I usually never ever check out products competitive to one I’ve bought myself – I’m sensible enough to understand that user experience varies widly and that, for example, not every “iPhone killer” around will replace my iPhone in terms of user satisfaction.
But with the release of the Android phone and the persistent efforts of a dying company to produce high quality phones, I noticed something, for some users (like me) important, for some others totally trivial.
One thing that these phones copy is the horizontal usage mode that iPhone and many many cellphones before it have. However, I only see this as dry repetition, as it was not copied well, in my humble opinion.
A simple thing was not taken in mind: buttons & orientation.
On the iPhone, we meet one simple round key. You hold the phone up, sideways, upside down, and the orientation and form of the key does not change, it always looks the same.
Check out the Nokia 5800, though. It has three horizontal bars for keys. Simple enough. But turn it around and you have, ehm, three vertical bars, one under another?
Even worse for the G1, which also sports some icons on its main keys, namely a home icon, a return (or looks like it) icon and two call related buttons. With the exception of the call related buttons, which can be interpreted almost the same at any orientation, the other buttons look mightly awkward when in horizontal mode:
It may look totally trivial, but as these functional keys will be used in both modes, it’s not actually that trivial.
I’m one of those people that have trouble with space and actions when changing orientation on a machine and I’m sure I’m not the only one. I imagine it’d be highly awkward (awkward, not difficult per se) to handle these keys in horizontal mode.
That’s one point off, for me.
2 comments on this post
Dmitry #1
08.Oct.08
Interesting point. Do these keys still have any uses when you turn the phone though? I don’t have any experience with the G1 or the 5800 so can’t really comment much — just thinking that perhaps when you use the phone in landscape mode those keys aren’t the main controls buttons as the focus shifts to the touch screen… I dunno :p
Great point about the iPhone’s symmetrical home icon — haven’t thought about it this way and always wondered why they chose that generic shape.
Anthony Sigalas #2
08.Oct.08
Apple is obsessive and very anal when they design interfaces. No other company can achieve the same level of detail no matter how they try or copy. It’s just a fact. Thankfully, you don’t have to be “neat” or anal about your UI to appreciate that. It’s there, you use it and you feel awkward as you said, when it doesn’t work as it should.