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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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