Re: What woud you realistically like to see in the N900?
 

Hmmm, unassailable breakdown. Well, I completely agree with you regarding the ease of input that comes with a well implemented hardware keyboard. Now, I'm not sure, as in I have not used, a thumbsized keyboard for anything serious, so I'm not sure how convinced I am of it's utility in the larger scheme of things, say when I'd like to use the IT as a laptop replacement. I guess, if I were to be completely honest, I'd like to see Nokia implement a "profile" manager, with a "lightweight" profile comprising a finger driven UI(and perhaps the majority of the functions accessible in this profile would be PMP functions), a "welterweight" profile comprising a stylus driven UI (menus galore, options by the thousands), and a "heavyweight" profile which assumes that you have a keyboard (bluetooth) and intend to use the IT as a laptop replacement.

Re: What woud you realistically like to see in the N900?
 

something like the eee "easy" or "expert" profiles. one is finger based and will do basic stuff like a itouch and the other like a 500mhz laptop with a full blown linux distro.

Re: What woud you realistically like to see in the N900?
 

Well, don't confuse the handwriting of the NIT with the newton. The newton had proper handwriting recognition that worked, but more than that, the newton was designed to be used with a pen in that everything was designed to be used with handwriting that made sense to do so, or failing that, widgets designed to be used with a pen. The NIT is based on a small computer system, designed to be used with a keyboard and mouse, with an onscreen keyboard to make up for the lack of keyboard.
It went way beyond just typing (remembering that you didn't have to convert handwriting on the newton - it was happy to leave it there). If you want to copy text from one application to another on the newton (not always that necessary as other applications could read the data), you selected the text and dragged it to the edge of the screen. It stuck there. Then you switched to the other application (it didn't have the one application thing in front like maemo) and dragged it back.

When someone goes on about the newton people think 'oh it was the handwriting recognition', but although the handwriting recognition was excelent (in fact pretty unbeaten for conversion until the tablet PC), what really set the newton apart is that every part was designed from scratch to be used purely with a pen, rather than squashed down from a desktop user interface.

Re: What woud you realistically like to see in the N900?
 

Fair enough, a pen/stylus optimized UI. Not adapted from anything else, but designed from scratch specifically for pen use. I'd like that, but as an option. Honestly, I can't write with a pen as fast a I can with a keyboard, and there are instances when it's easier to just use my finger. I'd like all three. Admittedly, I haven't programmed anything since the one class I had (a thousand years ago) as an undergrad, so I don't know how involved (read: doable) it is to implement multiple UI and be able to switch between them. Maybe it is unreasonable, but that doesn't stop me from wanting it :P.

Re: What woud you realistically like to see in the N900?
 

Hi. For the specific issue of handwriting, I do stand by my original comment. Any sensible form of handwriting requires stylus usage, and therefore a stylus usable UI. It would make very little sense to go towards finger usability while insisting on a stylus usable input method.

As a purely personal opinion, the stylus must be killed, the sooner the better. It's good for specific limited operations, but it's about the single geekiest part of using a PDA or a tablet. Mass market acceptance will never come with a device requiring extensive use of the stylus. The slideout keyboard in the N810 is the first stab in the physical domain, but for the health of the platform the onscreen methods need also to be kept healthy.

Practically I see also very little interest in handwriting solutions, even those that Karel is praising. If HWR really would be the killer input method, those solutions would be very much more popular than what they are. The situation is of course different with certain scripts, like Japanese and Chinese, but for Western input the virtual keyboards are simply faster to use and require much less effort, both physically and mentally from the users than what handwriting does. I don't see this changing. If Apple owns the Best Ever handwriting input method and engine, then I don't really see much light coming even from their direction in this issue.

Then again, I'm only an interaction designer. If some manager higher up wishes otherwise, then what I say has rather little significance. :)

Re: What woud you realistically like to see in the N900?
 

I'd say the right solution would be not to have 100 different options for a small application. Once again imho it has vastly too much settings, I'm a rather advanced user and still even I have difficulties in actually doing anything sensible with those settings.

Re: What woud you realistically like to see in the N900?
 

I find handwriting much faster than a virtual keyboard. Nowhere near as fast as a real keyboard.

Apple don't though. All they have is the rosetta printed writing engine which is no better than anyone else.
Microsoft appear to have the proper handwriting stuff now, and I beleive it is built into vista. However it is only there as a little option, as all you can do with it is use it in place of text fields, which is little to no advantage.

Re: What woud you realistically like to see in the N900?
 

Obviously we see things differently.

I agree to the extent that the UI should heavily favor finger usage-- but I also believe the stylus should be kept and highly-specific functions for it be supported-- including HWR. I don't know what such an approach would hurt. Let users who wish to do so pull the stylus out when it suits them.

Re: What woud you realistically like to see in the N900?
 

Well, there are applications that need many options. I use Xchat *because* of its power. You can use others if you dont like that. Use notepad instead of word, the calculator instead of excel. It's all a matter of personal preference. Less options means less power, but it's easier to use then.

However, saying a UI can be overly simple because applications should not have many options in the first place is somewhat irritating.

Re: What woud you realistically like to see in the N900?
 

I don't use xchat, so I don't know specifically, but I think that in general things with 100 options should be command line or config file based. Now things (like a word processor) with 100 actions are different, but if you've really got 100 settings, they don't belong in a menu or setting dialog; at best you might have a settings dialog for the most common ones, and good documentation for a config file for the rest...

Just my thoughts, and I know there'll be lots of disagreement on that. :)