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CES Honeycomb preview UI

I also dont think it is that exceptional. It looks convoluted and busy i.e. so many things going on at once with nothing but flashiness. Flashiness is not what makes a good ui. Look into design heuristics and you will know what I mean. It needs to be much simpler.

Also if it is anything like android for phones, whatever version, it will be sluggish and choppy.
 
Neat. I noticed that it shows a small screen preview of each widget to choose from, instead of just their icons and names. I've always thought that tablets should show previews.

Outside of scrolling widgets, it didn't seem to add multiple windows though. This makes me nuts. Why can't I have more than one app open at the same time on the screen? We certainly have enough RAM and speed nowadays. This complaint goes to both Android and iOS.

Looking forward to what HP does with WebOS on a tablet.

As for those complaining about "busy", oh for goodness' sakes. If a screen is too busy for you, just remove some items. You are NOT forced to have full screens.
 
I just hope that the battery life of tablets that use Honeycomb is as good as on the iPad. Now that the honeycomb requires dual core heat and battery life may be an issue or is it?
 
IamKris said:
I just hope that the battery life of tablets that use Honeycomb is as good as on the iPad. Now that the honeycomb requires dual core heat and battery life may be an issue or is it?
Click to expand...

Not sure that Honeycomb requires dual cores, but...

The whole point of dual cores is that they provide far more performance per electrical watt. In other words, they're more power efficient = less heat and battery.

Dual core is the immediate future of mobile devices.
 
Every new "big" mobile device announcement coming out of CES is dual-core. Motorola just officially announced their Honeycomb tablet and a couple of smartphones, each with dual-core processors.

I think that this is something we'll be seeing in iPad 2 if Apple really wants to stay neck and neck with hardware specs.
 
schaabie said:
I also dont think it is that exceptional. It looks convoluted and busy i.e. so many things going on at once with nothing but flashiness. Flashiness is not what makes a good ui. Look into design heuristics and you will know what I mean. It needs to be much simpler.

Also if it is anything like android for phones, whatever version, it will be sluggish and choppy.
Click to expand...

+1 I thought I was the only one who was not impressed. Its nothing but flashy. The UI when you look closer at it looks more like a nightmare. (The beginning where you see something moved into some other section).

I want ease of use I don't want to work to use my devices. Hence why I like Apple so much.
 
I love my iPad but honestly I don't think apple will do much because there based on simple things like, ease of use, simple design, continues support of older hardware and not confusing the customer. I do like the new apple multitasking i use it heavily I just wish there was a better way then a double button click to go from one full screen app to another...maybe like a hideable dock option like on the mac i would love that. This android ui pushes the boundaries, I do think however apple knows more than any company adapt and change or be eliminated again!
 
aduteau said:
Is it me ... Or after seeing the playbook UI and now the android 3.0 .... That iOS for tablets is looking .... Dated ?

Most be because all these othrr OS are new and have a WOW factor when seen for first time :p
Click to expand...

I am with you. I am sick and tired of apple using same UI with phone and iPad.

It's same.

This UI is fresh and tasty.
However, all I have seen is a promo video. I would have to see what engadget or cnet says first about it. Also, this is only for verizon and I am beginning to worry that it will be very expensive. I hope not. If it costs more than iPad, then I will pass until the price drops. It looks like it will be expensive.
 
aduteau said:
Well i doubt that we will see any UI changes with iOS5 .. With Lion coming to the Mac this year ... I think most of the ressources over at Apple most be working on Lion ...

could it be that Apple really did not see this coming from Android ?

I know that Apple is downplaying the Playbook .. But now with Android 3.0 .... I think that the early 1st gen of the ipad tablet may not be enough for Apple to keep the majority of the market like most people think ....
Click to expand...

Apple could at least give us widgets on the search screen and a new motivation system.
 
kdarling said:
Not sure that Honeycomb requires dual cores, but...

The whole point of dual cores is that they provide far more performance per electrical watt. In other words, they're more power efficient = less heat and battery.

Dual core is the immediate future of mobile devices.
Click to expand...

That's good to know. I was going to buy a Galaxy Tab or iPad early this year but I guess I have to wait then..
 
On a side note ...
My god ... The motorola Xoom tablet seems to be taking away the RIM's Playbook thunder right now ...

The playbook spent the last few months building hype with its new QNX user interface being years in advance for tablets ( what RIM execs where saying)... And out comes Android 3 steeling the spotlight in no time.
 
IamKris said:
That's good to know. I was going to buy a Galaxy Tab or iPad early this year but I guess I have to wait then..
Click to expand...

I think Honeycomb will have a minimun requirement of Tegra 2 chipset and dualcore

Id wait
 
aduteau said:
On a side note ...
My god ... The motorola Xoom tablet seems to be taking away the RIM's Playbook thunder right now ...

The playbook spent the last few months building hype with its new QNX user interface being years in advance for tablets ( what RIM execs where saying)... And out comes Android 3 steeling the spotlight in no time.
Click to expand...

