future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

Hi, looong time lurker, first post.

with all the threads on N9xx possibilities, I was wondering about actual physical aspects.

Having just handled my 770 for the first time in a long time, putting HE on it for it's current owner my gf, I remebered that when the 800 appeared I, along with many others, though it looked "Retro" compared to the 770. Now the reverse is true. The 770 looks like something from, well, the 70's!

The thing that most impressed me though was that with just a little extra width, the 800 centred the screen.

Now, one of the reasons I haven't dived on a 810 is te lack of the d-pad on the shell itself - I like to use it for scolling webpages, games etc.

So I was wondering what others thought? I'd like to see the d-pad back on the main body of the next gen, keyboard or not.

In fact I'd go one step further - 2 d-pads, one each side, configurable to user, thus giving lefties choice, gamers options etc.
The "pandora killer" idea? :D

Even more, if we're really looking at a mini-mobile pc, how about a mini-trackball at the centre of the d-pad, then the possibliies become immense...

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

It may not be the final design, but it looks like all the hardware buttons have now moved to the keyboard.

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

This pictures are *NOT* the representation of any future hardware :)

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

Yes, those pictures are not any final hardware design. In general, for a finger touch UI the value of the d-pad is much reduced. Finger touch UI gives scrolling directly from the screen, and it does not really rely on the style of having a focus which the user moves around to select items.

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

Yeah, but I'm not actually scrolling around all the time... :) So, some kind of always accessible navigation, different from a finger is welcome (for me:))...

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

There seem to be indications that the next screen will have haptic (i.e. touch) feedback, that might make hardware buttons less necessary.

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

also, the iphone doesn't have a d-pad, so of course we don't want one, either.

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

benny1967, what would the iPhone do with a d-pad? What would you control in the various screens?

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

I want my 770-style dpad back. That's it :D

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

Sometimes it is easier to navigate with direction buttons, than to find something and click on it on the screen (or worse - making finger gestures)... Tactile feedback is an improvement, yes.

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

Touch screen is OK as long as you're not moving, but hardware buttons really help when walking or using the device on a bumpy vehicle etc. It would be great if programs could use them for the most common tasks - switching tracks & volume in media player, switching views in calendar, panning the page in browser etc. It would make the walkaround web a lot easier to use. They're also faster to use because you get direct physical feedback in situations like clicking 7 days ahead in calendar. Hardware buttons sure have their place if the software takes advantage of them.

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

I would dig a folding touchscreen design similar to this.

Beside the advantage of having a device that can stay pocketable like the current device; there is that ability to pull a DS-like two screen effort.

Given the announcement of the Hapitkos technology from Nokia and the placement of the tablets as N-series devices, I would see something like this added to that two screen concept in order to really push that idea of interacting (over simply inputting).

Addition: I would have only a few main buttons: power, and zoom +/-. These buttons would be universal in function and that's it. There would be two additional buttons, but aided by the tech, they would shift their mode according to context (similar to Moto ROKR E8).

I would also hope for the E-series engineers to get in there and fine tune the mess out of that hardware (man that E71 is a heck of a kit).

Finally, OLED for both screens to increase the ability for the device to chew less power and give a better screen.

Come to think of it, this can be done now...

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

No Physical Qwerty Keyboard == No buy-in from me.

I like the dual-touch-screen idea, as an idea. But I have yet to use a virtual keyboard that I really liked. Some are better than others (the N800's is better than the iPhone's, IMO), but they're still dramatically inferior to having physical keys.

Now, if the second screen did something really innovative, like a way to use keys with little oled displays on them (like that one desktop keyboard whose name escapes me), but in a way where the displays went all the way to the edges of the keys, so that you could visually make the keys blend together when you want them to act like a display ... then have them look like a keyboard when you need a keyboard ... that might have potential.

Or, those designs that allow a display to slightly morph in physical shape so that keys sort of "rise up" out of the display surface (so you have physical sensation of the key pressing, and a sense of the key centers and/or edges), then that'd be good too.

