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CES Honeycomb preview UI

From this demo, Honeycomb looks like it's trying to bridge the gap between desktop and mobile OS. Will be interested to get my hands on it when released.

Given the screen dimensions, I just wonder how it looks in portrait...
 
looks interesting. the thing that worries me them most is that rumor that honeycomb will need dual-core. I mean iOS is efficient and performs very well, how much overhead is honeycomb introducing to require dual cores?
 
Is it just me? Because, I'm not THAT impressed to be honest.

It looks flashy and all in the video, but if you compose a video of iOS for iPad and just swing by coverflow, the multi-tasking animation, the iBooks app, and the calendar for example, you'd get almost the same video. Just in different color schemes.

Maybe it's also the fact that I haven't been a fan of Google's "widgets". I'd rather have my current iOS home screen, where I have all of my apps in one eyesight.
I do expect Apple to make some changes to the home screen though in iOS 5.0.
 
Piggie said:
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.
Click to expand...

Umm, actually yes, I do just want to see one app at a time on a tablet-sized device. I spend my work day in front of a computer (actually several) and have a nice big 24" monitor so that I can side-by-side data and work more efficiently and that's great. My iPad is used at home when I'm relaxing, when I am focused on one thing at a time, when I value simplicity and ease-of-use far more than flexibility and that last few % of performance. What I want, basically, is for the technology to get out of the way and just let me browse, tweet, e-mail, watch videos etc without any distractions. By all means add fancy animations, polish the UI, do stuff that makes the user experience more enjoyable but, and again this is just my opinion, what makes the iPad work for me is that clean, streamlined experience and I'd hate to loose that. Plus I really don't think it's practical to run multiple apps side-by-side on a ten inch or less screen regardless of the resolution, at least not without it feeling like you're not making best use of the screen space anyway.
 
Have an android phone and an iPad and personally I find it a good balance. I feel Android is currently let down by it's relatively poor marketplace but if that's fixed it'd be easier to switch completely to Android.
 
pondie84 said:
Have an android phone and an iPad and personally I find it a good balance. I feel Android is currently let down by it's relatively poor marketplace but if that's fixed it'd be easier to switch completely to Android.
Click to expand...

More and more, I hear that people like android but find the marketplace to be awful.

While some apple fanboys like to categorize android users and geeks and nerds, and the iPhone for normal consumers, that's completely wrong given the volume of sales we're seeing for android. My point here is, google needs to address the marketplace NOW rather then later if they want to retain those consumers. Buying an app, and only finding that its a scam/virus/trojan will be one sure fire way to lose consumers.
 
petvas said:
When I first watched the demo video I was also impressed. I watched it now for a second time and I don't think it is really that impressive. Yes, Google seems to have done a good Android version for Tablets, but there are many things that will prevent it from killing the iPad. I believe that it will come to the same market shares we see in the smartphone market. Many people will still be buying iPads and others will opt for an Android tablet.
Here is the list of things that I believe that make Honeycomb not that really impressive:
* It uses widgets, just like the phone version of Android. This isnt bad, but it shows that it is just Android. People seem to love widgets, but I am personally not very excited about it.
* They showed us only Google Apps, so we don't know what other important apps will look like. Google Mail is cool for those that do use it, but I am not one of them. Google Maps was cool, but that will never be a reason to buy a tablet over another. Google Books support is good, but I do not think they will be able to compete with Amazon and Apple.
* No mention about games. This is one of the strongest iOS selling points and one of the weakest features of the Android OS. I do not expect to see many improvements in this area.
* The video tries to tease, but I think we haven't seen anything yet of real value. I would just wait and see.

In the meantime, I am enjoying my iPad and I look forward to new products that can challenge it. I do not believe that Apple won't make the next step, so we will soon see the ipad 2 with iOS 5, which is definitely getting a new notification system and a more integrated experience with Mac OS X. This kind of integration, high quality hardware and great OS platform that allows all these amazing apps we are all enjoy using, makes for an experience that will be very difficult to be challenged by Google.
Click to expand...
Totally agreed. I'm all for competition though, which should keep Apple 'honest', which is always a good thing, as no competition breeds complacency.
 
Last edited:
maflynn said:
looks interesting. the thing that worries me them most is that rumor that honeycomb will need dual-core. I mean iOS is efficient and performs very well, how much overhead is honeycomb introducing to require dual cores?
Click to expand...

