Dan’s Blog (2.0)

Whether we like it or not, touch-screen phones are on the way in. Apple iPhone has made sure of that. There were some out there in the market already but by far the one that’s gotten the most press has been the Prada Phone. So I had an opportunity this week to handle a Prada phone. It’s a slick little phone. I like the UI — the way it animates between different states (for example, from main menu to phone book). However, some of my theories regarding the utility of a touch-screen phone definitely played out. First of all, I was handling this thing during lunch and it picked up a lot of grease - to the point where I didn’t want to touch it any more. The touch screen has the kind of finish that looks great in a crystal display case in Harrods, but the minute it touches the open air and starts getting used, or (gasp) being pressed up against your face, it starts to get really gross. I think this will be a problem for the iPhone as well.

So — what about the browser? I fired up the default browser on the thing (Obigo). It took a while to load up but when it did and it started to display content, I got a real shock. I tried “tapping” on a link — no response. I tried scrolling the page by sliding the scroll bar — no response. What the heck? They I looked down at the bottom of the screen — where four buttons appeared with up, down, left and right arrows (in a row). I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Yes on the Prada phone, you have to use a badly re-created four-way navigation (a “soft joystick”) at the bottom of the screen to navigate the browser.
It really reinforces my view that even the most advanced phones still ship with cruddy browsers or in this case obviously rushed implementations. These problems are still holding back the mobile Web.

Filed by Daniel Appelquist at 16:15 under Mobile Web, Mobility
Tags: MobileWeb, obigo, pradaphone, schmutz, touchscreen