But without one of those two things, no f'n way. :)


Though, one way to have that twin display idea, with a physical keyboard, is to mate the E90 with a twist/convertable idea. Only instead of the display rotating to face in/out, have the keyboard half rotate.

• if the device is open, and the keyboard is facing "out", then disable the keyboard and enable both touch screens (full/double/large tablet mode).
• if the device is open, and the keyboard is facing "in", then disable that half's touch screen and enable the keyboard (micro-laptop mode).
• if the device is closed, and in that configuration, enable that half's touch screen, and disable the keyboard and the other touch screen (half/large tablet mode).

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

There are also gesture-sensors coming that allow ways to interact with a device by gesturing, so without touching the device. In think I have read about patents by Nokia for this.

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

Cool (not that there's anything wrong with them mind you). Are you allowed to comment on whether there is a final design and/or we can still expect a d-pad and QWERTY?

Well, I would argue that the d-pad is useful for a lot more than just scrolling and selecting items. I spend a lot of time in osso-xterm for example, and find it much more convenient for browsing images, PDF pages etc than touching the screen (hey, I can do it with one hand!) so I'd be somewhat disappointed if it went away. I think some of the more game-oriented users wouldn't be too happy either.

I'm personally not a big fan of finger oriented UIs in general (whether on maemo, openmoko, iphone, whatever), preferring to use the stylus and keep the screen clean. However the addition of the physical keyboard sort of forces you to touch the screen occasionally anyway so I can live with it. There are very real limitations though - for example selecting text with your index finger is pretty much a lost cause, you have to use the stylus and/or shift + d-pad.

No physical keyboard would be very sad indeed. If anything, I'd like to see an improvement on the current one, along the lines of the E90 keyboard (separate numeric row, TAB key, bumps on the "home" keys, much better tactile feedback) and fixes for the software-side issues (<cough>3407</cough>). But who am I kidding, I'll probably order it the day it goes on sale (same as the other three) anyway ;-)

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

"what would the iPhone do with a d-pad? "

I hope that's not an indicator of Nokia's thinking on this. The NIT isn't an iphone, surely that's the point?

the idea of a desktop-model should surely be based on the idea that a pc is uniquely configurable by its owner - or else everyone would have macs :p

if the d-pad were moved back to the front face, the keyboard could be slightly bigger keys, and I do think that a "double d pad" would open the device to a whole market of potential gamers, as well as having so many other potential apps. I agree that it makes single-handed usage eaier in some circumstances.

the improved touchscreen/finger friendly way is of course the way forward and will be welcomed greatly but me, but it would be sad to be at the expense of another aspect of the device that I find useful.

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

Agreed. It's way too limiting to think of just simple scrolling, as in moving the page around with a finger. The D-pad can do much more than that.

Take just a simple thing as paging down page-by-page with a D-pad: say you want to go _exactly_ two pages back: Press 'up' on the pad twice, and you're there. You don't even have to watch the display. Can't do that with finger scrolling.

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

You can do the same thing with on-screen buttons, even more so with haptic feedback, so that you feel the keypresses. Maybe make them semi-transparent so they can overlap with a document and don't waste screen estate. The only use of physically feeling the edges of buttons is when you're using the device in such a way that you can't or dont want to look at it, like play/forward/stop buttons on an mp3 player.

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

You can, but to me that's a poor substitute for a real button, and it needs software support. Besides, that was just one example. What I'm trying to say is that it's not a good idea by the designers to think that they know the use cases.

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

So it would be a better idea for the designers to think that they do _not_ know the use cases? ;)

Attempting to create a device that tries to please every use case known now and later will really please nobody. "Oh put a d-pad there... No, put two d-pads there! Put 5 keys on the top! Just in case... Somebody might come up with some use for them."

I'd also say that real buttons are a poor substitute for the future technologies (not yet available) with proper haptics and visuals.

