Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

Great presentation, well done. Good to give to someone who asks 'what is Fremantle'.

Are you kidding me? I use my iPod touch when I perform my work out (run) or bicycle. I easily select a different track because the touchscreen is optimized for finger usage. No, I don't see myself pulling out a stylus and clicking on a small stylus optimized box while running. Yes, I could also use my phone while working out. Yes, I also have a remote for it. No, I don't see myself using a stylus in such case!!

There are 2 requirements:
1) Device static attached or with minimal vibration; does not necessary imply user is not in motion. The OS can take into account the user is performing a certain task therefore be more fault tolerant. This is what a touchscreen UI for finger already does while one for stylus is much more akin to desktop UI allowing less fault tolerant but also less false positives. A good balance between the 2 is necessary.
2) The buttons need to be big enough; optimal usage of screen. Personally, I found this to be much more fault tolerant than stylus. Potential obvious disadvantage is less available screen size whereas potentional advantage of that is less noise for user. Using HIG and consistency can get you already very far in this regard.

With iPod player on iPod touch this is the case. With pages optimized for iPhone this is the case. With pages optimized for T9 (Opera, Skyfire) this is the case. With pages optimized for desktop browsers this is not the case. I'm not sure if an interface like Canola would suffice, but I'd bet the designers did a damn hard job trying so.

Whether I'd use my N810, iPod touch or E71 I could use either of these to check RSS feeds while walking because their interface is good enough for performing this. Same for e-mail.

Not necessarily, but you are right that it isn't easy to make sure a device or application is usable (I/O wise) while the body or certain body parts are in motion. It is however possible. I gave examples above. You could use it in the train (e-mail, browsing), in the car (navigation), while waiting in the row to buy a ticket for the museum (Twitter/SMS), while at the restaurant (remote console work). Personally, I'd rather use N8x0 for a lot of typing than a virtual keyboard.

What you say was true for N8x0 and 770. The new direction is 24/7 connectivity, outside, mobile, and touchscreen for finger with a usage somewhere between smartphones and netbooks. For portable inside/static we also have stuff like laptops and netbooks. However you don't grab those out of your pockets while waiting in the grocery store. You can do that with your smartphone. Or N8x0.

Maemo 5 is about RX-51 not N8x0.

Another stylus rant from Benny.. gee, what a surprise. A'ight, you go grab your stylus out of your N8x0 while on your home trainer to switch to the next MP3. I'll use my fingers instead instead of having to grab that thing every time.

There are specific situations where T9 is best. There are situations where a combination of T9 and slide out keyboard is best. There are situations where an external BlueTooth keyboard is best. There are situations where stylus is best. And there are situations where finger is best. There are a lot of reasons why one is better than the other, but it isn't true one is irrelevant and useless. Which appears to be what you're trying to argue.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

For a long time it was clear Maemo 5 will be optimized for finger-based touch usage instead of stylus.

Maemo 4 was a mix of both; and this either 1) doesn't work 2) is a lot of work, and therefore costs a lot of money and community contribution.

But hey, you're free to grab Mer and a stylus, use Maemo 4, or make a stylus mod or... :)

Those are Evil, and phased out.

Ehh... well, to avoid your wife from getting pregnant. Or in some cultures, to remain maiden. FWIW I'm glad my hands can deal with required precision.

There is a positive side to so many apparently negative 'trends'.

Did you know the usage of SMS and chat language enhances the phonetics ability in children?

Maybe if our kids got more outside they'd actually be less depressed and less fat? Or more often driven over by a car? Who knows.

New trends and usage paterns demand new ways of interaction and thinking just like old ways are not always worse in every regard.

Microsoft won from IBM, and VHS won from Betamax. We're witnessing how the old media such as newspapers are adapting. People don't want VHS, Betamax, CD, DVD, HD-DVD, MC, DAT, Blu-Ray, SD, CF. They want a few formats and that is it. Some are worth it for manufacturers to offer backwards compatibility; some not. People don't want 100 newspapers, 1000 news websites, 10 tv news, and all that either. They want a few sources. Else you get information overflow. Trend-wise, all of Nokia's competitors are releasing touchscreen based smartphones. Even Palm is catching up. Finally, Nokia too, with 5800 and this summer N97. Does that mean Nokia is only making touchscreen phones? Ofcourse not. They'll release many different types of phones. They've done that for years.

