The more interesting question must be: Is it realistic for us to port Maemo 6 to the N900?

I guess that'll depend a lot on whether Maemo 6 fits in the available memory. I can't think of anything else crucial that would prevent it.

Wow, a year is a long way away. Come this time next year I will be itching for a new gadget, and I know most of you will too.

Mike C

I haven't got one yet, but simply having to turn the phone 90 degrees every time you switch back and forth between tasks sounds like it would be quite confusing. Even with two hands.

For a start, it means you'd have to pick it up off a table if that's how you're using it.

It'd means you can't do things as quickly. Just pressing an icon would have to be followed by turning it around in your hands. Imagine if you have to press a few in a row quickly...

So I'd anticipate getting used to doing some things by reading text and icons text sideways... Just because it's quicker than turning the phone around. Quicker, but confusing and annoying.

So because of that, I appreciate why they've settled on making everything run in landscape primarily, rather than a mixture. At least you don't have the delays and eyestrain of rotating the phone or reading sideways when you want to tap through a few different things quickly.

But I do wonder how well browsing things like Twitter, facebook, scrolling through lists of email subjects, etc. can go using landscape.

After all, my desktop and laptop browser windows, and my laptop email window (and text editors etc.), are nearly always a lot taller than they are wide... for a reason. Wide doesn't let you see any more at once, to scan down the text quickly; tall does.

jjx

Got your point, but the physical keyboard is where it is on the N900

Mike C

Just like on the N97, mikec, but that doesn't impede ASR on it. I think the N900 is landscape only now because that has been Maemo's heritage. Most users weren't always on the go with the N8xx like most smartphones. Nokia is smartphonizing the Maemo platform, and it'll take time. Next thing is adding phone number dialing from the browser or email links.

'Portrait mode! waaah!'

I hope Nokia views the loud whining here with some scepticism. The sensible place to support portrait is at application level, for too many reasons to list.

C'mon guys hildon soon will not be the only choice... In fact nobody forbids a port of kdebase with a suitable theme and some usability patches...

Yes, but for that to work you need a portrait on-screen keyboard at the OS level. That is the biggest concern for me, that it does not have all the needed support in the OS to make portrait support in applications easy. Just being able to ask the OS if you are in portrait or landscape mode is NOT enough, you need common portrait UI elements so that you keep UI consistency in portrait mode between applications.

Personally I know I would use portrait to quickly go into conversations, write quick one-liner replies to SMS/IM messages.

How often do people ask you a yes/no question and being able to quickly tap "yes" in portrait mode, when you only have one hand free, would be useful. Its far more practical using portrait mode on the bus as your elbows stick out more using both hands and the seats are always too narrow. If someone is sitting next to you, landscape is a real chore.

Also as pointed out previously, many websites despite being written in landscape on the PC, they actually are portrait because its harder to read landscape pages, you get information overload if too much is on a single line.

Once you accept that a few core applications need portrait support, it makes sense to then think about the home screen. At the very least, it should have a portrait optimised quicklaunch or something, perhaps that only lets you access portrait mode applications. I personally like the idea of having a separate desktop for portrait mode which you customise for what you will most likely be doing in portrait mode. I do not think it will be any more confusing to the end-user than being stuck in landscape is now.

Another example is the dashboard. Currently it doesn't "support" portrait mode. If you have an app in portrait mode open and call up the dashboard you run into problems. As of now the portrait app is briefly displayed in portrait (with only half of it visible) and is then rotated to landscape. Might become a slow process with GUI-heavy applications.

And for the record I HATE the sound of the Maemo 6 desktop.

The idea of one large pannable desktop just makes me cringe. I briefly had a pannable desktop on my PC and couldn't stand it, likewise I only ever have a single desktop too as I forget which desktop which app is on and all the switching between them just gets confusing. I tried keeping Desktop 2 for GIMP, but inevitably when I am on Desktop 2 I forget and end up with applications spread across the two desktops at random.

In Maemo 6 (and I see no reason not to have it on Maemo 5 too) I would much rather as I described above, have a completely independent desktop for portrait so that you could customise it for different needs. The chances are in portrait mode your usage patterns are different anyway so having the same desktop is not intuitive.

For the record, I HATE how YouTube on the iPod Touch forces you into landscape to watch the videos when all navigation/searching is portrait. That is a really good example of a very poor design IMO. That is one thing I like about Maemo 5 mostly being landscape, if the primary purpose of your application is best served landscape then it should stick with landscape.

For the applications which can comfortably support both modes, I would also prefer to CHOOSE to switch modes not have it automatic (though obviously you could have a toggle for people who prefer automatic screen rotation). If I bring the device out of screen-off mode in landscape, default to landscape and vice versa. There are too many times when ASR can trip up, like when I am watching a movie in bed. Obviously as Maemo 5 currently stands I will be able to do that fine, but once portrait mode is implemented (which we need for easy music navigation) then using ASR would cause the same problem.

Overall though, I think perhaps Nokia made the right choice. I would much rather be stuck in landscape mode than have them badly implement portrait support. Although the lack of portrait keyboard support out of the box was pretty stupid, hopefully its just a lack of the bitmaps so once you install one portrait app with on-screen keyboard then its available for every other portrait app - rather than reinventing the wheel.