We the pioneers of the touchscreen age: How will our time be remember?

We live in a special time, as our time will be the time remembered as the era when touchscreens became the norm. Touchscreen enabled devices became a commercial success fundamentally changing how we used our devices and what we did on them. The touchscreen is being introduced alongside a host of new technologies, promising an excitement filled future in personal electronis. How exactly will we remember these 'early times' however? Here are my tongue-in-cheek thoughts on the subject.


UPDATE: Here's a link by AAWP titled "Has Apple put mobile innovation back 10 years?" Link -- enjoy!


Operating systems that go boing, blonk, blink in the night




With added intelligence to our devices, they started feeding us a lot of information. Who's online, how's the battery status, what's the weather etc., these were all things we suddenly wanted to know. Our devices began to feed this information to us in a way we humans sometimes force feed our unwilling children. There isn't a single operating system on a mobile device today that doesn't use an intricate notification system consisting of sounds and lights to let us know exactly what is going on. Simply adjusting the volume on some devices produces a monotone sonata of sounds to let you know that 'Hey, you've just adjusted the volume. Good for you, buddy'. Textual pop-ups or 'Toasts' write it out for anyone still unsure of what is going on. After the event, notifications of the event linger all around "status bars" and "notification centres" just in case you missed it.


What's the time, how's the weather, what's the time?




Relating to the information overload we now expected from our devices, it became fashionable to have you reminded of the weather and time 100% of the time you use your device. Desktops and Home screens filled with clock and weather widgets, and user interfaces revolved around elaborate symbolic systems to constantly keep you updated on exactly how the weather and time is. We took being informed about the time and weather to such an extent, that some manufacturers' devices shipped with up to 10 different clocks to place on home screens. In addition to this, we filled our appstores with hundreds more such applications. This keen fascination on the time and weather resulted in a pathological popping down of heads to check our phones, at least twice because we were distracted by the weather widget and forgot to actually see the time. We have never been so informed about what time it is or what we should expect when we step out in to the real world, that you'd think tardiness and dressing too lightly for cold days were mankinds problems solved for good. I think its safe to say, that statistics of every boss everywhere indicate otherwise.




Smaller is better and biggest is best




With the touchscreen becoming the new norm, people began to receive larger devices. Increased screen real estate meant watching video and browsing the web never felt so good. Big bright screens became the ideal, and it wasn't until the reached the 4" mark that got the feeling that we'd had enough. Of course by the time we got here, enter the iPad and tablet computers.




The big screens challenged engineers to come up with ever slimmer devices, as devices were expected to grow in terms of display size, but nobody wanted a chubby buddy in their pocket. Few problems were introduced here, though as huge screens were getting bent in trouser pockets and once a touchscreen broke, the lifeline of the device had practically ended. Warranty policies of manufacturers didn't choose to cover touchpanels shattered after falling from speeding bikes onto the pavement or phones misplaced in blenders. Coincidentally, the warranty policy of the most popular mobile devices decreased from the standard of two years into one year.




The neverending dressup game




As we began to sport this fragile and expensive gear in our pockets, we tried to calm our nerves about the worst-case-scenarios running through our minds. Our outlet was the buying of accessories in attempts to protect our device from its inevitable fate. We bought it silicone covers, hard plastic covers, see-through plastic film to place over the touch panel and placed our device inside a protective bag of some sort. Just in case we paid attention to placing the device in our pocket with the display against our thigh! Never before had manufacturers seen customers invest this much money in products that could be produced from the waste material every manufacturer is going to have anyway. People were willing to pay roughly 10 times the material's worth to buy a product to protect a device with an already remarkable profit margin.


"Third party" manufacturers weren't the only ones to latch on to this trend however, as a notable manufacturers of mobile devices began offering different coloured battery covers with their devices. Smartphone users were partying with changeable covers like it was 1998 again, with the Nokia 5110 and its 'Xpress On Covers'. How advanced our needs had become!




One handed two handers / silence of the lambs




Touch-only devices introduced some limitations in use also, namely hindering getting anything productive done on the device at all. Virtual keyboards were slower and more cumbersome to type on, so many text messages were simply left unsent, I imagine. Or then reduced to platonic confirmations such as "OK", "YES" or "GTFO". Internet browsing was a big part of the smartphone experience, but people who were used to being actively involved in social media were now forced to the spectator seat. No telling in detail what's going on, a simple "Go dolphnns!1!!q" with a check-in to Facebook would have to suffice.