But others, like Apple, don't. And you sometimes cannot have it both ways. As I said it isn't possible to optimize for both finger and stylus. Yes, you can use a finger optimized UI with a stylus and vice versa. In the former you're not using your screen and application space optimally, in the latter you need to be precise, lucky, and get used to trial and error. None of these 2 is user-friendly for normal users who expect a device to Just Work.

Painting and liqbase sketching is indeed not possible with finger. Or, well, very cumbersome. At least on this this size of screen in this UI. So you'd need a N8x0 for that, RX-51 with 3rd party stylus, or if you're serious and worth your money: a Wacom.

And the kids of our kids will use a touchscreen table to play with finger painting, play RTS, and compose music. No worries...

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

Not necessarily so. Of course, maybe that will be an option, but as 'hand' based (touchscreen falls here) is limited in so many ways, it will likely never be an only input option (I challenge you to a finger input vs mouse controlled RTS contest any day). That's why today even on the desktop you have complementary use of keyboard and mice. You could do ALL your tasks with either, but there are inputs at which spatial sucks, and there are inputs for which informational input sucks. And we don't have finger-on-screen as it would suck in just too many ways even if we limit the use-case scenarions for it as a mouse replacement.

Personally, I would prefer a currently non-existant hybrid approach, very similar to the mouse+keboard duality - optimize for finger and stylus SIMULTANEOUSLY, and not exclusively. For example, simple music player controls - stop, play, next, volume are likely 'fire and forget' style single actions, which are likely to be used with fingers. OTOH I *don't* want to muck through text, advanced settings, file dialogs with a finger based input. I understand the need for continuity BUT I think UI designers calculate people to be more inert, lazy, unwilling to learn to interact than they really are (and are thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy). As you could've guessed by now, I'm in the stylus camp and rarely use finger input except for the most basic tasks.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

... how one single sentence can tell you didn't read my post at all. :D

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

This is very true and something liqbase manages.
On the menus and font screens, large touchable items appear.
I do not need a stylus to jump around the menus or to perform simple tasks.
It is only when I get into actually drawing do I realistically need the stylus :)

Did you know by the way, on the main liqbase menus of the released version, there is a small corner widget area on EVERY menu item.. (top right)
you never catch it when you use finger, but it could be used with a pen to do advanced stuff.
(its not now, its just academic)

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

Blinded by stylus envy.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

Oh my god! "stylus envy"... why don't I ever come up with these phrases!? :)

I'll have to remember this, it's really cool. :D
Thx for making my week.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week.

And don't forget to tip the veal and try your waitress.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

Game changing? I don't remember saying that. ;) I can understand how that was implied, though with the 'easier' adverb.

Seriously though, I think that using an OS independent layer is a good idea for broad-development, whatever it may be; we're alike in this opinion. I don't know too much about the gnome environment other than it seems to be appropriated as a Desktop Environment, and QT an application development framework. As such, Gnome (and its apps) are more largely localised to Linux Desktops and distributions, while QT apps seem a bit more cosmopolitan.

This is an advantage to using QT as a cross-platform toolkit, and should be more attractive to developers. Of course, it's not a game changer -- I would not imply it as such.


YARR!
}:^)~

Wait for it.... Corrupt!

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

One more thing regarding QT:

The move to adopt QT not only provides a mature and stable platform for developing applications, it also hedges against disaster scenarios due to implosion of a particular device/os, and insulates developers simultaneously. Lastly, due to the cross-platform nature of QT, Nokia will save BIG money/time trying to develop and debug new SDKs for future devices.

Check out this article released today:
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS4...30.html?kc=rss

Consider the implications of the QT toolset in the current mobile market, and Nokia's revealed plans.
1) A toolkit ready for development for Maemo, Symbian, and other Linux distros. This is significant because Nokia is openly pursuing Maemo *and* Symbian, as well as the netbook market (OS undisclosed -- but it doesn't really matter).
2) A loose and empowering LGPL.

.... I smell an app store, but not one limited to a particular platform or generation of product!


YARR!
}:^)~

"Aye Capt'n" said he.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

the ONLY problem ive got with qt and cross platform is that on the whole GUI apps from desktop software simply does not fit on the tablet.

I'm not talking about scalable lists and things, i mean in the amount of information a desktop app typically tries to display.

it means that qt works really well across the similar platforms - basically a desktop setting, but as soon as it gets down to this size the paradigm breaks down.

so if you need to write the app again anyway, so it doesnt really matter what you use :)

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

Nokia's plan is less for tablet/desktop compatibility than it is for tablet/S60 compatibility.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

Not exactly on this topic but what I have been thinking lately is...