That rumor was busted.

http://www.androidcentral.com/morrill-no-minimum-processor-requirements-honeycomb

Dan Morrill, who works for the Android team, tweeted confirmation that there are no minimum hardware requirements. So there you have it folks, no requirements from Google, just false rumors starting from misinformation.
Click to expand...
 
That looks really sexy. This iPad interface is sooo boring. That was the only thing I hated about iPhones. Although, I do like having access to the Apple App Store. Probably the only thing I like over the Android.

I have a Droid 2 and a iPad.

Can we download a OS update or something, if Apple ever changes it?
 
maflynn said:
More and more, I hear that people like android but find the marketplace to be awful.
Click to expand...

1. They just revamped the official marketplace app. Much nicer.

2. As I keep saying, there are several alternative gateways to the market that have different organization with lots of reviews in place.

For instance, I always suggest that a new Android user should join www.appbrain.com and download their app. Now you can browse apps on your laptop and mark them for later download.

As for the apps themselves, I've found everything on Android that I use on iOS... with the exception of a Netflix movie viewer so far.

Even better, the apps scale up nicely on larger screens without having to wait for a rewrite. Pulse on a tablet is great for these old eyes!
 
dontworry said:
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
Click to expand...

Xoom won't have a custom UI because Motorola is Google's "flagship" (more like chosen) manufacturer for Honeycomb's base just like Samsung was Google's flagship manufacturer for Gingerbread, HTC for Froyo, etc.

With each new Android release, Google picks a manufacturer and carrier and creates a hardware reference platform/base instead of building a device themselves.

However, you can bet money Samsung, HTC and the other Android manufacturers will start adding custom tablet UIs for Honeycomb soon.
 
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...

Agreed 100%. Many people may now find iOS boring (although I disagree), but you don't ever really get sick of it. It's just so neutral and streamlined. It's the opposite of flashy, and so it never really becomes an eye-sore, while providing still unrivaled usability and performance.

I can see Honeycomb getting old real fast. I like some individual design elements, but as a whole there are just too many random elements floating around. It's like, oh here's your home screen and you can horizontally scroll through your apps here in this narrow, active strip. Look, here's google books. Okay, now you can scroll to this homescreen here and vertically scroll through your books, photos, etc. all on one screen. Oh, and here's this big black keyboard which obscures the entire screen like a smart phone because we couldn't resist the 16x9 display. And here's this futuristic looking lock screen and a huge ass time display in some odd font. I can see this OS getting downright radical redesigns on an annual basis.

So yes at first blush it looks flashy, but not very interesting. People will get sick of it quick and then dive into customizing as much as possible (as some people like to do).

Still, I agree with some other posters that iOS is not perfect, and could definitely use some added features. Still waiting on that file system.
 
Saladinos said:
That's it. The rest is smoke-and-mirrors blue gradients and fancy graphics.
Click to expand...

Hardly.

I have to say that Google nailed it here. Seems like they have appropriately expanded the OS for the tablet form-factor. Apple didn't bother to change anything about iOS on the iPad except for making some of the apps bigger. That's evident from the moment you are presented with the lock screen. Honeycomb: drag-to-unlock with a thumb on one side, info on the left. iPad: same as the iPhone.

Here's what you missed:

1) An actual desktop. You have space to put app icons or widgets as you see fit (the icons are even reasonably spaced). More than that, however, you can also search and access notifications in one place.

Compare that to the iPad, which embarrassingly ported the same 4-icon wide app launching interface from the iPhone. Search is its own awkward homescreen that's a small search bar on a blank screen. Notifications pop-ups that you don't want to address yet must be closed and lost.

2) Legitimate tabbed browsing. The browser also optionally supports flash.

Compare that to the iPad, which just took the cards from the iPhone and just laid them out in a grid.

3) Card-based multitasking UI with thumbnail previews for each app. Third button on the bottom brings up a list of all your running apps, displaying the name next to a thumbnail of the app content.

Compare that to the iPad which uses the same multitasking task-switcher of (four!) app icons as the iPhone.

I think Google did a great job in thinking about how they could take a smartphone operating system and adjust the UI so that it worked best with a tablet form-factor. Apple just copy/pasted iOS on to the iPad and called it a day. :eek:

The only important question left is whether or not there is file system access with support for mounting as a USB drive.
 
my crystal ball for iOS 5

- no new UI changes
- better airplay (lets 3rd party apps airplay videos)
- better airprint ( has more printers added )
- better game center integration ( allows chating with friends, better way to find friends)

- Faster app switching
- imovies comes to the ipad (but not part of iOS 5 ... I just had to say it lol )
- iOS now supports Dual core processors
- More API's for DEV

In all just to have 3rd party app airplay videos is a feature I want soooooo bad right now :)
Anything I am missing in the list ?
 
firestarter said:
I must be missing something, 'cos I don't see anything special here.

