Without an official announcement today at the Google I/O keynote, Google has quietly rolled out a nice looking update to their YouTube app for Google TV. A new UI is featured, which makes navigation a bit easier and more user friendly.
Improved Playback video controls are also included, and subscription options are much easier to use as well. Check out the link to the app in the Google Play Store after the break. » Read the rest
HTC has teamed up with Japanese designer Naoto Fukasawa to release the next iteration of the stylish Japanese “Infobar” phone series. The phone runs a completely new UI known as “iida UI 2.0″ (iida stands for “innovation,” “imagination,” “design” and “art”) and it certainly lives up to its name. The iida UI comes with all sorts of fancy animations, eye candy, and intuitive touch based navigation. The beautiful new skin is running atop of Android 4.1 but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the software. In fact, it looks like it could be more related to Windows Phone with a home screen that mimics Windows’ “live tiles” layout.
The phone itself sports some pretty great specs including a 1.5GHz quad-core chip from Qualcomm, 1GB of RAM, a 4.7-inch 720p display, 16GB of storage, a microSD slot, and a capacious 2,100mAh battery. As for radios, the phone will primarily rely on an LTE radio (800/1500), but also has capabilities to access CDMA2000 800/2100 and WCDMA 850/1900/2100 networks, meaning it would be a great global phone. Besides all that you get an 8 megapixel camera with HTC’s Imagesense technology, a 2.1 front facing camera, Beats Audio, and NFC! It’s all packed inside the 9.7mm-thick, 147g-heavy waterproof (IPX5 and IPX7) and dustproof (IP5X) body. Pretty cool! The phone is set to be released in Japan around mid-February. Check out some videos of the device’s new UI and some more photos after the break! Do you guys prefer this to HTC’s Sense UI?
Skype released an update today that focuses on Microsoft’s move to use the service in place of Windows Live Messenger and to introduce improvements in the tablet experience. Skype’s tablet UI changes include little things like re-positioning navigation buttons and menus to better use the screen real estate afforded by tablet devices. The window for video is larger as well. However, early adopters of this new version are already complaining that the app forces the use of landscape mode. » Read the rest
A couple years ago Google brought webOS designer Matias Duarte on board to direct the Android User Experience. Since then, he has been responsible for many of the design decisions found in the award-winning Android user interface. His hard work is again being recognized, this time by Fast Company who named him as one of the top fifty designers shaping the future.
Despite the accolades, Duarte indicates he is far from where he wants to be with Android. In comments on his Google+ page, he indicates that he is “only about a third of the way to where I want to be with regards to consistency, responsiveness, and polish.” This sentiment is consistent with remarks he made at Mobile World Congress this past February.
What would you like to see Duarte and his team take on while they work on the remaining two thirds?
source: Google+
At the beginning of this year, Google launched the Android Design Principles Web Site. This site outlines how and why the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich User Interface (UI) is built the way it is. For those of us who work as User Experience Designers, it’s a treasure trove of information and insights into the minds of Matias Duarte and his team.
What I would like to do is break down a few elements of the Android 4.0 UI and talk about how they follow tried-and-tested user-centered design principles. Yeah, this might be a bit geeky even for us geeks, but trust me… it’s these kinds of solid building blocks that can make or break a platform. Read on after the break for my take on how Android is implementing and evolving their User Experience (UX).
Somewhere out there are a handful of Motorola DROID RAZR smartphones with a leaked Android 4.0 build. In addition to the standard frills of ICS, there was mention of updated WebTop software in the form of WebTop 3.0 Beta. A curious DROID RAZR owner decided to test out the new enhancements to the WebTop software and found some surprising differences between the previous and new versions of the software. You’ll find that not only has MOTO revamped the laptop UI by removing excessive items which bogged down the interface, MOTO modeled the same UI to more of a tablet UI. Because ICS was made for any screen, you’re essentially seeing a blown up screen of the DROID RAZR instead of a custom UI when in WebTop mode. Looks like MOTO has taken a cue from ASUS and it’s intriguing PadFone.
Words can’t describe how the new WebTop looks and acts until you see it live. So why not hit the break to get a better understanding of the new software? » Read the rest
Ice Cream Sandwich is away and by far the best Android OS to date. By including the most fluid UI yet while integrating noteworthy features such as facial unlock and an improved set of widgets for use, ICS makes for a solid experience using the OS and especially UI. As a trademark of Android’s open platform, ICS allows for custom “enhancements” in the form of skins (Sense, TouchWiz, MOTOBLUR, etc.) and style by the various OEM who sell Android-based devices. One thing that’s painfully obvious for many of the “enhancements” done by OEMs is many of the custom skins include well… useless features and poorly designed widgets which tend to actually slow down Android devices despite those same devices having incredible processors and memory.
And that’s exactly why you tend to see many (though not all) Android owners go the way of the ROMing route in order to stick it to OEMs and experience what they feel a solid Android experience. While some folks (like me) prefer their Android in vanilla flavor or others (like many of the writers here at TA) prefer custom ROMs and some ummm, you know— like their resource hogging skins, Canadian developer Teknision is out to re-define how Android skins should be developed. Highlighted in our Forums, the same team behind RIM’s Blackberry Playbook UI has developed not only a intriguing skin for Android 4.0′s homescreen, but a stellar one at that in its Chameleon concept which is for tablets. Hit the break to read more details about what it does and to check out a video to see it in action. » Read the rest
Among the many new things that will be unveiled at next months Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, HTC Sense 4.0 is one that you may have forgotten about. If your anything like me, you don’t really care for manufacturers UI overlays, and prefer the vanilla experience as Android intended it. I have always thought the Sense UI was one of the more obtrusive UI’s and I have a fear that Sense 4.0 will ruin the lovely ICS experience that I have fallen in love with. Who knows, maybe I am worrying too much because the folks over at Pocketnow got a sneak peek at the unfinished product and say it’s a “step in the right direction.” Hopefully they weren’t just being nice.
Although PocketNow was unable to snap any pictures of the Sense 4.0 look, they were able to share some of the featured highlights and improvements. Here is what we can expect: » Read the rest
And so the Galaxy Nexus customization begins. Just as soon as the device arrives, you’re more than likely going to want to head on over to Modaco’s for some awesome hacking and tweaking. They’ve got a UI patch which allows you to assign a permanent search button to the standard ICS menu bar. In addition, they’ve added customization that allows you to rearrange the icons in whatever order you want. It appears that this is only the beginning and we’ve yet to see what the dev community has in store for the device. Here’s to more customizable features and hacks as the days of the Galaxy Nexus unfold. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below.
[via Modaco]
A new tidbit has come to light thanks to a couple of Android engineers, Romain Guy and Chet Haase over at the Android Developers blog. They’ve touted that as part of the Android 4.0 ICS update, devices should experience better hardware acceleration by default. It turns out that this is the same hardware acceleration that can be found in our beloved Android 3.2 Honeycomb for tab’s however, for the tab version, enabling of the GPU was required via command line. Meaning, experience for the end user post ICS is going to change up a bit.
We should see smoother and faster UI scrolling and navigation throughout the device entirely. Animations should be quick and fluid with this latest iteration. It shouldn’t matter whether or not a dev has enabled the GPU acceleration. Because lets face it, though we’re not particularly all iPhone or Windows Phone 7 fans, we have to admit that scrolling on those devices tends to always be naturally smooth and quick. And though we love Android, most devices tend to have a bit of a “choppy” experience. Well, here’s to hoping that all changes with the roll out of Ice Cream Sandwich. But we’ll let you all be the judge of that. Now you just need to make sure that you have an ICS enabled and upgradable device when it comes.
[via Android Dev]