Yes, I completely agree with the above comments. The fact Apple does UI very well is somewhat obfuscated by the eye candies they put ON TOP of their elements.

Good UI != Beautiful interface w/ eye candies.

The UI came out a long time before computers existed in any form. Many machines were made before computers, and the study of user interfaces came with them. You wouldn't want a steam turbine with a bad user interface.

UI is almost never the most important aspect of any application, although it is very important. The only time it is the most important thing is where it is all there is. Normally the function of a device is the most important aspect. My washing machine has a bit of a rubbish UI, but it is still a very good machine.

To call something eye candy indicates it has no purpose (unless it is used as a derogatory term about a piece of user interface you don't like). If what you call eye candy helps non-technical people feel a connection with the device, it has a valid UI purpose so it cannot be described as eye candy.

ya i was bored without these ipod comparison threads. so here we go

One thing that may help the iphone's well touted ui is the extreme lack of features. There are not many options to create submenus. For example they do not have any menu system for plugins like flash, wmv etc so there are no sub menus for those. In fact they do not have a menu option ... save image as ... just because they cant do it!! similarly no copy paste so no need to create a menu option for it. etc.

SO when apple can implement all the feautures that normal mobile devices should have.... it would be interesting to see if they still have that killer ui.

Just since Apple II?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...lect_.28NLS.29

I haven't used either device yet...but I did just buy an N800 and am hoping I made the right choice. I thought about both an iPhone/iTouch, N800, and a host of other devices that might work for my needs. My primary goal was to have something easily portable, controllable with one hand, that I could use to download and read PDFs and email offline. I currently don't have any type of MP3 player, so the ability to store and hold by music library on the device is a nice side benefit.

I went for an N800 because:

1) Reading PDFs meant that you had to be online (at least as far as people I asked who had one could tell. They said you couldn't just drag a bunch of PDFs to the touch to store and read later. I'm not completely sure if this is true, but that was what some users told me, and no one corrected them.)

2) I have a fairly large and growing library, and I like the idea of having all my music with me. The ability to have in the future up to 64GB of storage in the device at one time seemed awesome...plus having multiple cards that I could switch out...have one card for music...another card for video, etc...

3) Skype support. I only have a cell phone, but for work I'm going to have to start making a bunch of international calls...I figure using Skype on this will probably be more convenient than using it on my laptop. I like to walk and talk at the same time.

4) In general I haven't been a huge fan of Apple UI. I have a couple of Macs in the house and while I think they do some things really well (love two finger scrolling on the Macbook) overall a bunch of things seem non-intuitive to me. Same was true of my iPod. And when I'd search for ways to customize different things the general response has always been, I should adapt to Apple's UI, and not the other way around. Which might be fine, but I find I'm too stubborn for that.

5) I like to have this be a nice chance to learn a little Linux, without having to actually install it on my PC. So far my only exposure to Linux has been some minor TiVo hacking where I just followed instructions closely.

http://www.skype.com/intl/en/download/skype/mobile/

unfortuantely.... for any calls made through this java app your outgoing minutes are counted in addition to skype minutes. And the worst part is that even if you want to call skype to skype it uses your mobile minutes. Not very ideal but may be good for international calling. Of course the skype on the nit' s is a fullblown pc client. so dont fall for this one....

Uses your mobile minutes? If you're using packet-switched data, with a data plan, you normally get billed per kB, not per minute. If you're using circuit-switched data and/or don't have a data plan, you probably hadn't ought to be using it in general; maybe international, as you say...

From the skype site,

"Call phones and mobiles

The cost of a local or national call on your mobile (or use your inclusive minutes), plus our SkypeOut rate to the destination you’re calling

Call Skype contacts

The cost of a local or national call on your mobile (or use your inclusive minutes).

IM and being online

There’s a data charge from your operator. A person with 20 contacts, who’s online for 1 hour, IMs for 10 minutes and has a 20 minute call each day will use about 1MB of data per month. The more data you use, the higher your charges may be.

Receive calls from Skype contacts

If you receive a call in the UK, you pay our SkypeOut rate for a call to a UK mobile. If you're in Estonia, you pay our rate for a call to an Estonia mobile and so on.
Receive calls to your online number

Same as above"

So it is not the same as the desktop client.

Although if you were in the UK, you could get a phone from 3 which gives you free skype calls (ie, free skype to skype, not skype to phone).