Touch, Sensors and and Accelerated UI: the future of S60

[slitchfield]

In a major feature, Rafe Blandford examines the recent announcements enhancing the user experience on the S60 platform: S60 Touch UI, Sensor Framework and UI Accelerator Toolkit. What will each look like in practice, when will they arrive and how will they benefit both users and the S60 ecosystem?

Read on in the full article.

I like the soft keys of the current S60 phones, and I would be OK with a touch screen device as long as it preserves the one handed fingers behind and thumb operation used currently. Having to use two hands immediately invokes the geekiness, and the stylus is just an awful compromise.

The one thing thats worries me about the article though, is the pictures of the phone. I really hope that the larger form factor isn't the shape of things to come, the N95 is about the largest I would be happy with, it disappears into jeans pockets quite comfortably. I played with an iPhone for 10 minutes on Sunday and the overriding impression was that it is too large. Very nice to use etc as we all know but not happily pocketable for me.

[SwitchBlade]

The big button spaces go on the communicator, only to have their revenge on the touch screen devices. Does this mean that the next communicator may finally incorporate the old Psion QWERTY + touchscreen clamshell design. About bloody time if so.

[malerocks]

Great article Rafe and very, very interesting!!!

In my opinion, phones should have a mix of touch and non-touch technology. The iphone style touch scrolling would be great to have in apps like the gallery, or while surfing the web. Also touch options can be very useful here to zoom in, zoom out, move around, explore options with a longer touch press (as in windows phones), etc. You really dont need touch for basic apps like contacts, calendar, reading messages except when it comes to text entry. True 'touch technology' should not require us to use any stylus - with the fingers and thumbs been just enough. Wonder when 'touch' will reach that kind of maturity.

I also am pretty interested in the sensor options. Imagine 'flicking' a phone with your finger to quite it or to activate a feature. But this is nothing new. This is how Charlie Chaplin would do it everytime his radio or TV didnt work

[Hardeep1singh]

1. So Now I know why there aren't any Nokia phones starting with 4***.

2. I think the fate of Joystick and keypad would be decided by the popularity of the new Ngage platform, if it sells, users would need those extra buttons for the games. (Hope it sells well, i want the buttons to stay, that iphonish look really sucks).

3. By the time s60v5 is ready, Mac OS would have matured and most probably Google's Android would be out, not to forget Windows Mobile, MS is cutting down on prices to make people buy it. It seems, Competition is hotting up and the next few years are going to be really interesting. :-)

[Rafe]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

The one thing thats worries me about the article though, is the pictures of the phone.

I think you can be certain there's be a range of sizes. While I'd be surprised to see 2 inch touch screen (unless stylus driven possibly). Think other touch screen devices like the Sony Ericcson range for example. I imagine there may be a bigger slate type device too (as shown in the pictures), but its all speculation right now. Despite the excitement around touch I expect non touch screen phones to remain dominant.

Originally Posted by SwitchBlade

The big button spaces go on the communicator, only to have their revenge on the touch screen devices. Does this mean that the next communicator may finally incorporate the old Psion QWERTY + touchscreen clamshell design. About bloody time if so.

Whether it'll be in the communicator range is open to debate but I too would love to see a touchscreen clamshell with a bog standard phone on the outside.

Originally Posted by malerocks

True 'touch technology' should not require us to use any stylus - with the fingers and thumbs been just enough. Wonder when 'touch' will reach that kind of maturity.

Thanks for the compliments . I think stylus usage does have a place, particularly for handwriting input. As I noted this is especially applicable in some markets. Personally I think finger touch is particularly suited to consuming media. However imagine basic photo editing (e.g. cropping) with a stylus - better than finger touch?

Originally Posted by Hardeep1singh

By the time s60v5 is ready, Mac OS would have matured and most probably Google's Android would be out, not to forget Windows Mobile, MS is cutting down on prices to make people buy it. It seems, Competition is hotting up and the next few years are going to be really interesting. :-)

Yes the competition can only be good for consumers in the next few years. It'll be interesting to see what else S60 version 5 offers too.

[malerocks]

Originally Posted by Rafe

I think stylus usage does have a place, particularly for handwriting input. As I noted this is especially applicable in some markets. Personally I think finger touch is particularly suited to consuming media. However imagine basic photo editing (e.g. cropping) with a stylus - better than finger touch?

i am still not fully convinced. Even in your example, how difficult will it really be just to resize an image using a finger on a touchscreen. Just just have to drag the corners..or draw edge to edge lines...

"it should not be seen as a direct response to Apple's entry into the mobile market."

Suuure....

Problem is MacBoy, that if it is a response to the iPhone, it's a negative one, a backward step.

Nice to see you remembered the poor old 7710 & the Nokia Internet Tablets. It seems these devices are constantly forgotten by most internet pundits - iphone with kinetic scrolling(?) - well I have that on my 770 tablet (the excellent Kagu player) - and that's almost three years old!!!

I still use my 7710 as my in-car GPS because the screen remains one of the largest of any modern phone. Pity S90 only served as a test bed for the tablets and the integration of touchscreen into S60.

I'm very excited by Nokia's plans for touchscreen.

Now, if only the Apple-fans could get their head round the fact the iphone isn't as (quite) as innovative as they'd like to think!

(light blue touch paper and step away:-)

No need to feel scared about pointing out that some devices have had iPhone-esque features for years.

I own both an N770 and N800, and they are both neat devices. But, they are not mass-market, even at £80 from Expansys!

Apple have looked at the best bits from the current crop of devices and laptops, knocked in a few ideas of their own (slide to unlock. Brilliantly simple.) and packaged the whole lot up in a way that makes the whole greater than the sum of the parts. Or, to put it another way, makes the compromises less than the sum of the benefits. Or something like that. You get the drift. I tolerate the N95 because it has a great camera, HSDPA and GPS - In spite of its OS shortcomings. I like the iPhone in spite of its mediocre camera, 2G and SMS limitations, because of the overall OS experience.

People who like to argue the toss betwixt the two miss the point completely. You don't need to argue. Symbian, Nokia, SEM, LG etc will learn from the Apple implimentation, and vice versa. In a year's time we will have an iPhone with 3G and sorted SMS functionality, and we'll have Symbian devices with decent multitouch UI and coverflow image/album browsing. Everyone wins.

Cheers,

Mike