I disagree. In fact, I just tried holding my n810 in portrait
mode and it's perfectly feasible to type "sideways" (albeit
you can only use one hand). For most functions, sideways
typing would be OK with me.

I think it is *obvious* that reading text is better in portrait
mode (studies show that long lines of text make reading
harder, short lines arranged vertically are much better).

at least, that is my HO

Just stop whining and look ad FBreader, forgossakes! If that guy could do it, I'm sure Nokia Allmighty could have a stab at it.

First of all, I don't recall the iPhone having an universal landscape mode...

But, it's really not a trivial thing. Yes you can rotate content in certain browser applications, but think about everything else. Every dialog and applet design with labels on the left side and items on the right side. Every application toolbar that now fits in landscape. Every menu design with submenus. Task launcher menu design, task switcher design. Split views in applications, layouts in Call, Chat, Email, File manager, Skype... Pick almost any application. Displaying notifications... All of those would need to be reworked. Effort vs. benefits should certainly be studied, it's a massive effort. Then again, application specific solutions are much more effective, fbreader is a good example of that.

Nor I think it's obvious that reading text would be automatically better in portrait. But you're right about the study part, there is an "ideal line width". Those numbers range from figures like 12 words or 40 characters... Basically the format of paperback books has evolved quite close to this figure. The width of the N810 screen in landscape mode is quite close to what is an average column width in a paperback book, feel free to test this out.

Ragnar, such an undertaking would be helped if the UI was streamlined first.

Streamined? More like sandblasted. I'm now seriously considering KDE might be an improvement over Hildon and trust me, for me that's a landslide.

Well, "streamlined" is a word that ... Perhaps needs some clarification, it's quite abstract as such.

But in general, I'm not trying to say that there wouldn't be uses for portrait mode in certain cases. I am saying that:
- Keyboard really sets the device as landscape - sorry albright, I don't see people typing in portrait
- There is no sensor in the N810 to detect rotation, this combined with the previouss point would make it very hard to use in normal use, you would need to press a control all the time to switch between these two modes
- There would be huge work to do it universally
- "Would people buy more iPhones if it would have universal UI's in both landscape and portrait, would it really"...
- Trying to do designs that work well in landscape and portrait means that you cannot really optimize for a known screen size. Or then you need to do double designs.

Yeah, I know it's abstract. Does the word "canola" render it more concrete?

Alright I stand corrected about the Iphone having universal landscape mode. But I do think there are lot of things about the ui that come across as inflexible, clunky, not well thought out. Maybe it stems from a lack of imagination, vision, or funding. The menus for example are very 'desktop' like, while such a small screen asks for a different approach, for example like the sliding menus in Iphone interface. Or maybe there could be both a 'full desktop kde/xfce/gnome' ui for easy portability and a 'small-screen optimized' ui for a limited set of apps.

When I think of the ultimate UI for the tablets the key words that pop into my mind are "preview" and "expand" (and conversely, "contract"). IE, interface objects should be as small as they can get while still being understood, and then easily expanded so that the user can get at their contents (then get out of the way when no longer needed). So I tend to think of animated paradigms such as a camera iris motif, et al. THAT'S what I'd like to see: a bold new approach that could even make the iPhone look dated IF the proper thought was put into it.

EDIT: watch Tom Cruise at work on the big transparent display in Minority Report and you get an idea.

Good grief, what a bunch of whiners you Linux hackers are!

It's easier to rotate the screen at the OS/driver level so that apps don't have to be aware of it.

What application programmers should be aware of is that the screen size might not always be a fixed value, and it's possible for the dimensions and proportions to change. Somehow all Windows programmers seem to manage in spite of the enormous difficulty!