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

Absolutely. With a d-pad in place software designers (and not just Nokia's UI/Browser UI designers) can use it whatever way they want. What I'm saying is that it's wrong for the DEVICE designers to think that they know the use cases. That's when you end up implementing limitations to the system.

"What is the use case? Hm, the only one I can think of is browsing a web page, in the particular manner I know about. Let's design a device that handles this case."

Not good.

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

Oh, sure, you just have to mentally divide the number of keypresses you want by 2, or 3, or 5, or whatever number of clicks the broken n800 touchscreen decides to count for a single tap.

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

This discucussion is about the next version of the tablets. The touchscreens on those are supposedly going to be less broken , i.e. faster response time and more precise. Also both a hardware key and a software key need some kind of algorithm to decide what should be interpreted as a single tap, and how often to fire 'tap' events when keeping a key pressed. There are valid arguments pro-hardware key but this one is moot.

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

I'd say that there's a lot of hype around them and I find it scary since these technologies heavily rely on power hungry interaction elements.

In N800 times I remember a huge fight with UI designers about the single LED and the fact that it was going to be abused:

• far from optimal hw design would generate lot of CPU activity for blinking the LED
• the user was expected to be some sort of telegraph operator to tell one pattern from the other
• because of the low pass effect from the mechanics, patterns that on paper were significantly different were ending up to look like thery were all the same

So that was just a simple and apparently harmless LED; I wonder what will happen once we start dealing with stuff which actually _moves_ or is expected to light large screen surfaces - or both - hence requiring much more power.

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

D-pads have been around for a long time. In particular, they have been part of maemo/hildon for years. A case has not been made for removing them.

Your last sentence is logically backwards. Real buttons currently exist. Haptics and future technologies do not exist. It would have to be haptics and future technologies that prove themselves. Not just as substitues, but as improvements over real buttons.

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

If that were true, then it would certainly be a boon for those of you who are trying to argue for virtual buttons over real ones.

Lucky for the rest of us, you're actually completely wrong.

The feel of the button isn't just for when you're not looking at it. It's a tactile reinforcement for your brain that your finger is where you think your finger is, EVEN WHEN YOU'RE LOOKING AT IT. For example, with the iPhone, you have to get used to where you place your fingers, because you can't tell which button you're pressing with the main part of your finger, even when you're looking right at it. If there were tactile indicators for the edges of the buttons, you'd be able to feel it right away, and you'd have instant feedback.

The fact that there's a learning curve to virtual keyboards (the iPhone's especially, but even for the N800) indicates that you're having to adjust your behavior away from natural and assumed interactions. That means, without question, something key to the experience has changed, something that is slowing you down (and thus is of a reduced ergonomic value) until you learn how to compensate for what's missing.

There is value to the feel of the button that is not just incidental, nor should it be dismissed as "only when you're not looking at it" or something along those lines.

Great. When those future technologies are available, that give you all of the ergonomic value of a real button, feel free to build them into a device. Until then, give us what works _today_. Real buttons.

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

For me replacing a perfectly good button with a haptic feedback screen that tries to mimic it seems kind of backwards. I think the problem would go away if we could just make the good old buttons look sexy again...

On the other hand I'd like to replace the +/- buttons entirely with a small touch sensitive strip that would function as a analog slider. You could use it to adjust screen brightness or volume, scroll, pan, zoom, you name it. Conveniently located under the left index finger, no need to look because it's just there and there's no screen behind it.

Couple this with a D-pad under the thumb and it's just pure controlling bliss all the way ;)

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

There's probably an easier marketing benefit to hard buttons that would change determined by context than just a flat screen where the haptics in a localized area would be able to move, but that's just something worth playing with over some use cases, and then in real life to see what happens. A case can and should be made to see what happens.

Personally, I'd rather not have a d-pad as it can restrict what a developer might want to do. In the same wise, going with haptics+gestures might not always be optimal as well.

