[General Topics] eaglesteve:
Widgets and notification comparision - HTC Sense UI

I found this youtube video on HTC Droid Incredible Sense UI and Widget:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cSBzo8J_uk

Key points:

1. Widgets include weather (which could animates), clock (many styles available), calendar, dialer, SMS, email, webpage bookmarks, friend stream (facebook and tweeter), music player, footprint, notes, photoframe, photoalbum, google search bar, stock widget, and tips calculator.

2) The widgets, along with application shortcuts and folders could be placed on any of the 7 available pages. You can delete and move them.

3) Depending on the needs of each user, different sets of widgets may be selected. Each combination of selection can be saved as "Scene". The same device can have many scenes, so for example, one may use a different sets of widgets during work hour, and another off work, to suit his different needs at different times of the day.

4) User can pinch/zoom on the desktop, or press the Home key to bring up one single screen showing all the seven screen. From there, users could touch on any screen to jump there directly.

KEY STRENGTHS:

a) Extremely demonstrable, especially the weather animation. It is difficult not to be attracted to such a beautiful desktop. The weather animation is similiar to what I had in my old HTC Touch HD.

b) I like the multiple scene capability. It makes the device look different at different type of the day.

c) I like the ability to see all the seven screens and jump to anyone of them.

WHAT I WAS DISAPPOINTED WITH: (Please don't flame me, I'm just being fussy)

a) With just 7 screens, it is too limiting. I wish I could have one screen dedicated to the shortcuts of all my location based applications (such as google map, goolgle earth, TomTom, Trapster, bus guides, train guides, subway maps around the world, etc), another for all the shortcuts for my camera applications (such as application for making panoramic picture, application for High Dynamic Range photography, applications for extracting still pictures out of videos frame by frame, picture editing applications, and movie making applications), another screen for reference type applications (such as Dictionaries, eBook readers, web browsers, Thesaurus, bibles), another for finance applications, another for utilities, another for sports applications, Office applications, multimedia, social networking, games, etc.

The ability to have a hellicopter view of all my application shortcuts and jump to them instantly will significantly increase the speed of finding and launching the hundreds of applications that I now have.

The existing design is to go to the application drawer to hunt for the application. I don't see that as a productive method, especially if the uers loves to use applications.

Overall, the design approach seems to magnify the importance of widgets over the real applications itself. I think the emphasis should be reversed.

It may be that developers and hackers could modify this to include unlimited number of sense UI pages, but not sure if this has already been done.

b) No to do list. This might be quite important to many users. I understand developers could create their own todo list widget but am not sure if one is available or if it would work on all Sense UI versions.

QUESTIONS PENDING. HELP NEEDED:

I'm not sure if there is a widget that collects all the notifications of all the applications and display it on the desktop. I know there is a notification bar as shown by this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T89Eq-kdo9o

From the videos I know the notification bar includes emails, sms, and voicemail. I imagine it would also include missed calls and calendar items too.

However, I'm not sure how it deals with alerts from the other applications (such as warning for a police trap coming from the Trapspter application, alerts from facebook application, alerts from game applications, alerts from applications on discount or going free in the app store, alert for missed calls in the VOIP application, alerts from travel applications information user of flight cancellation/delay, alerts from social networking application like Fring for new messages just received, alerts for to do item about to come up, alerts for calendar items and appointments, alerts for severe weather such as earthquake/hailstorm/flood).

Another question is whether it is possible to replace all these widgets with applications of my own choice. For example, while I like the weather animation, I do want much more functional application that what HTC is offering. For example, I want to be able to see the rain radar map. For music, I like to choose my own music application, for picture viewing, I don't like what the widget has to offer and like something faster and more functional (e.g., requiring password to view certain photos).

I also saw somewhere that some HTC Sense UI have a newsfeed widget, but don't seem to see it on this video. If a user like to use that newsfeed widget, how does he get it in?

Will discuss iPhone's Lock Info after discussion on Android's widget has settled.