Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

never been sure i liked the canola interface. to much sparkle for to little flame imo.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

The Dpad is dead. Long live the Dpad.

Oh wait! This just in:

The Stylus is dead. Long live the Stylus.

Palm and Nokia have finally figured out what Apple has been trying to tell them from their Newton experience. Sheep sh*t. And no, don't bother telling the guys and girls over at Pandora, 'cause I might need one.

FTW

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't that one of the big appeals that Maemo and the tablets have always had; the only difference was anything that was GNOME/GTK, instead of now anything that's QT, so I don't really see how this a "Game changing" development or is going to make native app building any better or worse in theory... I haven't used both extensively, but the impression I get is that QT is much more mature and broad than GTK, but that really doesn't change the fact that both provide the idea of "you can develop natively regardless of your IS devel environment and port anywhere else with a re-compile"; after all, a huge chunk of the apps we have on the tablets right now are simply native Linux apps that have been recompiled for ARM using the Maemo SDK...
That aside, I'm still very much looking forward to the next device and software, and I'm sure there are lots of great changes that are happening, but I don't see your point of QT suddenly changing everything in terms of development... maybe in the long term, but based on the way Nokia treats things I can still imagine lots of odd and unexpected roadblocks to be crossed before we really start to see any major benefits to development processes; I'd argue that things like a well rounded Python package have had a MUCH larger impact on the availability of apps and features than anything else at the moment (and I'm not a big Python fan, but the point remains)

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

the great thing about a good finger friendly interface is that it is extremely usable with a stylus as well :)

Finger friendly though is a lot more than just making UI elements bigger.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

as i like to say:

finger > stylus > mouse

anything that can be done with a finger can be done with a stylus or mouse, but the other way is not always working.

just look at all the webpages and stuff that have mouseover events. how do you trigger stuff like that with a stylus or finger?!

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

Zoom first? :)

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

Well, graphics tablets respond to differing levels of pressure (to change the weight of the line, for example). So light touch=mouseover, firm pressure=click.

I'm pretty sure the current NIT screen is also pressure sensitive.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

like i didnt have enough trouble getting it to register a continual pressure when dragging things around as it is (i keep getting double or even triple-taps when i drag or do long-taps).

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

yes, the are pressure sensitive and that also makes them too sensitive.

you could not reproduce a hover by looking only at a certain precise maximum pressure limit.

mouse over is impractical in every way shape and form.
we have a warping pointer that simply reappears only when needed.

Re: Kate Alhola's Maemo Presentation
 

Oh, so the burden's on me now to figure out where to store the stylus. Great. Should I just stash it with the now-most-likely-extinct half-screen keyboard? :) I put serious miles on my n800 before I bought an n810, only to find out that I was still right about what's wrong with it. But maybe now is as good a time as any to give my impressions in relation to each other:

What's Better about the n810:

• screen (it's perfect)
• screen touch sensitivity (artful)
• stand and its gradations (right on)
• fullscreen button placement (they did their homework)
• +/- button placement (good enough for my remapping of page-up and page-down)
• stylus (smaller, lighter)
• speaker quality and placement (genius)
• don't quote me on this because I don't know if they're the same or different, but the WiFi chip seems way more robust

Except for the looseness I'm now experiencing between the keyboard and the screen, the n810 is an exceptional refinement of the n800. Truly, truly excellent. I'm happily surprised.

What's Worse about the n810:

• It has an anchor/keyboard I rarely drop or use
• The dpad would suck no matter where you put it. The perimeter-button feel is all wrong.
• As if the dpad wasn't enough, why the f*ck did the menu key have to go inside?
• Density. The n810 is smaller and heavier than the n800. Thus, it's more dense. This causes more fatigue and I'll stop there...

Things I didn't mention 'cause they're of little concern or difference to me at the moment:

• SD slots (a 4GB partition is still unused on my 8GB micro)
• camera (along with their drivers, they both suck)
• USB jack (whatever, hope I don't lose the cable)
• light sensor (cool, but maybe could use a better algorithm)
• battery (thinner is sometimes better?)

Anyway, besides the obvious processor improvement, it seems that Nokia is running away from me and into the arms of the trendy. My kid doesn't even finger paint any more, why the f*ck should I?