Seems like a lot of UI elements 'borrowed' from iOS, but with an ugly blue background. Seems a bit glitchy too (in vertical scrolling) - also screen doesn't seem to be updating quickly enough in horizontal scrolling.

It looks pretty usable, for sure - but I don't know where you're seeing the 'awesome'?
Click to expand...

I'm with you, firestarter... I have absolutely no idea what the hell you other guys are raving about, this looks medicocre at best. Do all the "wows" come from you guys using even worse Android phones? I can't figure it out.

And yes, the video does look glitchy and not smooth, just like an Android phone. The sad part is that this video is "canned" and not running on the actual tablet-hardware it will eventually be on, and it still looks crappy.

Watch the demo on the forthcoming Motorola tablet at All Things D, if you read between the lines you'll see that this OS is way far from being ready to ship. This newest promo video only confirms what was shown in person— unimpressive, glitchy smoke and mirrors.

BTW, it seems to me that marveling over how great Honeycomb is has become the latest fashionable Internet meme to repeat over and over again like somehow we can all simply agree on this "fact"— it's like the new "competition is good" around here lately.

Would anyone care to explain what rocked your world so much in that video clip?
 
if the ipad had widgets it would be killer.

but thats unlikely to happen. :(
 
As others have stated I have my doubts if the video's are of actual footage. If they are, it's a very fast UI experience, nothing like I've used on any other Android device. The email is the same format as the iPad, nothing wrong with that, but nothing new, just a copy. I may have missed a video with it running, but seem to have missed any video showing how it performs with flash running on a website. Surely this/any Android tablet "MUST" have flash, yet so few of them demo that as a featured function of the device. What's up with that? are the scared to show how laggy the browser becomes, or the crash/lockups? What gives?

I guess I am at a stage where my computing needs are to be quick, easy and done vs tweaking what live wallpaper, widget or otherwise is on a homescreen. I don't need "fluff" which is what most of these video's seem to be selling. I would enjoy a stand alone, no need to tether, tablet but a few flashy home screens and a twitter client running doesn't impress me.
 
smiddlehurst said:
Umm, actually yes, I do just want to see one app at a time on a tablet-sized device. I spend my work day in front of a computer (actually several) and have a nice big 24" monitor so that I can side-by-side data and work more efficiently and that's great. My iPad is used at home when I'm relaxing, when I am focused on one thing at a time, when I value simplicity and ease-of-use far more than flexibility and that last few % of performance. What I want, basically, is for the technology to get out of the way and just let me browse, tweet, e-mail, watch videos etc without any distractions. By all means add fancy animations, polish the UI, do stuff that makes the user experience more enjoyable but, and again this is just my opinion, what makes the iPad work for me is that clean, streamlined experience and I'd hate to loose that. Plus I really don't think it's practical to run multiple apps side-by-side on a ten inch or less screen regardless of the resolution, at least not without it feeling like you're not making best use of the screen space anyway.
Click to expand...

This. Caught this after I posted... but well said. Great points for those of us that don't need nor want all the BS and flashy nonsense that does nothing useful but eat battery life.
 
Jett0516 said:
read post #64
Click to expand...

Post 64 has more than a few inaccuracies, particularly about the "4 icon [dock]" and task switcher. The dock holds 6 icons and the task switcher 7 in landscape, but I digress...

Card based multitasking with the name printed under the app? A "proper desktop" and well-spaced icon placement? Wow, where do I sign??? :)

If tabbed browsing is your thing, check out Atomic Browser for 99 cents, it's incredibly customizable, too. I do agree that native Safari should have proper tabs, though...
 
gatearray said:
The dock holds 6 icons and the task switcher 7 in landscape, but I digress...
Click to expand...

I never mentioned the dock and bolded. But it does remind me how silly it looks that the dock holds a different number of apps than the grid of icons. 5 icons along the homescreen, 6 on the dock, 7 on the task switcher - DERP.
 
I just want to see apple add the notifications to the lock screen so I don't have to unlock and look for them. Didn't they hire the web os guy that did all the notification work?
 
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