A way to attract new users of the new device directly to maemo.org would be to have a desktop app like TightVNC tested, polished, and available from close to day one that would allow Windows and the newer Linux flavors to easily interact with the new device.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

Just one? That thing's going up in flames.

Seriously, though, VNC is pretty bandwidth heavy which is a weight you really don't want to have when people are unboxing new tablets and trying to download software. I don't see us being able to get the 100s of tablets that'd be needed to run live demos for everybody on the internet.

A good, easy to use, lightweight SDK would be a better option.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

Bandwidth heavy AND slow :)

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

What happened to http://sdk-ami.garage.maemo.org/ ? EC2 sure does seem a reasonable choice for an on-demand horde of emulated devices over the net, and it's not going to bankrupt Nokia either.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

Qt has been focusing on tablets through Qtopia previously, that's why no 'direct' support for Qt on tablets. Not sure about the future roadmap as Qtopia/QtEmbedded is no longer an option, but if you did your app the 'proper' way, Model-View-Controller style, the only thing you need to redo are the dialogs and almost none of the functionality itself - which *is* a major gain.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

of course, and thats the same no matter which toolkit you choose.
I think the General hit the nail on the head though:

thats a pretty damned good reason in my book :)

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

One tiny note - Qt has the history going a long way to make itself not only platform agnostic, but how should I put it, platform friendly. Regardless of what you do, Qt will try to do it in a way that is native for that particular platform, not only try to 'get away with it'. Others try this as well, of course, but IMHO Qt does this to a much greater extent than any other toolkit/framework I had tried (GTK, wxWidgets), so your programs not only run (and look decent) on different platforms, but they actually *behave* like native applications without too much effort. YMMV, of course. This is also the reason why I think (or at least hope :) ) it has good chances making a real impact on S60.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

To chime in on the finger-vs-stylus debate.

For the majority of use cases, I believe that the finger is more than suitable for mobile use with an appropriately designed UI. Even in the case of apps that require precision at times (ie. web browser/text-editor/etc with small text), a properly designed UI can compensate and doesn't *need* a stylus (eg. iPhone/Pre/Android/etc). In fact, I'd say that the consequences of including a stylus far outweigh its rather limited benefits.

I've noticed that there are very few use cases that require the precision of a stylus for their operation when a finger just wont do. Of these are drawing apps, and handwriting recognition -- a tiny fraction of overall use cases (who uses handwriting recognition anyway?).

That said, I hope the stylus is eliminated from the next Tablet, available only in add-on form.

There are some advantages to eliminating with the stylus:
1) Capacitive touch is an option - Higher durability, brighter screen, with higher finger accuracy -- potential for multi-touch (novel, but useful in certain cases)
2) Smaller device form factor (no internal housing for stylus)
3) Incentive for much-more finger-friendly apps
4) One less thing to lose

Having the stylus attached leads to apps that require one more step that I should not have to contend with while on the go.


YARR!
}:^)~

Bonjour, Corrupt

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

"Your corruption is complete."

Attachment 3333

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

We're not talking only about precision here, but the amount of data presentable and controllable on a single screen. Have you tryed doing file operations with a finger + keypad combo ? Or selecting text ? Picking links on a web page ? Please don't loose the stylus, I really really really want to have stylus input. If I wanted to grease up my display with my fingers, I would have gone the iPod touch way.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

I can't imagine using something like openoffice or gnumeric and the associated menus with just a finger or finger/dpad (if even an option). One of the appealling things about the tablets is the ability to run non-ui-optimized software. Certianly things like debian, kde might suffer from lack of readily available stylus.

I like having the option to easily try other options on the tablet. I also typed this response on the stylus keyboard, I don't think I would have done it on the finger keyboard.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

@daperl
HAHA... LOVE IT. Get ready to hate me as I make this assertion: I LOVED episode 1, 2 and 3.... Well, not so much episode 1 and 2, other than that they led into 3... 3 was epic!

@atilla77, lemmyslender
First off, let me say that I fully respect your advocacy of the stylus. I'm just one person, with one opinion and realise that I represent an infinitesimal fraction of the marketplace!

Having said that, let me ask this:
Since the OS is open, and legacy apps will be legacy apps, would you be opposed to having the stylus as an accessory rather than built-into the unit?

In this way, individuals that require or prefer the type of functionality that a stylus allows, will optionally have it. A similar case would be a bluetooth/usb keyboard/mouse. It works well for individuals that would rather have that input for certain apps, but is not at all required for general use.