A somewhat ironic debate spurred around the touch user interfaces relating on these devices as well. Some felt that the only good UI is one that you can use one-handed. Some products were put down for requiring two-handed use (such as any device with a physical QWERTY keyboard), but in reality all typing on most touch-screen devices had to be done using two hands by holding the device sideways or in "landscape" position. As no virtual keyboard ever could fully replace a physical one, for a time Westeners fell into a forced silence as suddenly replying to messages was more cumbersome than waiting to get to a place where they could just call back later.


Efforts to alleviate difficulties caused by virtual keyboards did produce some entertaining technologies and subsequently websites, damnyouautocorrect.com being in the forefront in entertainment value.


It's not what you've got, It's what you might get




As smartphone software became more advanced, and competition to get your smartphone device out on the market became tougher, update total overhaul cycles for mobile operating systems were introduced. Manufacturers released half-baked operating systems with limited functionality and were praised for customer loyalty for including features we actually had already had in our phones pre-touch.


Waiting for the next software update became a game as well, as people planned their device purchases on abstract notions over possibilities of updates for their devices. Needless to say, if a manufacturer deemed one of its products as unupgradable, the outrage was incomprehensible - regardless of weather users were satisfied with their device at the moment or not. It became the right of the common man to demand features and functions to his device that were appearing in new models, sometimes even over two years after the purchase of the current one. The need to break restrictions set by the manufacturer created phenomena now commonly referred to as 'gaining root' or 'rooting' and 'jailbreaking'. Once these restrictions were circumvented, users could enjoy community provided enhancements and features to their device, often with the cost of voiding the warranty.


This created some real problems for device manufacturers, as suddenly their newest product lineup had lost its edge in terms of new features and functions, just months after release. Interestingly this produced two reactions: some made it deliberately even easier to circumvent their devices in hopes of hacker appreciation, some decided to tighten the restrictions and many decided to strive for a completely customisable experience known as an Open Source platform.


Ironically, the systems that included all features and functions ever invented for mobile phones lost their fame because of the way in which they handed these features to consumers. Users reported bad experiences with "ugly boxes" and "nonexistent graphical transition effects". The solution for this was to switch to an operating system equally as raw as a green mango.


One device to do it all, just without the tools




Once we were all under the impression that the entire software platform of our device was constantly developing from its already developed state, we started forgetting about our productive capability on our devices. All computers and even mobile phones we had used up until the touch-screen era had supported the running of many applications at once (for example MS Paint and the Calculator, or the music player and text messages), but in the early touch-era we let go of all that. This kind of application use is called multitasking, by the way. As if being hindered by the slowness of virtual keyboards wasn't enough, we didn't mind starting the writing of our e-mail from the beginning if a notification threw us into the alarm clock application, forcing the e-mail application to restart and forgetting all we had typed before. We no longer minded the fact that we'd been stopped from doing what we were doing, and simply decided to 'call back later'.


There was a time when we were used to functional applications or tools on our devices, that could help us in the daily tasks we face. Many smartphones were marketed as being a 'mobile office' with their range of functional manufacturer provided apps, although often displaying anything more complex than a mobile version of a website proved impossible. We however bought into this willingly, and even went about boasting about what our devices could do. Surely there was someone out there who had even worse productivity than us, right?


Upsides to the story


As some might've noticed, this piece has been deeply sarcastic and I hope it hasn't turned off any of you. I do admit, that there are upsides to larger screens and trends relating to them and I'm in no way trying to discredit that. Also, for example perhaps the first time in personal device history, it has been fashionable to be easy to use and manufacturers have figured out ways to actually make devices easy to use. To me this is unprecedented in the history of electronics.

Samsung Galaxy S II: Maybe the Best Android phone in World?

Phones seem to be raining in my lap lately, and this time I caught one in a nice slim form factor. Even its very plasticy all around, its Super AMOLED+ screen fails to leave me wanting more. The Samsung Galaxy S II seems to be aimed at the enthusiasts, while catoring some mass-market dumb-downs in terms of software. Overall I feel it lacks to premium feel a product of this price should have.