As for what to come next, I'd like to see maemo take a chance with something not done before, hence the post about a folding-haptic/gesture screen design. Something where navigation and input take an approach that is based more on interfacing with the content rather than interfacing with the device to get to the content.

Thoughts on the N800 form factor
 

I finally got a (used) N800 a while ago and wanted to share my thoughts about the hardware and the (future of the) IT form factor in general. Hopefully this isn't too much of a hijacking ... BEWARE there will be iPod touch comparisons ...

Impressions
- It's a bit on the heavy side for prolonged (>30min) handheld use for me. Seeing as the N810 is ~20g heavier still I can only hope that this isn't a trend. Dimensions are fine, though I'd prefer the back to be flat, even if that means that the thickness goes up to that of the "camera bulge" over the whole device.

- The hardware buttons on the top edge are a total loss. Don't get me wrong, I like having hardware buttons for some stuff, but these are just too small and too close together. To be able to tell that [-][fullscreen][+] are in fact three different buttons and not just one I have to *look* at them, which defeats their purpose. For now I've resorted to using a fingernail whenever I need to actually press one ...
BTW, is there a way of holding the tablet where these buttons are close at hand (or finger)? Leaving aside the size, the positioning itself seems awkward to me.

- The camera. I wouldn't use it to photograph someone or something, that's what a (real) camera is for, which leaves video telephony. Even for that the quality is a bit meh, the positioning choice is strange and the pop-out thingy just screams "I break easily".
I can understand *having* a camera (then again, I wonder when headsets with integrated webcams in "dangle in front of your head like the carrot in front of the mule" fashion come out ) but it should be placed statically and centered on one of the screen's sides. One could use the left or right side even, and rotate the tablet during a video call, thus temporarily putting it top-center like on laptops.

- Orientation and acceleration sensors, please. That part of the touch is really nice and has the potential to change user-device interaction substantially.

- Another cloneworthy touch feature would be the "multitouch" gestures. Zooming in and out becomes subconscious on the touch within 10 minutes. The same can not be said about the zoom buttons.

- Even with excellent gesture recognition, the D-pad is nice. It is simply the most generic and expressive/versatile hardware control element I've seen. It's function is usually obvious depending on context, which makes it superior to seperate buttons. In that light the idea of putting one one the right side as well seems quite good, as long as there's space.

- I'd like to use my IT as an mp3 player => it should be able to do last-song, play-pause next-song and volume-up/down without me having to take it out of my coat pocket. Since dedicated hardware buttons for this are way too specialized in my book, maybe there could be an optional BT "remote" (pretending to be a keyboard)?

- Speaking of BT and keyboards ... let me just say I bought the N800 (and not the N810) for a reason. The integrated kayboard is a terrible idea, because
* it dilutes the tablet formfactor. Once developers assume there will be a keyboard present noone is going to take the time and think about how to use the ITs' strengths (the touch screen) for UI design
* it adds weight and points-of-failiure (the slider mechanism can break)
* not everybody needs it, much less all the time.
* it makes the devices less international because of different keyboard layouts
* ...
* people will find something to ***** about anyway, be it pitch, spacing, layout or omitted function keys ...
Why not go with modularity and make a (BT and/or wired) keyboard as an accessory that can be connected directly to the next IT generation and double as a stand?

- For some reason I'd thought it had a full-size USB host port. My bad, but why hasn't it? Even if it only supplied power while the charger was connected it would be a godsend. Connect a good webcam and insta lecture-recordings, mmmh ....

I think the ITs should be swiss-army-knife-computers, able to do most any computing / consumer electronics task excluding 3d gaming and number crunching reasonably well. That is, pack them with features as long as there's no disadventage to having them and for the rest go the modular approach. That goes for the keyboard as well as HSxPA, even though I'd use the latter constantly.

Cheers,

C.

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

That idea worked very well for PC keyboards. They're called function keys. ;)

Re: Thoughts on the N800 form factor
 

They already exist (BT). I have one.