The PB announced too early IMO opinion from their delivery date. They had nice specs at the time but at the time of release there will be many tablets with similar or better specs

I want to see the UI actually being demoed for the Xoom and I will admit I wanted a 7" tablet but if that thing works as advertised, not a grand and doesnt make me sign a contract I may be getting it.

Engaget has a edit that says it's suppose to get 10hrs battery and the video said it's upgradable to 4G, does that mean it will be done via software?

I'm sorry but that tablet makes iOS look stale.
 
Watch the carriers and phone manufacturers screw up Google's new Honeycomb UI in order to differentiate themselves from the competition.

I'm sure we'll see "MotoBlur" and "HTC Sense" UIs on top of the Honeycomb UI. So will Honeycomb even matter?

Hopefully, Google will create a Nexus Tablet.
 
jaw04005 said:
Watch the carriers and phone manufacturers screw up Google's new Honeycomb UI in order to differentiate themselves from the competition.

I'm sure we'll see "MotoBlur" and "HTC Sense" UIs on top of the Honeycomb UI. So will Honeycomb even matter?

Hopefully, Google will create a Nexus Tablet.
Click to expand...

I think the Xoom will have stock Honeycomb on it. After watching this preview, I kinda dig it. 3.0 looks more like ChromeOS then it does android at this point and the tabbed browsing looked just like the chrome browser on my MBP and hopefully that means speed.

http://cnettv.cnet.com/motorola-xoom-tablet-hands/9742-1_53-50098295.html?tag=mncol;cnetRiver
 
aduteau said:
Is it me ... Or after seeing the playbook UI and now the android 3.0 .... That iOS for tablets is looking .... Dated ?

Most be because all these othrr OS are new and have a WOW factor when seen for first time :p
Click to expand...

Dated???? You are comparing iOS against vaporware.
 
My response is the same as it was when all these amazing tablets were slated to come out right after iPad. And here we are like 10 months later after some actual attempts at a tablet and not one is any good.

The galaxy tablet is pretty decent but not for the price IMO. But it's the closet thing theyve come up with.

Some of this interfaces you saw were the google GUIs specifically. Like th ebooks is nice, but compared to the market using kindle and upcoming nook? It won't look as impressive. The meat is in the apps, and quite frankly I've seen how buggy android apps can be even though I appreciate their open ended dev reqs.

So I like what I see but I'm really not expecting to see anything groundbreaking. Best case scenario if you ask me is they manage to make something as functional as the iPad, but with a microsd slot and lower battery life.

Also, whose going to make it? The nexus one might be a good case study on this project. If they don't manage to find a partner who won't produce a total piece of junk (like everything out there) then yeah maybe well end up with another good product out there that's an apple alternative.
 
Do any of you ever stop to think why your desktop hasn't really changed much in the last 10 years? You demand massive changes in iOS because you're "bored" but at home you sit in front of something that's essentially unchanged since osX arrived, because it works.

I think Apple need to work on fast app switching, some sort of file system and notifications but as I said before, fancy homescreens are window dressing. Optimisations would be good but a drastic overhaul to satisfy the ADHD generation who need their products updated monthly once they've lost interest, is unnecessary.
 
From what we've seen so far both the PlayBook and Honeycomb interfaces certainly look interesting and I'm glad that they've both decided to do something a bit different rather than just copy iOS. I'd much rather see a healthy market for consumer operating systems and one that genuinely gives a wide range of choice to the end user.

BUT... I can't help but think that these are interface designed for the geek. Well, Honeycomb more than the PlayBook, but still... I'll reserve judgement until I get a chance to play with them but first impressions were of very 'busy' interfaces, very information dense and not particularly user-friendly when getting to grips with them. Again, that's not necessarily a bad thing and there's certainly room in the market for them, but I really hope Apple stick with the clean and simple approach. By all means tweak it a bit, add some extra eye-candy if you can do it without adding extra clicks. but stick to the same principles that brought them to the game.
 
I suppose the biggest question we need to ask ourselves is:

Over the next 2, 5, 10+ years do we want Apple to only offer full screen or nothing on their iOS products?

I'm sure we can all accept on a tiny 3.5" screen such as an iPhone, it has to be full screen as it's physically not really practical to do it much other way.

But on a tablet, with perhaps in a few years time, a higher resolution?

Do we really never want to have more than one program visible on screen at one time, as we have been doing since the 1st Mac, Atari ST, Amiga machines?

Even if it's being able to zoom out to see a few different windows with programs running all live and zooming back into the one we want.
 
I think it looks...decent. Nothing more, nothing less. I still prefer the look of iOS, and whatever OS RIM use in the Playbook, and webOS.

It's kind of hard to tell from that video though. But to me, first of all I don't really like the look (too dark in places, isn't really digging the UI graphics either), and second of all it doesn't seem to be streamlined enough for me. I'm not interested in widgets and stuff, get me between my apps thank you.

After all though, it's the apps that are most important and there is no reason to think that Android on tablets will be any better than Android on phones in that aspect.
 
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