Samsung's Galaxy S I sold very well pretty much everywhere it was sold and perhaps launched Samsung into the top three smartphone manufacturers. It certainly crowned Samsung as the biggest Android manufacturer. Samsung is also slowly taking on an innovator's role in innovating new mobile technology. Samsung already marks the manufacturer with the best quality displays in their devices.


Weightless impressions

Samsung's legacy as a manufacturer with the greatest screens holds true when considering the Samsung Galaxy S II. It is equipped with a super AMOLED screen with a little "+" added to the name. I'm sure a Google search can tell you how AMOLED+ differs from just AMOLED, but I can tell you it looks good.

The Galaxy S II is incredibly thin and it sports a huge 4.3" screen. Otherwise this device would feel huge due to its screen, but its thinness of just about 0.9 cm really makes it dissappear into your pocket. At least it did in mine. The thinness is accompanied by an incredible weightlessness, which adds to the potential to losing this device in your pocket. This I believe is a good thing!

The thinness and lightness is probably what most enthusiasts are looking for in a "latest and greatest" smartphone, and here Sammy's GSII scores a perfect A I imagine. However, for me these factors diminshed how precious the device felt. With weight I associate value, and with the SGSII weighing this little, my impression is flimsy at best.

Mesmerised by the AMOle... woooooow

The huge Super AMOLED+ screen gave the device an initial impression of a mini-tablet of some sort. Gazing over it with a slight dribble of drool down the left side of my face I imagined all the things that would fit on the screen. I'm familiar with the DesireZ, where the screen is "only" 3.7" running at a resolution of 480x800. To much of my surprise, the GSII runs at the exact same resolution. With the added screen real-estate this resolution renders much of the operating system a bit funny looking. Huge fonts are found here and there and many colour gradients lose their effect. Samsung's custom UI utilises simplified boxes and fonts, maximizing approachability and clarity. At the same time it makes the interface quite ugly and oversimplified at times. Another oddity was the somewhat random automatic adjustment of the screen brightness.


Software and design

Note: my Sammy GS2 ran Gingerbread. Not unusual to Android, Samsung's device comes preloaded with a lot of bloatware. Especially bloated are the homescreens on first startup. 5 screens are filled to the brim with Samsung's widgets and shortcuts. Expect to spend the first 10mins of using this device just getting rid of everything. Another common thing to the Android experience is the constant overlapping of services and creation of new accounts for ambiguous benefits. I for one signed up for a "Samsung account" when prompted, but failed to find any place in the system where I could benefit from this. I suspect it demanded the creation to check for system updates. How rude.

Learning Android really requires you to understand which apps are part of core Android and which apps are just core apps customised by the manufacturer for hopes of bringing extra value to the device. This might lead to you enabling your Facebook account and contacts for the core Facebook app, your manufacturers Facebook app and a third app you got from the Market. Care to guess how many contact duplicates this creates in your addressbook? This combined with multiple notifications of the same event from many different programs can result in chaos. This issue is a general rant about Android, though, and is in no way only the SGSII's problem.

Not all customisations made by manufacturers are for the worse, however. For example I've always been a fan of Samsung's take on e-mail and the calendar. The e-mail app replaced my need for K9-mail all together. Well done, Sammy! I imagine business users might feel at home here thanks to not only Sammy's apps, but also thanks to the endless supply of apps available from the Android Market. Security might be another thing all together, though.


Creativity

The Galaxy S II's huge screen makes typing on the landscape virtual keyboard almost as efficient as on a physical one. The portrait QWERTY also does the trick. I'm using the Samsung virtual keyboard. My positive experiences with the keyboard begged the question if this device for any good for creativity.

The Galaxy S II comes preinstalled with a full version of Polaris Office. Stylish and functional this program seems to cater to most desires you might have for mobile document creation. Sadly the virtualkeyboard in Android always ends up blocking over half of the screen making it hard to see what you type as well as hiding toolbars of Polar Office. Sigh. Thought I left all this behind when I switched over from Nokia's 5800XM in 2009.

