Submitted by Nokia Beta Labs are currently experimenting with a new kind of lock screen for touchscreen Symbian phones. Called Nokia Bubbles, this lock screen “offers a new way to achieve a bunch of different interactions and access functionality with a load of bubbles floating around on your handset’s touchscreen.”
Buttons that move around – how much more fail can it get?
That said, the idea of pairing items makes sense. Just not sure why its better than a context menu?
I guess the purpose is to be entertaining and pretty.
Qt geeks may be interested to hear that this is implemented with Qt Quick.
I wonder if it will work on my Nuron 5230? It’s S60 v5, not Symbian^3, but the article only said “Symbian touchscreen device”.
Looks like I’ll have something to play with later today…
Well, many comments on the BetaLabs blog entry say that it won’t work on s60v5, so I’m pessimistic about this one…
Though there’s one guy who says that they’re working on it.
Edited 2011-02-05 13:54 UTC
QML itself works fine on s60 5.0 (Symbian^1). I bet the problem is in interacting with idle screen in general.
The movement is still a good idea to solve the problem of a screen too small to show all items neatly stacked while being big enough for touch input.
The bubbles are not moving at random though, so it is a good way to train your hand-eye coordination; just call it “Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training Unlock Screen”
Seriously though, this unlock system, even if not perfect in terms of usability, seems to be an eye-catcher, as every tech blog seems to be reporting on it.
Couldn’t agree more. That looked painfully irritating.
They also seem to have overlooked how most users operations are performed by muscle memory. Hunting for a moving target would be so counter-intuitive that I’d sooner revert back to a command line than use “bubbles”.
Edited 2011-02-07 13:28 UTC
Longer video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdXGtnAzlhc
Talking about stupidity, those animated bubbles will drain your battery a lot faster.
Edited 2011-02-05 15:50 UTC
Looking at the video, they only appear when the screen is turned on, so it might not be that much of a performance hit.
i don’t know, but to me it seems that nokia is lost in terms of iu design.
This concept is silly, to me it lacks usability advantages and good look & feel.
Most people agree that nokia UI is good but it needs a serious tweak for touch screen and this is not the way to go.
http://betalabs.nokia.com/apps/nokia-big-screen
The things he has to do now that Michael is gone.
Yes, Nokia’s answer to Android and iOS is bubbles… When your software takes inspiration from Care-a-lot, you know it’s time to shutter the windows, turn out the lights, and close up shop.