
IPhone Needs a New Home - _pius
http://www.teehanlax.com/blog/2009/09/22/iphone-needs-a-new-home/
======
wzdd
This looks a lot like the Windows Mobile 6.0 Today screen (circa 2007):

[http://www.google.co.uk/images?q=windows%20mobile%206.0%20to...](http://www.google.co.uk/images?q=windows%20mobile%206.0%20today%20screen)

When I had a Windows Mobile device, I found the Today screen very busy. I'm
usually only interested in one or two pieces of information from the Today
screen, and found the information-overload aspect of sifting through the
unnecessary data distracting. How would this new design avoid that problem?

------
mrcharles
It frustrates me that the iPhone's UI is stuck firmly in what can effectively
be considered the smartphone's past. The UI was revolutionary at first, but
that was years ago. Now it's archaic and limiting. I understand Apple's
reasons for disallowing UI change, as it is a support nightmare, but I do wish
they would allow some kind of opt-in system where you could enable UI
replacements, without being forced to jailbreak your phone.

~~~
evo_9
Where you see archaic and limiting, the market - aka normal folks like our
mom's and dad's - see a friendly and consistent platform that doesn't change
ever time they see a new Droid commercial.

People need to realize Apple is a consumer electronics company now more like
Sony than Microsoft.

~~~
mrcharles
I don't think I've failed to realize that, in fact I specifically addressed
it. But that doesn't mean that Apple can't enable power users in some fashion.

Plus, a lot of the iPhone's UI now is just ugly, usability aside. The settings
menu is just painful to look at, compared to the slick menus and options in
Android phones.

~~~
ugh
That seems to have more to do with personal taste. I think the Android
settings menu is horrible.

------
NickPollard
For anyone on Android, SlideScreen is a brilliant implementation of this
concept already available in the market. Highly recommended.

<http://slidescreenhome.com/>

~~~
tmgrhm
I bought this a while ago (a year?) and, although it's a great application,
the developer seemingly abandoned it not long after.

~~~
hyperbovine
I had the same thing happen to a loaf of bread I purchased recently.

Never have understood why people in software equate dormancy with
worthlessness.

~~~
ecuzzillo
Pieces of software basically never exist in a vacuum; they're always connected
to other pieces of software and hardware (compilers, processors, graphics
cards, phones, OSs, libraries, web services, ...). Other pieces of software
and hardware always change, and if there's no one home improving this
particular piece of software, it will invariably lose pieces of functionality,
one by one, as they change to be incompatible with how they were before or
disappear entirely because they lost to a competitor or turned out to be a bad
idea.

Users know this instinctively, which is why a website that never changes loses
users quickly.

------
runjake
I'd like to point out this blog post is from mid-2009.

I initially thought the screenshot was a LockInfo theme. In any case, such an
app already exists, and has for quite a while. There are also plugins for RSS,
Things & Appigo tasks,iOS notifications etc.It's very themeable, as well.

The only hitch? Your iOS device needs to be jailbroken, due to Apple's
limitations.

The author's LockInfo home page is pretty lacking but he spends a lot of time
hacking on LI and you can follow his progress via his Twitter account,
@stimpy5050

Edit: Oops, the LockInfo page is: <http://david.ashman.com/lockinfo/>

~~~
highpass
I wondered what all the fuss was about... indeed it seemed like the guy
copy/pasted the Gruppled Lockinfo theme and popped some text on the page to
describe it all.

Lockinfo became too much useless info for me to have open all the time.
Notified Pro with Statusbar plugin is the minimalistic approach I was looking
for, although not perfect as yet.

Edit/ Unsure what year the post was created. Might've been before Lockinfo.

~~~
runjake
Notified Pro is more of an alternative notification system, not a home screen
replacement, isn't it?

------
Tyrannosaurs
Why are people obsessed with weather widgets?

In that small an amount of space you can basically get today's weather which I
can see by looking out of the window which generally makes it a bit useless
really.

Not saying that I wouldn't like a better notification screen on the iPhone - I
really would - just that all weather widgets do to my mind is add a bit of
graphical sugar but with no great purpose.

