A new video showing the touchscreen-based UI of the LG Prada phone has hit YouTube. The phone is going head to head with the iPhone UI-wise and it shows the path that the majority of phones will look like in the years to come. It is not clear if the LG Prada is a smartphone that allows you to run native applications or just a ‘feature phone’. On other mobile news, Google released a native Google Maps application for PocketPC and MS Smartphones (screenshots) that works better than the J2ME version.
Meet the LG Prada, iPhone’s Competitor; Google Maps for PocketPC
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Prada and LG just… don’t go together. Much like Prada and ASUS don’t go together. This is a sellout for the brand.
The Prada looks very much like the iPhone in the way it operates. The details … well that … we’ll have to wait and see
Dear god it uses a damn num keypad for entering text: those things are godawful and that they don’t use the screen real estate for a qwerty virtual keyboard is a damn shame.
I also don’t know how many people would want, let alone shell out more for, a Prada branded phone. I can see that totally happening in Apple’s case, though.
Qwerty keyboards are AWFUL on phones, I seriously can’t believe that ANYONE actually likes those. I guarantee I can type 10x faster with t9 and a numpad than you can with a qwerty.
this is the best keyboard i have seen for *predictive* typing: http://www.osnews.com/story.php/15389/Review-TenGO-2.0-and-TenGO-Th…
It is a T6 system, that’s much faster than a T9 one, and more suitable for touchscreens.
Now that does look cool.
I just downloaded and tried this out on my phone, and it works great! It’s almost worth the data service charge.
Either this phone is very tiny or his hands are frikin’ HUGE.
I think this thing is waaay cooler than the iPhone. If it’d have a more “manly” name, like Ralph Lauren or Hugo Boss on it, i’d buy it!
What OS does this phone use?
No one knows.
The worst design problems are when buttons are on the sides of things.
Did anyone watch how he was sending a message? He would type it, and if it had options, he had to move his thumb right up to the side all the time.
Which is fine if you were right handed, bummer if you are left handed.
Its only a small design thing, but Apple have figured that out, not many people realize their stuff works great in the left or right hand.
Apart from that, looks cool, but I’d probably still look at the iPhone.
why are they all copying from apple?
It’s not the definition of buisness to copy from the other; and this was nearly as 1:1 copy…
You are very much mistaken. They are not copying Apple. It’s just that the WHOLE industry of the cellphones will be looking like that in 10 years from now. It’s just that Apple, LG and a few others are the early adopters.
It is similar like saying that nVidia and ATI copied 3Dfx back in 1996 when the Voodoo1 was released. They didn’t. They simply followed THE TREND of technology.
I like the video card analogy. Definately accurate. And 3DFX wasn’t the only hardware excelerator in town to “copy”. There were other consumer level products released around the same time.
Kinda like the cell phones we are seeing now. How on earth could these guys be copying Apple? Their phone was just made public. Everybody elses phones have spent a while in R&D as well.
Exactly. I have blogged about this here:
http://eugenia.blogsome.com/2007/02/02/the-future-is-touchscreen/
Except LG Prada was announced at Dec 11 2006 — almost month earlier than iPhone.
http://www.lge.com/about/press_release/detail/PRO%7CNEWS%5E…
Edited 2007-02-02 23:45
…and Apple stole all the ideas and came up with iPhone after just a month of developement…riiiiiight.
Paul, nobody said that Apple stole anything. Neither LG did, or MS did. As I said, the trend in mobile phones it is going to be full touchscreens for the future, so all companies are trying to prepare a solution for the sake of their future. Even SonyEricsson bought UIQ 3 months ago for this exact reason.
The iPhone has been in the working for two and a half years, so for your comment to hold any substance, you need to tell us when LG first came up with their concept for the Prada.
I don’t know what is the most ridiculous article:
– the one where Bill Gates claims Vista is inherently more secure than Mac OS X
– or this one claiming the LG Prada even plays in the same league as the future Apple iPhone…
Looks like if Apple released a Microwave, suddenly loads of articles would appear stating how good are the other Microwaves in the market and how bad is or will be the Apple product.
Flamebaiting?
I’ve seen interesting articles being submitted but unfortunately not published. Some for your delight:
Vista makes me sad; Five years for a chrome-plated turd”
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37291
TIME Magazine: Microsoft’s Windows Vista ‘an embarassment to the good name of American innovation’
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1582415,00.html
Microsoft: Vista’s ‘speech recognition’ can be hijacked so that PC tells itself to delete files
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6320865.stm
No midnight lines for Microsoft’s badly faked Apple Mac OS this time
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8MVLDRO2.htm
Bill Gates lists Microsoft ‘innovations’ that Apple has offered Mac users for years
http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/tech/2007/01…
Small example of how delusional some people are:
• Parental Controls: Apple debuted Parental Controls in Mac OS X Tiger, released on April 29. 2005.
• Photos: Apple debuted iPhoto on January 7, 2002.
• DVD creation: Apple debuted iDVD on January 9, 2001.
• Movies: Apple debuted iMovie on October 5, 1999 and iMovie HD on January 11, 2005.
I would think articles from BBC, Business Week, Time Maganize, CNN and others would be of some interest but I guess not…
We will just have to keep up with the huge amount of Windows Vista (and MS Office) reviews/articles and dodgy Apple related articles (I specially like the one entitled “A Mac User Switches to Vista” published on MSNBC, from a guy that got a free Zune from Microsoft, tried Vista and than returned to Mac OS X… how’s that for a switch?)
