thing with stylus = anal factory floor manager with clipboard (not sexy).
I love how the goldfish is innovative. It's a fish in a bowl.
Man i'm depressed about mobile now.
Lol.. how many times does it have to be said: its a demo, and Nokia has said many times the UI will be usable with both fingers and stylus. Probably your choise throughout.
OK guys, but it's not an official video, right? It's just some fun project, isn't it?
viipottaja - have you not heard of the paradox of choice : Why more is less?
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/93
Choice throughout can be pretty damaging to user experience. one of the nasty pig of phones I ever used was the SE m600i which had rocker keys, touchable screen and stylus. it covered all bases, but unfortunately the resulting user experience was akin to drinking vinyl paint and vomiting.
Scrolling should be changeable, or down down, up up only.