I would like a finger based menuing system, but I certainly would not appreciate losing my stylus.
I got the n810 in part because I wanted the precision a stylus can give.

A finger based UI on a device this size works nicely with stylus simply because big fat targets are easy to hit, and even with the stylus I hate aiming for the smallest of icons (ie power/brightness/network etc)

For me though, the biggest problem with the frankenUI we have is scrolling, there are so many different unusable cludges on standard list browsing that its not workable, however unless something really good comes along and replaces everything these kinds of problems will remain for a long time.

It seems we'll have consistency in Fremantle:

https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2564

However, whether everyone will like the resulting UI is a different matter ;-)

sadly one cant satisfy everyone all the time. anyone thats a parent will know that...

another thing to consider is "the silent majority"...

I started trying this a while ago. It's really hard to test in scratchbox It wasn't working on the device either. I used a Hildon Helper method for finger detection and tried to roll my own.

Maybe it is time to try that again...

fiferboy,

pressure information is available through the xsp x extension, the wiki is out of date and the information may not be totally correct (offsets were wrong for my device), but you should be able to boil this down into something you can use.

https://wiki.maemo.org/Using_touch_screen_pressure_data

liqbase makes use of this and it gives pressure readings from "are you touching me?" to "MEDIC!" so I know it works.

Finger-friendlyness allows for one-handed usage.
I prefer the simplicity and big buttons of the finger-friendly parts of the UI. But then, I'm not a PDA person and the Nokia 770 was my first stylus-driven device. But even on OS 2005, which was far far away from being finger friendly, I found myself often being too lazy to pull out the stylus and used my digits (=built-in stylus ) instead.

I don't want a small screen crowded with tiny fonts and many items. That's what I have a computer for. The NITs suck at replacing a computer anyway (small screen, slow CPU, little RAM, no keyboard/bad keyboard) in my opinion.
I find OS 2008 quite a big leap in the right direction, but consistency in the UI got somewhat lost. Unfortunately, Diablo doesn't improve this situation at all.

Very interesting statement. Because in some way this boils down to the original question people asked about the 770 when in was introduced years ago: "What is it? And: Why?!". And shows that there are still very different use cases for the tablets:

To me, the tablet does replace the desktop PC when I'm not at home (or too lazy to go to the other room). In fact, it's faster and more powerful than some of the PCs I work on every now and then.
So I expect it to act like a desktop PC and have the look&feel of a desktop PC. For everything else I have my mobile phone which I use for quickly looking something up in wikipedia when on the train or check my mail while waiting for the bus. I expect my phone to be simple and I appreciate everything I can do with it one-handed. (No, it doesnt have a touch screen, but it's still "finger friendly": I can use my fingers to press the buttons.)

Giving the tablet the same functionality would simply duplicate my phone, only much bigger. I don't have use for two devices that do the same, so I'd go and sell my tablet then.

But I can see now that people who want to use their tablets for the tasks I do with my phone might be attracted by a more finger friendly UI.

Maybe there shouldn't be a "UI for the tablets". There should be a UI for using the tablet as a mobile browsing device (=the "phone-use-case") and a different one for using the tablet as a micro-laptop (=the way I use it).

benny1967,
I have no problem in having a really nice front end on my tablet, nice finger friendly menus and options for the things we do most of the time.
I just don't want that to be all the device can do, and adon't want the iphone-esq problems of being FORCED to use finger for everything.

Once I start applications if (for instance) I start a drawing program I expect to use my stylus, afterall I stopped finger painting when I was about 4, and if I want to do other things I should be able to.

It makes the device usable for quick operations whilst retaining the flexibility of precision as you go deeper.

the big diff for me between checking mail on my phone and checking mail on the tablet is the screen size. same with web (i use opera mini on the phone).

and yes, my N800 with a bluetooth keyboard can take the job of a computer if needed...

thats why i cant really justify getting a eeepc, even tho my geek side wants one.

from my experience the current screen (could be different on the N810 but i doubt it) do not really work as a drawing pad.