Have a nice weekend.
EDIT: WOW! Modded -5 in 10 seconds because I don’t agree with Bill Gates and the LG vs. iPhone comparison?
Edited 2007-02-03 00:13
Some observations:
1. Costs the same/more than the iPhone (600 euros and more, according to some sites), and you are essentially paying for a phone with a bundled 256MB microSD card and “Prada” sticker instead of a similar phone with 4/8GB, a more responsive interface and an “bitten Apple” logo in the back. Of course, the Prada has one big advantage: it can actually be bought, unlike the iPhone which wont reach most of the world until 2008.
2. One of the reasons given during the iPhone intro for the use of a touch screen is that “physical buttons can’t be changed whereas a touch-screen can adapt for every different application”. The Prada phone has a touch-screen… that displays a numeric keypad for entering text… Take a look at the video: it takes the guy almost 10 seconds to enter “hi” (he has problems selecting the right word from the popup suggestion list). Sure, once you get used to the phone and the side button or whatever it was he needed to use to select the word from the popup it won’t be an issue but the point remains: they have a touch-screen, and they are not making the best possible use of it with that interface.
3. In the video – starting at about 3:05 – the phone shows yet another interface problem: instead of allowing you to scroll by simply scrolling anywhere with your finger, it forces you to use a thin scrollbar. The next 10 seconds of the video show unsuccessful attempts at scrolling a contacts lists. Again, there is no reason for this. You shouldn’t even be able to “fail” to scroll on a well thought out interface.
4. The iPhone has a Clown Fish background in most depictions. The Prada has a “fish” skin too, and there is even a fish that swims to wherever you click! Advantage: Prada! Right? Right…? Well, maybe this isn’t such a big point but for some reason the guy spent over a minute and a half of that 6 minutes long video showing just that. Oh, and a “butterfly” skin in which… a butterfly follows your clicks (unless clicking all over accidentally activates some unwanted random function… like in the video). Seriously, why waste time showing that and more important, programming it?
5. Yet another interface design blunder – starting at 5:20 in the video. The guy navigates some folders with a couple of picture files and… tries to open one. He “clicks” once on the picture with his finger… but nothing happens. Then he “double clicks”. Again, nothing happens. Then after 10 seconds of trying, he realizes that there he has to push a separate button to “See the picture”. Why? Then, to navigate the pictures when in fullscreen you have to touch once to activate some buttons on the side which you can use to go to the next/previous pictures. Now, here is another way to implement a picture browsing/viewing interface when you have a touchscreen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXAmxDsvSbk
(click the “original size” button to see the video in the right aspect ratio)
Nothing in the video I link above is incredibly advanced, just incredibly *obvious* as in “the way I’ll expect it to work”. Again, the Prada interface falls short for no justifiable reason.
Exactly.
That’s exactly where Apple shines. That’s what sets most, if not all, Apple products above the rest. They make using the device ‘intuitive’.
The iPhone will rock, without a doubt.
There will be other phones with the same features, some with more, having the same appearance, but that’s where the similarities end.
USING the device is what matters. How it works and how well it does is what matters. That’s where Apple excels and others fail.
I told my friend right after Apple debuted the iPhone, over the next few years, we are going to see a lot of phones come out that have the exact same form-factor as the iPhone. The one thing they will be missing, however, will be Apple’s UI, and that is what is going to truly make the iPhone.
I think I’ll just get an OpenMoko.
OpenMoko is really cool since you’re open to do almost anything with Linux inside. But the only thing that stops me from buying it is missing WiFi.
Impressive and well done to LG however I can’t imagine my self using this any time soon. You see, when I touch a key/press a key, I want to feel the pressing of the key as that is how I get control over the keyboard or keypad. That’s how you control the movement of your fingers. As soon as you feel the “click” on your thumb, you move your thumb. This touch screen is impressive and I will probably get used to it when the time comes but I can imagine it’s gonna be a bit uncomfortable. I will be honest, I haven’t really used a touch screen phone interfaces except for organizers so my comments could be invalid and feel free to disagree
Oh by the way, what would happen if the screen gets a scrach somewhere and it doesn’t detect your “touch” over the area. It better have some type of cover.
Edit: It would be nice if when you touch the menu it plays some kind of sound “beep” or “squish” or “click” so you can see it and hear it. May be it does, I just didn’t hear it. I didn’t have my speakers loud…
Edited 2007-02-03 10:18
Regarding that click sound, there’s always such option even with normal keyboard-phones…
And yeah those scratches, it’s the same thing that is worrying me. Hope they made glass from something special as in luxury watches.
Regarding that click sound, there’s always such option even with normal keyboard-phones…
Yes, I agree with that. I completely didn’t think of the normal way — the click option even with normal phones — when I made that comment. I apologize for that.
Edited 2007-02-03 10:39
If the Devil wears Prada, Bill Gates probably will use this phone and not Apple’s iphone 🙂
…that the Apple zealots already start to pretend that Apple invented the touchscreen cellphones.
I want to believe.
According to the specs on the page linked to in the original post, this phone doesn’t have WiFi, nor a 4GB/8GB internal storage (though it does take memory cards). If true, those two points in themselves are enough to nullify any comparisons with the iPhone, regardless of the UI.
the video don’t show the final release of the phone, that explain why the UI is not fast