Another odd snigglet on the SGII is the browser. For me the measure of a good smartphone is its browser, so you can imagine my amazement when I found out that the browser only supports mobile pages by default. I read around the web about this issue, and it seems that some versions of the SGSII comes with the option of setting the default view to 'Desktop'. In my SGSII this was nowhere to be found and I had to do a "about:useragent" in the address bar instead. Sadly the browser doesn't want to remember this setting, forcing me to get Dolphin Browser HD. To me this was a slap in the face for a device in this price range.


Conclusions

My understanding of the SGSII was that it was the absolute wet dream of the Android enthusiast, but I think it doesn't really answer that call to the fullest, except perhaps for its slimness and screen size. The physical design and look of the device is somehow deeply old-school of Samsung. I think they manufactured devices that looked like this about 5 yrs. ago. This didn't appeal to me at all and the SGSII is more an ugly slab to me than a premium product or flagship device. The processor power, display and memory might be impressive, but I can't really see it used in the system. Samsung's UI seems more fitting to a phone in a lower price point as it uses straight-forward fonts with no stylizing and no cream. It's really devoid of premium feel, but packed with functionality. Therefore this isn't only a criticism. The weightlessness and plastic feel don't make this device a bad phone, but just one not of this price range I feel.

Nokia Lumia 800: the first few days

The Lumia 800, the Windows Phone 7 powered smartphone is finally on sale in Finland. What could I do but to try to get my hands on one and report back my findings and experiences. Overall, I'm quite pleased, although I see that a lot must still improve for these devices to hit home in a big way.

 
I managed to get my hands on a black Lumia 800 with a fun lime soft casing. This was the combination I had in mind already when getting the N9, but never really followed it through. Lime turned out to be a great colour that complimented MetroUI's funky and fresh look, although I was left hoping for a little extra punch. Theming WP7 doesn't really exist (out-of-the-box anyway), as you can really only change the colour of the tiles and turn the black background into white. If you want to have more control over customisation, I suggest you get the N9.


Glad to see emphasis is on the aesthetics (again)

I won't spend any time describing the exterior of the device, as its the tried and trusty N9 casing with an extra camera shutter button and a differently placed hole for the flash. Everything about the physical form of the device raises feelings of respect, complimenting the smoothness of WP7. Perhaps even a little more than the same casing did for MeeGo-Harmattan on the N9. WP7 and the casing are a great fit, and the Lumia 800 joins the N9 in the league of devices that bombard the senses with the most pleasant sensations. Bravo, Nokia. Once again.

Even though the customisation options of the operating system on the Lumia 800 are practically 0, the customisation on the N9 is also debatable. Sure you can do all sorts of things in theory, but in practice most people have aimed to keep the core look and feel of MeeGo-Harmattan untouched. And its easy to understand why: MeeGo-Harmattan is a beautiful experience as it is. Windows Phone 7 succeeds in the same feat. Screen items swush, slide and stack on your screen with no stutters or hickups, and soft sounds of the keyboard pat your eardrums with the most pleasant sounds. As a comparisant I regard my HTC DesireZ's system sounds as too interruptive, loud and all around cheap sounding. I think this is true for all Android devices regardless of manufacturer. Leave it to Nokia to spice the ringtone selection up with some familiar sounds and melodies, although Nokia fared much better in this category in its devices from around 3-4 years ago.

Half-baked cakes all around

When comparing to MeeGo-Harmattan, WP7 feels much more finalised which might not come as a surprise to anyone. Everything is in place, nothing feels like a placeholder and a lot of functionality MeeGo-Harmattan seems to go for is already place here. On board the Lumia 800 Nokia ships the latest version of WP7, Windows Phone Mango which hasn't really changed since Tango as I last saw it on the HTC Trophy. Undoubtedly 99% of the new features took place "under hood", which is to be expected anyway in a system so keen on its UI design guidelines.

Windows Phone 7 is by no means, however complete. Funnily enough some gripes I had about MeeGo-Harmattan also apply here. For example, I complained about not being able to adjust font size in the browser on the N9. That really can't be done here either. The second gripe was the refitting of the text to fit your zoom level. This doesn't exist either in WP7 or MeeGo-Harmattan. Also, I was quite fustrated with constantly twisting and turning the device, as only a few applications and functions supported landscape mode. Relating to this, I found it odd that the landscape keyboard doesn't stretch out to invade as much screen real-estate as it could, but instead crammed itself into the middle of the screen. Why is it like this, Microsoft? Is it a resolution thing?