Or am I missing something? Does everyone else live in a bunker?

~~~
mbreese
> Does everyone else live in a bunker

Or work in an office without a window? Or live somewhere where it can be sunny
outside, but still need to know if you need to take a jacket to lunch?

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
I guess you just have more faith in the data the weather app on the iPhone
throws up.

I find the single day temperature / image to be too much of an average (so 12
degrees and sunny means that it's between 6 degrees and 18 degrees which
basically doesn't help me for that sort of decision making).

Maybe that's just where I live and that for others it does provide useful
information.

------
pacifika
You might gain information but you also gain 'information stress', with the
current homescreen you feel the phone submits to you in letting you do what
you want. With homescreens like this and the notification systems in competing
platforms the phone is the one that tells you that 'you really should be
looking at these other things as well, nag nag'.

This is useful for certain types of users, that lead busy lives. Therefore for
professional users and business users the homescreen in the article will be an
improvement because of the extra information but for the casual user and home
user it will be mainly an increase in stress, I expect.

~~~
xsmasher
Apple doesn't put new email notifications and such on the lock screen or the
status bar, and I don't think that's an oversight. It would be the equivalent
to a blinking red "back to work! message* and make people hate to look at
their phone.

*Doesn't blackberry have one of those?

------
Irfaan
LockInfo (<http://lockinfo.ashman.com/>) is the big reason I jailbreak my
iPhone. Having a _useful_ lock screen does wonders for making my phone a feel
like a communication hub.

------
robgough
I desperately hope that Apple make the home screen (along with better
notifications) the primary focus of iOS 5. I first saw this very concept a
while back now, and still think it looks amazing.

I was under the impression you could get it via a jailbreak, but as I've never
jailbroken my iPhone I've not looked into it.

~~~
rimantas
For _me_ these are least important and I struggle to understand why others are
so obsessed with it (this does not mean that I think current implementation is
the best possible, I just don't care).

The reasons: if I see a badge on a program (mail, phone or SMS) I will check
it anyway, so I don't need the full info on the home screen.

~~~
silversmith
For me, it's convenience. My phone is laying on the desk, I can just stretch
my hand, press the home button and instantly see the overview of situation.
Easily distinguishable lines (courtesy of jailbreak and LockInfo) for missed
calls, SMSes, emails, calendar events. What's more, unlike the default
notifications, I get a little bit more information, allowing me to see that
all the mails are from Facebook and can be ignored at the moment.

I don't cary my phone with me everywhere, especially when at home, so checking
up on the situation is a common task for me.

------
Tichy
Should have bought an Android Phone instead. You can even make money selling
alternative UIs on the Android marketplace.

------
kingsley_20
"@teehanlax In an update, you mention that you're building a product. Did that
come to completion?" - @bradleyland

"@bradleyland It did briefly exist in the Cydia store. But working in the
Jailbreak Community proved too difficult" - @teehanlax

Pity. Also, I just blogged about something similar, and was surprised to find
this on HN: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2275922>

------
kule
Slightly unrelated but a really simple change I'd really love to see is the
"swipe to unlock" moved to the top of the screen so it's easily answerable
with one hand.

This way you don't have to crane your thumb down or juggle the phone to a
higher position in your hand.

~~~
jarin
How the heck do you hold your phone? I have to stretch to hit the top of the
screen with my thumb. I'm with Apple's HIG that the commonly used controls
should be at the bottom.

~~~
kule
Like most people I would've thought:

<http://imgur.com/ZImS6>

How do you hold it?? :)

You can, of course, get your little finger under it move the phone body up so
it's easy to swipe with your thumb however that's a lot of hand movement and
you need to look at what you are doing.

If you are holding the phone whilst walking you generally hold it as in the
image above which is much more secure it would be nice to be able to answer it
without having to shuffle the phone with your pinky.

To be honest even moving the thumb horizontally to me doesn't feel like the
most natural way to move your thumb. Instead consider moving your thumb from
the top left arcing across (i.e. from a 12 o'clock position to almost 3
o'clock) of course you'd need to consider lefties but it feels a lot more
natural...