YARR!
}:^)~

I (heart) Corrupt

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

No, I'm not one of those. I have a young boy that I indoctrinated early, and I really enjoy watching him decide his likes and dislikes for himself. Needless to say, I've seen 1 and 2 probably more times than most. The end of 3 is still too scary for him. He seems to like 4, 5 and 6 equally; it usually depends on the weather. But the Clone Wars currently trump everything.

I've exposed him to plenty of science fiction; the other day I had to whip out 2001 because I had tortured him long enough with the non sequiturs, "Please open the pod bay doors Hal" and "I can't do that Dave." He's anxiously awaiting June 24th, but maybe I'll take him to Star Trek before then.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

A capacitive touchscreen would allow to detect the proximity of the finger.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

Gives totally new meaning to "mouse hover".

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

Should we take that as a hint? =)

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

To physics? Definitely! :-D

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

I think we're safe for now, considering that 3 of the Fremantle Stars are stylus applications.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

it's not so much the stylus as a physical accessory. i'm used to buying add-ons each time nokia ruins this device. (like a had to buy a 3rd party case when they decided the N800 needn't be protected.)

the real problem isn't the hardware. it's the software. once you decide you'll only support finger use, you'll need to create a UI that's less powerful. you'll need to re-design existing desktop applications only because of the UI, even if they'd run without any change technically. (look at the preferences-screen of Xchat. i cannot imagine this within a fingerpainting environment.)
what makes the tablets so powerful is that they're so close to a standard GNU/linux desktop system that even GUI applications can run without a lot of change. this is the only reason why i'm using a tablet. i'm afraid this feature will be lost.

so yes, of course i'd happily buy a 3rd party stylus and keep it in my 3rd party case, but i'm really afraid i'll also have to go for a 3rd party operating system then because finger-friendly maemo may be closer to a media player than to a laptop. the operating systems we have at the moment to replace maemo are there, but right now i wouldn't trust any of them for every day use. even if i did: they start now whereas maemo started in 2005. and they have an even smaller user base.

i's feel a lot more comfortable if this thread wasn't so empty:
http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=27612

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

For you. None of my day-to-day usage of the tablets involves running desktop applications, and I believe the same is true for the overwhelming majority of tablet owners.

It's a strength of the tablets, but it's hardly the linchpin of the platform. In fact I'd argue that, in many ways, this compatibility is a weakness—much like Windows compatibility was for OS/2.

Besides, what's all the fuss over? Nothing's changing so radically that you wont be able to run your desktop ports. If not having a stylus keyboard is such a huge issue, then that's why the hardware keyboard is there. If that really doesn't work for you, then it's not overwhelmingly difficult to add plugins to h-i-m.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

Please, let's not get into that "I'm more an etalon user that you are" discussion.

For example, the web browser, an archetypical internet tablet aplication is, was and will be a desktop replacement (the failure of WAP demonstrates this clearly) - sites are made for desktop style input, and that is keyboard + mouse (=stylus). While can dance around that with all sorts of zoom and predictive clicking game, the unaided human finger always will be only a surogate input device for it.

We're (or, at least I'm) not talking about stylus keyboards for quite some time now (if fact, if you read back you'll see I never use stylus OSK). It's about stylus, as in high resolution input device to allow for a) precision spatial input -> drawing, writing, sketching and b) navigation and use of complex user interfaces without breaking them up into a million pages.

Canola settings are a personal example for me. It just drives me nuts - it's finger friendly to the point that I can't actually do what I want, with or without stylus. But with media players, at least you have choice. With a web browser, as mentioned above, you don't.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

That wasn't my intention. The post I was quoting was trying to describe desktop compatibility (specifically the ability to use straight desktop ports) as one of the core strengths of the platform, which it is not.

I manage to use the web quite heavily on my device utilizing only my fingers. A well-designed UI (Safari on iPhone OS is a fair example) can provide a very strong browsing experience with finger input.

I guess I don't see it. There's a lot of doom and gloom about the end of the platform and a lot of assumptions based on rather limited information. From a technical standpoint, nothing I've seen has limited any the aforementioned use-cases.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

I does come across to me as one of the core strengths. Maybe not intended or even welcomed by many, but considering the number of apps which are available as near-straight ports or libs, I'd say it is a very defining moment.

As already stated, if done right, you can use both for whatever purpose, it's just a question of efficiency/ergonomy. One could just as easily argue that with an OMAP3 class hardware, 1024x600 display+stylus and proper OS/browser, you'd not only have a strong or manageable, but *identical* browsing experience as on your desktop.

