Top-secret Android handset surfaces on YouTube

Video is blurry for a reason

It's to blur out the id number Google engraved on all the Android handsets (front & back) so they can identify who is responsible for 'leaking' pictures to teh internets.

Blurry video=no clear id number= no identification

(we really need that halo/horns G)

Animation?

Seems flat and unanimated, click a button and the dialog is right there. Someone should take a games designer to it to pep it up and put a coherent design on it.

Look at the Wii or the iPod, click a button and it grows in size with acceleration/deceleration on the grow. Rotate an iPod screen and the pixel screen rotates (smoothly to give you a visual cue as to what's happening). Click an icon, the other icons move out of the way and the selected application fades in, again a confirmation of what you selected.

Lots of subtle visual cues that seem to be missing on the Android.

It really needs less engineering and more design on it. I think they underestimate the important of design, simply because Google was a success with crappy programmer designed logo.

Dumbo

Doesn't he know that Google tracks your IP when uploading videos ? I'd be suprised if they don't pull it citing breaches of copyright - like they care about copyright infringements !!

Can't you just Google for it?

I mean, everything's on Google, no?

OK, coat..

@ Lindsay

"Blurry video=no clear id number= no identification"

Seems whoever shot someone ran out of black adhesive tape to cover the id. Or is it engraved on the screen?

@ Video is blurry for a reason

If Google considers "select few" to include someone who's to thick to put a piece of tape over the number, then it doesn't bode well.

@RE: Animation?

"Why the hell you would want pointless battery sapping (time-wasting) animations on a phone is beyond me."

If that was the important thing, why is the screen in colour? Why animated clock? etc...

Battery sapping: iPod doesn't seem to suffer from it ergo I don't accept that as an excuse.

Time wasting: again, the button animations are faster than the time taken to reposition your thumb, and the rotation animation occurs DURING the rotation. There is no delay there, again I view that as an excuse.

"I bet your the type of fool that likes all the Aero shite M$ has added to the OS."

No, they look like after-thoughts, the iPod though is an example of proper consistent design. As to whether the public likes that, well does the iPod sell? I'm pretty sure it does.

Android looks like a plain, engineering work. Look at the action that pops up a menu, it appears to need a press on the screen for a second or two. Are you pressing hard enough and in the correct place to bring that menu up?.... You don't know until you wait 2 seconds to see of the menu pops up or not. Where's the animation that gives the feedback at the *start* of that action?

Lots of places like that, the signon screen, he drags his finger over the buttons and they become circled when successfully selected, there is no feedback as his finger approaches the centre of the next circle to confirm his finger is correctly placed, *before* he touches the centre. Once he's selected it, it's too late.

Error/confirmation dialog appears on the screen in the first video, where did it come from? There's no visual que given to show it's origin.

It's not polished I think. Needs more work.

So when's it going free?

As an Openmoko/Neo Freerunner owner that's a little disappointed with the state of the Openmoko software project, I want to know when Android's going to be available.

And of course, when it's going to be open sourced as they promised, so someone (me?) can start porting it and hacking at it.

But Google seem to be playing this one really close to their chest, I'm starting to think they'll be trying to keep the source (illegally) under wraps.

re: It's not a phone if you have to use two hands

who uses two hands to use an iPhone? it's interface is perfectly useable with the thumb of the same hand you're holding it with - i'm always dialing and txting using just one hand

you shouldn't make such sweeping generalisations

@Animation?

"click a button and the dialog is right there"

Sounds like what any user interface should do!

@David Nash

While dialogues that appear immediately are a good way to provide feedback that a user has pressed a button, assuming that a running program can supply a dialogue immediately is genuinely a bad way to produce a usable system.

Inevitable Mac versus Windows comparison: on a Windows machine, when you double click an icon on the desktop or click an icon on the Quick Launch bar, Windows merely launches the relevant tapplication. Lots of applications actually start quite slowly, so the user only gets something like quick feedback if the application specifically provides it. This means that lots of application programmers implement splash screens, which they do according to their own whim and fancy. Some provide a measure of how close to loaded the program is, some don't. Some are set to be always on top, some aren't. Etc.

On the Mac, double clicking an icon on the desktop does a tiny little animation where the icon jumps towards the user. Clicking an icon on the dock causes it to jump up and down until the relevant program has finished loading. So programmers don't have to each implement their own solution to providing feedback, and the result is a gain in consistency and a reduction in programming effort.

Oh, and something for people that speak without thinking (I hasten to add: I don't mean you) to brand as mere functionless eye candy.

@ animations etc

I don't care what the default settings are, or what the design theory behind it is, as long as they include a way for me to turn it off if I find it fucking irritating.

Smacks of publicity stunt.....

.....no really....it does.

@animations etc.

"but that would annoy the pants off me"...."as long as they include a way for me to turn it off if I find it fucking irritating".

I think that sums up the difference between a well designed product and a badly designed one. A well designed product has animations and feedback that isn't turned off by the users. If you find you need an option to turn something off, then it's badly designed.

You get a lot of that with MS, they design something, engineers and suit and lawyers mess it up, and they end up putting a button on to turn it on or off.... Users turn it off.

So no, I hope it doesn't have a button to turn it off. If ever I see that, it means the designers couldn't agree it was a good idea in the first place. Design by committee.

Video is blurry for a reason 2

The one I saw did have an id number engraved in the corner of the screen. And everywhere else there was a fraction of space to put the damn thing. I guess you could have just covered them *all* with tape - but I'm not sure it would have been usable after that.

Mind you that was a couple of months ago - maybe they've relaxed since then...