 WP7 makes a big deal about location awareness as well, but sadly the Lumia 800 doesn't know what's around to drink and eat, but will give you locations (that might be restaurants and bars) that you can check in to. This seems like a halfway implemented idea. For some reason my initial response to this was the feeling of being sold a product that doesn't even have all the features it was sold on. Funny I didn't get this feeling with MeeGo.Other similar nigglets include (but aren't limited to) app availability in my region, lack of control over autocorrect functions and missing voice recognition in my language.

The killer thing about Windows Phone 7 for me still seems to be the integration of Facebook and Twitter services into the system. I also happen to agree, that "having an app for that" has very rapidly become part of the problem instead of the solution on smartphone platforms. Having a separate app for everything on an operating system that doesn't support multitasking is just madness. Its like being given all the keys to a huge house, but instructed to close and lock each door after leaving the room, even if just popping out to the kitchen to get a cup of tea before you continue reading your bedtime book. With these smartphone platforms it just never becomes possible to leave a door open. Windows Phone 7 attempts to address this problem by allowing you to view your friends' Facebook images and status updates in your address book, in addition to the traditional options of calling or texting them. This is my number one favourite feature of WP7. Bravo Microsoft.


The many faces of WP7

So just how well does Windows Phone 7 fare against the competition? This is an incredibly difficult question to answer, as WP7 is aimed at people moving up from "dumbphones" to smartphones. This means that functionality in WP7 will be limited, although time will tell how much functionality the ever growing selection of apps for WP7 will bring. WP7 is also strongly stylised and focuses to achieve so tightly defined goals that I imagine it might appear alien or plain unfriendly for some people.

The Lumia 800 comes packed with two great music apps, that really bring life to the entire device in a whole new way. Using the Lumia 800 can be like a visually appealing music video, pulsating with youth and trendiness. The downside to this is that older users force-switching over from Symbian with business purposes in mind might feel like they're getting the raw end of the deal here. Many business users will have their contacts and other data synced to one cloud service or another, but for those moving up from Nokia's pre-Symbian3 phones will have a tough time. At the time of writing this, you can only transfer contacts to WP7 over bluetooth if you have a S3 device. Nokia Suite doesn't work with WP7, and Zune can't manage your personal info on your phone in any way. I don't understand why Nokia was in such a hurry to announce WP7 partnership, only to ship a device so totally incompatible with any previous Nokia devices. Way to piss off loyal customers I think.

I wouldn't be surprised if the reasons described above explain why operators are so sceptical about WP7's chances: business customers don't care how much their phone bill is, but they have to feel they're getting services worth paying for. New smartphone users are a huge target market, but the amount of confusion related to transferring your data over from previous devices might be too much of a hassle, as operators certainly believe customers will return to them for assistance.


Final thoughts

For me WP7 is an opportunity for hedonism, so I choose to enjoy all the things I can about WP7 and not feel so bad about the shortcomings. I'm also lucky to not be really affected by its downsides, as I have all my data in the cloud, and I'm a bit of a social media junkie. So it caters to my needs quite nicely. Comparing to MeeGo-Harmattan, I feel there's more to do on me on this device. The ability to view desktop versions of websites has a big influence on this aspect. Windows Phone 7 is something new and different, albeit incomplete. If I had to describe WP7 in a word: its fresh. Let's see how long this impression lasts.

WP7 is a good choice if you aren't too business or productivity orientated (note: I haven't tried out Office365 yet). We just need to hope that big men Elop and Ballmer won't give out any more ridiculous statements about their own fails with the platform, blaming sales staff or marketing or what have you for bumps in the road. They are in my view the greatest threat right now to the credibility of the platform.

A great testament of this CEO tomfoolery is Elop's promise of bringing "added Nokia value" to this product, which sadly is exactly 0. There's nothing especially Nokian about the software in this product, and that is a truly sad thing to realise. Although the reinvention of Nokia Music's mix radio brings some comfort. The bottom line remains, however: If you see another manufacturer produce a WP7 device with a better screen, processor or some other factor, go for it. You won't be missing out on anything.

Sadly he king no longer stands on its own two feet -- contrary to Elop's promises.