http://www.osnews.com/story/18452/Access_Gives_Overview_of_ALP_s_User_Interface Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:34:46 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread?263138 http://osnews.com/thread?263138 is it just me or is everyone gunning for the iphone look these days?

we got it on midinux, we got it on some wm6 devices, an now this.

what is it with glossy black that makes everyone go "ooh"? Mon, 13 Aug 2007 19:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hobgoblin) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?263146 http://osnews.com/thread?263146 I don't think it looks like the iPhone. It looks worse. Mon, 13 Aug 2007 19:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?263151 http://osnews.com/thread?263151 it looks enough that a comparison is valid imo.

as in, the same gloss and black baseline. Mon, 13 Aug 2007 20:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hobgoblin) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?263152 http://osnews.com/thread?263152 this kind of look is not so different that you can already find on palm os...... you change color, look and so on... Mon, 13 Aug 2007 20:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (collinm) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?263153 http://osnews.com/thread?263153 You know other phones existed before the iPhone with a very similar interface, right?

I think overall the interface is rather poor though. Looks like preliminary mockups by someone with a weak design background. Mon, 13 Aug 2007 20:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (sappyvcv) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?263155 http://osnews.com/thread?263155 that may be true, but like it or not the iphone (like the ipod before it) have put touch interfaces in the radar of joe average. so in a sense, its become the new baseline that one will compare everything to, even if there where similar devices before it.

hell, if one look at the DAP market, creative had the first devices out. but they where to large compared to the storage they had. i recall one such device that someone in the local area had. it was as large as a cd player, with 1/3 the song capacity or there about. Mon, 13 Aug 2007 20:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hobgoblin) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?263164 http://osnews.com/thread?263164 what other os was palm working on that was based on linux? Unless I missed something I don't believe you mean PalmOS Cobalt - The OS they finished but no one would adopt. Mon, 13 Aug 2007 21:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (phate) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?263178 http://osnews.com/thread?263178 Wow, those mockups must have at least taken them 30 minutes or even more to make… Mon, 13 Aug 2007 22:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (elmimmo) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?263183 http://osnews.com/thread?263183 don't like the interface at all. looks very unpolished, amateurish and unprofessional. it does look like they "borrowed" from the iPhone but unsuccessfully imo.

other than apple, microsoft and some sony ericssons i haven't really seen good interfaces on other devices like that... i don't get it - it's such a huge market and everybody puts out interfaces that look like they've been put together by their geeky developers and are usually very ugly and unintuitive. how many millions of units need to be sold before they start making devices that are actually usable... Mon, 13 Aug 2007 22:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Obry) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?263215 http://osnews.com/thread?263215 After seeing ugly themes time and time again, it seems to me that it is a limitation of the underlying UI framework that is difficult for a theme to cover up. The only exception is the SLED theme but even that falls back on the awful default Yes/No buttons with aliased icons. Mon, 13 Aug 2007 23:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (codehead78) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?263237 http://osnews.com/thread?263237 im guessing GTK... Tue, 14 Aug 2007 00:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hobgoblin) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?263284 http://osnews.com/thread?263284 The comment seems to apply to the successor to PalmOS Cobalt, the never officially named "PalmOS for Linux" that Palmsource was working on when Access bought them and changed the direction of the product.

This is not to be confused with either the Linux variant that Palm is using on the Foleo, or the Linux deal that Palm has just announced with Wind River. Tue, 14 Aug 2007 04:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Cloudy) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?263285 http://osnews.com/thread?263285 No need to guess. Access has said that they're using GTK. Tue, 14 Aug 2007 04:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Cloudy) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?263392 http://osnews.com/thread?263392 that may be true, but like it or not the iphone (like the ipod before it) have put touch interfaces in the radar of joe average. so in a sense, its become the new baseline that one will compare everything to, even if there where similar devices before it.

In USA, maybe. In Europe SonyEricsson UIQ-based smartphones are common even for the average Joe, so touchscreen interface is nothing new here. Tue, 14 Aug 2007 17:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (stare) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?263395 http://osnews.com/thread?263395 dont forget, where USA leads, the world goes. this still holds true. just look at the number of people waiting for iphone in europe. Tue, 14 Aug 2007 17:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hobgoblin) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?263406 http://osnews.com/thread?263406 No, no, no - everyone knows that Apple invented graphical interfaces for cell phones. Just like they invented USB, the mouse, the laptop, CD ROM drives, portable MP3 players, SMP, and oh, let's say "the metric system" while we're at it Tue, 14 Aug 2007 18:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (StephenBeDoper) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?263475 http://osnews.com/thread?263475 But they did invent a user interface style that is a huge leap in usabilty. Feature for feature you could say it's been done but, for example, the Google Maps on the iPhone can tell you what you need to know in the time you have waiting at a stop light where on other phones you would spend all your time navigating.

So if you compare use cases rather than just features, you'll see the real payoff.

But, to get back to the topic, the problem is no one wants to pay for QT or rather, force commercial devs to pay for QT to use their platform. This means you're stuck with GTK. Which leads to a bigger issue: if you want an open source project to take a huge shift, you had better have the developers to back it up. You can't freeload. Look at WebKit, Apple didn't try to convince the khtml devs to do it for them, they applied their own resources to the project and let the community build around the fork.Edited 2007-08-14 20:57 Tue, 14 Aug 2007 20:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (codehead78) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?263625 http://osnews.com/thread?263625 Didnt Access buy BeOS from Palm also? Wed, 15 Aug 2007 09:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Nossie) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?263628 http://osnews.com/thread?263628 the number of people waiting for an iphone in europe will diminish faster than OS/2 warp users if they dont get 3G.

mobile tech in europe and asian regions is far more advanced and in the hands of more average joes than in the US.

Most people here wont pay over £200 if it doesn't have a reasonably fast network connection (not including wifi) why would they be prepared to pay £500? (and yes, even fanbois have a limit) Wed, 15 Aug 2007 09:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Nossie) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?263760 http://osnews.com/thread?263760 Access bought PalmSource, which was a public company, from its stockholders. PalmSource owned the rights to BeOS, and so Access bought it.

Access has already said that it is unlikely that it will open source BeOS. Wed, 15 Aug 2007 21:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Cloudy) Comments