I wouldn't put your finger-web use of present day NIT for a vote to determine if the overwhelming majority of users use it that way, though :)

Also, try playing games like pingus or maemosweeper with fingers. Loads of fun :)

I didn't use such strong words, and don't think it would be the end of anything. I just think that ditching the stylus altogether is reducing functionality and limiting existing usage patterns for no particular reason other than saying 'look ma, no stylus !'. In this case, less is, well... less.

I seriously wish UI designers gave more thought to hybrid stylus/finger interfaces. But I'll go further - not only UI, but hardware designers, too. The device could detect whether the stylus is IN (=finger mode), or OUT (=mouse mode) and adapt both UI and display sensitivity/parameters accordingly.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

If you spend all day zooming in and out so you can click on the correct link/drop-down-menu-item and then see the full page again.



I think people are more concerned about the end of the platform for them. If the tablets no longer meet a person's requirements, how long/whether the tablets survive isn't really their concern anymore.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

I'll readily admit a stylus could be an add-on, IF the ui supports it. Although, I wouldn't buy one, as I already have several. A stylus could easily be included without sacrificing much space.

Hardware keyboards would eliminate some of the issues (providing ALL the new models have one). I still wouldn't use a finger keyboard for any lenghty input, because I wouldn't be able to see enough of what I was typing.

Sitting here, I just noticed that my kids Leapster even has a stylus. A learning device for young children, which should be "finger friendly" has an included stylus. I assume that this is because in testing, they felt they could not design the ui and games to be completely "finger friendly" enough to drop the stylus. This in a case where ease of use and cost are paramount.

Although, I can hope that if the default ui is finger based, it could easily be changed to a hybrid or even further reduced to stylus friendly (maximum info on screen) by changing the theme?

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

WAP failed; yet RSS succeeded. There are tons of optimalizations for non-desktop browsers. Opera Mobile for example compresses data. Memory footprints of mobile browsers must be low too. The browsers must be optimized for the hardware input (T9, touchscreen, hardware keyboard, stylus). Applications, including browsers, must be optimized for the screen resolution. And even the architecture. Furthermore, there is no multi touch possible with stylus so you can forget zooming in and out easily (which gives the user a reasonable accurate precision good enough for almost all user cases IMO; except something like precision drawing; for that you'd buy a Wacom or use your old stylus optimized OS/device) while if you optimize your application for finger usage you will allow implementing such since it gives the user a clear advantage. You even see layouts optimized for 1) desktop 2) T9 (traditional mobile) 3) finger usage (iPhone). Are you understanding the impact of this? Hint: no stylus optimized web sites exist and they will never exist. That means your browser experience on the end point of web designers will not improve for you!! Good luck and have fun hacking around that while I simply use my fingers to navigate on an iPhone-optimized website. Speaking of, MobileSafari zooms in on an input box when you click on it. Same for text you double click on. Zooming difficult? These are great features indeed.

Something like X Chat can run on a remote computer you log in to. You simply resume your session much like when using screen(1). Or you'd prefer to run an IRC client which is actually optimized for usage on the tablet.

Can you give examples what drives you nuts?

On a side note: I do agree that the fact the device runs an X client and X server is a potential strong positive point in some niche cases.

Not really. Usage patterns are limited for a reason because sometimes less is more. You cannot build a car which is good at everything you cannot build an OS or hardware device which is good at everything either. A stylus is a cheap component, but does use space on the device.

Meanwhile, software wise you don't lose any code whatsoever, and you are free to optimize the UI for stylus and run all the desktop apps on the device you want. In fact, I'd bet running XFCe or old Hildon will be just easy using Ubuntu or Mer. However, I believe only a (vocal) minority will opt for this path instead of the default path of finger optimized UI.

Maemo 4 tried this, and I believe it failed miserably at it but Nokia learned that they have to decide for either or invest a lot of time and energy into a UI which handles both well.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

i would say wap failed because the first version showed up when mobile internet where still metered by connection time, not traffic amounts.

therefor you could not really read anything without draining your wallet, and people backed off it.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

Question: Is the RX-51's screen going to be more accurate and more sensitive than the N8*0's? If so, what are the technological advances?

(Even if the N900 UI were perfected for finger use, the fact is, the touchscreen itself has to be up to the task. For finger use, the current screen is pathetic compared to Apple's.) (My understanding is that it will still be resistive, not capacitive -- no?)