Click for bigger. No, really, do it, I'll reference it.
The big news of today for Maemo/MeeGo enthusiasts was the release of the Handset User Experience mockups, code and UI guidelines. If you’re a mobile phone enthusiast I’ll assume you already read those completely (if not, you should!) and so I won’t post those as news.
I will, however, comment on the UI demos we got. I know that whatever the Nokia device running MeeGo won’t look exactly like this, but you never know.
- The status bar and the title bar: Right now on Maemo, you have a top bar that has, left to right: task switcher, clock, tray, title and close button. For MeeGo they decided to split that in two, a thinner status bar and the title bar that doesn’t always show up. Where does the awesome tray for notifications we have currently goes? I understand that having a thin status bar allows for it to show up in more places, but Maemo’s approach is way more elegant.
- Clutter on the title bar: Ok, so you get the titlebar. Right now on the screenshot linked above we have task switcher | text pane labels | search button | close app. System wide controls, sort controls and actions on the same place, kinda messy innit? Add that to an oddly empty bottom bar and the idea is dubious. The MeeGo UI basics page doesn’t show the sort and action buttons there though, just the title with the drop down arrow, Maemo 5 style. As always, that can change during development.
- Desktop and launcher: I don’t really like the Dock idea for launching the main menu, as it just takes space and you can add app shortcuts to the homescreen like widgets right now. The current Maemo 5 main menu and switcher being on the same place behavior is more natural, in my opinion.
- Lock screen: Not the ridiculous drag to unlock screen currently on Maemo 5, great!
- Task Switcher: Not pictured, but lifting the webOS card views, kinda silly since the current Maemo 5 task switcher can fit more stuff. Nicer imho. You can still get the Maemo 5 one but extra step.
- And this one is probably a proto issue but on the demo video apps minimized to the desktop. or something?
All in all, I kinda like Maemo 5 a lot better right now. Then again I’m comparing vanilla MeeGo with the “Nokia experience” Maemo 5, so who knows how the version I’ll get to play with will look like.
A couple links of relevance:
Update: Oh something I had forgotten about: no signs of supporting non-touchscreen phones, for now. :(
Comments on the MeeGo Handset UX Day 1
Click for bigger. No, really, do it, I'll reference it.
The big news of today for Maemo/MeeGo enthusiasts was the release of the Handset User Experience mockups, code and UI guidelines. If you’re a mobile phone enthusiast I’ll assume you already read those completely (if not, you should!) and so I won’t post those as news.
I will, however, comment on the UI demos we got. I know that whatever the Nokia device running MeeGo won’t look exactly like this, but you never know.
All in all, I kinda like Maemo 5 a lot better right now. Then again I’m comparing vanilla MeeGo with the “Nokia experience” Maemo 5, so who knows how the version I’ll get to play with will look like.
A couple links of relevance:
Update: Oh something I had forgotten about: no signs of supporting non-touchscreen phones, for now. :(