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

The N800's a bit large and heavy for the stands on the keyboards I have (iGo and Palm); they're designed for phones and little PDAs.

I think I'd like one that actually snapped to the tablet (allowing easier free-hand walking use), though that does sacrifice generality (and so drive the price up).

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

Hell you're fast ... Others twitch-game, Texrat twitch-posts :-)

I know that such keyboards exist, but apparently the integration with the Nxx0 isn't good enough for many people or they wouldn't insist on a hardware keyboard on the device itself.

The I-love-the-keyboard and the I-hate-the-keyboard enough to post about it crowd seem pretty fifty-fifty to me. Since keeping two devices with this exact distinction on the market simultaneously wasn't feasible I was just looking for a solution to make both camps happy.

Hmm, maybe something that clips on ...

Cheers,

C.

Oh, and I'm looking forward to HxDPA support, grasshopper or not :-P

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

It isn't always about "good enough"-- some people just want that integrated keyboard, period. Some don't.

I found my BT keyboard to work well enough, but I'm one of those odd ducks who prefers the virtual keyboard. To each his or her own. ;)

Re: Thoughts on the N800 form factor
 

You have a BT keyboard that directly attaches to the NIT? and doubles as a stand?

Where?

(or do you just mean the way the iGo has that little pup-up stand? I thought he meant something more like a clip-on that actually attaches and makes the NIT more like a tiny laptop, or something)

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

Yes to many of these points. :)

As far as for the hard keys, the problem with the hard keys really is that they restrict and dictate the design. If you have keys A and B on the side of the screen, designs try to take advantage of them. (It would feel silly not to use them!) If you have a d-pad on the side of the screen, designs try to use them. It has a big effect on the UI design, and it can easily be detrimental if designers are not careful and mindful.

Getting rid of HW keys is very hard. The larger the platform gets, the harder it would be to get rid of hard keys, since then there would be so many solutions and applications already that require the hard keys being there. In theory for a device that works on the touch screen, not requiring hard keys, these limitations do not exist.

I'm not at all a fan of mixing HW key and touch screen usage on a UI. HW keys are good if they have their pre-determined, always known roles. For instance the iPhone Home key, the user knows what it will do and it does it very nicely. If it would done "something" in every app of the device, it wouldn't work. Having small screens on keys is a poor substitute, it just makes people stuck on hard keys, i.e. the "non-direct" approach in the UI.

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

This sentence says it all. Of course that designers should be humble enough and do not expect they know every use case. Fortunately we (users that don't fit designer's mind) have also other choices.
http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...148#post185148

Perhaps it is normal that big company producing stuff in volume cannot satisfy needs of non-average users. Maybe those 5 steps mean dumb it down in every step ;-) Some things are improving but other stuff goes downhill from 770 and N800 days (hardcover, dpad, zoom keys, stylus oriented UI, non-rotating camera, SD/MMC slots,..).

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

but surely the idea of "open source" and the aim of having more independent developers come on board with apps would only be helped by the designers having a virtually limitless idea of "use cases"?

Texrat beat me to the pc "function keys" answer. But your response is a little fatuous - the single d-pad was obviously seen a s a good idea for the 770 and 800, and double ones are for gamer/multi-use devices of similar size. The regularity of iphone comparisons in some of the answers on this thread are a little worrying in some respects - the iphone in not a nit and the nit is not a phone.

this is perhaps the strangest comment of all. if we are truly waiting for a step 4 device to be reliant on technologies that are not yet available then surely that's equivalent to being told "we've lost this particular race to the iphone - we're waiting for the next race to start in a year or so".

Re: Thoughts on the N800 form factor
 

It's the Nokia BT keyboard, and has a little pop-up stand. Seemed to me that satisfied what was posted...

Re: future NIT form factor - Dpads?
 

Absolutely not. I bought a stowaway bt keyboard and the integration was surprisingly good. And the 810 version was just a different version for people with different preferences, or who for some reason, are'nt willing to try the separate keyboard.