Notices

Call me late for finding this, but there's no time like the present towards thinking about alternative UIs for Maemo as it goes forward - especially in light of Maemo 6's abilities to use multi-touch as part of the *play.*

Here's a UI example that I found (via Jaiku) called 10/GUI:
http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2009/10/13/10_gui/

If a tablet were in that 4-7in screen size, something like this could really work. Thoughts?

No table space for keyboard. Next

At 8:10 you can see the keyboard. It is above the multi touch screen. It'd require a larger table, potentially breaking backwards compatibility with indeed current tables.

The 'card box' model I've seen before. IIRC Microsoft Singularity. Part of it is in the Windows 7 task manager.

At 5:51 they show a title but you have to tilt your head 90 degrees to left to read it. Amarok 2 has this as well, and I don't find it ergonomic at all. I wonder how these designers browsed through real archives because if you ever did you know you can easily change your position 90 degrees being able to read the labels. Color labels are also frequently used in such archives.

I hear nothing about backwards compatibility. I wonder how they're going to deal with tabs in the browser. I haven't seen 40 windows open either. They show some kind of Expose view which you can have with Compiz too. Actually, very much like desktop. Although the usefulness of Expose (and Apple desktop) is that it also manages window placement. Some Linux desktops like IIRC xmonad or wbar also do this well. Another example of backwards compatibility is the mouse its precision. Like a stylus, its much more precise than fingers. So you're gonna have to redesign UI of programs (forget a normal Firefox version as shown). Buttons need to have different size, for example. You can see this back in Maemo Browser providing mouse pointer. In first part he's talking about RSI and such, ergonomic posture. Then how can he have the monitor on the position it is in the video? Way too low, it should be raised!

All in all, not a very bad video; but also nothing revolutionary. If Nokia had this high resolution of input device (without feedback on input device), and a capacitive touch screen, they'd have far more freedom to implement other, different ideas than currently with Maemo 5. But I don't see the step from Maemo 5 to some of the features outlined here very big and without addressing these shortcoming aspects I mentioned, and with buzzwords like revolutionary, it sounds more like a commercial than anything else. I prefer 1) without such buzzwords 2) rather first problems outlined, in seperate video, then the solution, and in yet another video caveats, workarounds, backwards compatibility.

It looks nice. I wouldn't be able to easily coordinate all these finger gestures, though... not with one hand, and certainly not with two. The 1-pointer-approach of a mouse is less sophisticated, but this is exactly its advantage... no coordination effort required at all.

Also, I think their window layout is a solution to a non-problem. People usually, in 99% of all cases, work with fullscreen windows and switch with Atl+Tab or click on the Window representation on the bottom (in MS Windows). There is no mess, no cluttered window space. Those who want windows of various sizes side by side or on top of each other and overlapping want to keep control. Being able to choose between vertical/horizontal/mixed arrangements is a benefit.