------
marknutter
Why couldn't this be an app on its own instead of taking over the home screen?

~~~
jasongullickson
Looks like it is going to be, but it would be nice if you could have something
like this for the "lock" screen.

------
jasongullickson
This is very nice, don't get me wrong, but I have to wonder if there is a good
design reason that Apple didn't go this direction in the first place.

There have been several mobile devices which used the "daily agenda" format
for the home screen (my old iPaq comes to mind:
<http://www.bestezonlinestore.com/images/T/PDA1391SL-304.jpg>) and while it
intrinsically seems like a good idea I wonder why they chose not to go that
way?

------
kyberneticka
Given the state of useful information on home/lockscreens in competitors
(Windows Phone 7, Android, WebOS), it's almost necessary for Apple to make a
UI overhaul in iOS 5. I'm loathe to jailbreak (performance issues), but when I
have jailbroken my phone, the lockscreen with usable info (weather,
notifications) was brilliant. I don't think Apple should open up the lock/home
screen to the app environment necessarily, but Apple should do something to
make their devices more useful when they aren't in active use.

------
endlessvoid94
That home screen reminds me of Android. While there's nothing wrong with that,
the point of Apple products is that they're aesthetically pleasing.

The lock screen just displays your wallpaper, and is actually one of the only
places you can see your wallpaper without clutter. It's clean, simple,
minimalist. Adding widgets and text and shit all over it is the exact opposite
of that.

And frankly, that's a big selling point for the iPhone (and apple products in
general). That's actually the point.

------
saturdaysaint
There are indications that there won't be an update to the notification system
in iOS 5 (Apple had a recent job posting that indicated they were just now
looking at updating the notifications), so it's almost hard to imagine what
Apple has been working on if they don't update either the homescreen or the
widget system. I'm afraid this guy's work will be wasted.

~~~
nchlswu
I follow that design studio fairly closely, and from what I can tell, the
project's been abandoned anyways. They got a developer in, but after that
there wasn't much progress.

Edited: Typo.

------
tuhin
On a sidenote: Sebastian (@cocoia) posted a great article on the problem of
notifications the other day: <http://blog.cocoia.com/2011/notify/>

~~~
yoda_sl
I believe there is a good chance that Apple will be improving the notification
system in iOS since many months ago they hired the UI lead engineer from webOS
that apparently came up with the notification system for Palm (now HP) webOS.
I have used it a couple times and it was really elegant and not intrusive. So
I will expect Apple to get something fresh for iOS 5. And who knows they may
show some feature of iOS at tomorrow's announcement.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
My guess is that they've hired a good designer who happened to work on the
notifications feature, rather than hiring some sort of "notifications"
specialist.

You hire someone with a view to them working with you for years and I don't
think notifications is that big a deal that you'd bring in someone specific to
do it.

At least fingers crossed that's it because it would be great to see something
in iOS5.

------
wmboy
We all know Apple planed the iPhone 7 from day 1 and are simply staging it
over a series of years to maximise profits.

I expect Apple will start allowing screensaver/wallpaper type apps in the not
too distant future. It'll open up another revenue stream for them.

We know it's almost ready to be rolled out (by looking to jailbroken iPhones)
but Apple will want to iron out memory problems before releasing it (at least
that's what they'll say).

~~~
pennig
That's quite the theory you've cooked up there.

~~~
wmboy
Exaggeration definitely. But it's no secret that's what Apple does (holding
back features they could already deliver for the sake of getting people to
upgrade their hardware every year).

Btw, I own an iPhone and MacBook so I'm not anti-Apple.

------
xash
I currently use LockCalendar for this (requires jailbreak, available in Cydia)
and love it: <http://preview.tinyurl.com/d2ko29>

There's also IntelliScreen (requires jailbreak, available in Cydia):
<http://intelliborn.com/intelliscreen.html#step1>

------
ralx
Looks great! That coupled with the MobileNotifier
([http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/28/mobilenotifier-iphone-
ale...](http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/28/mobilenotifier-iphone-alerts-
improved-video/)) that I've been using for a few days could be a vast
improvement to the iPhone Lock Screen and Notifications.

~~~
tuhin
I had a look at it today and it does look great. My only suggestion would be
to implement the "later" and "Open" in the bar itself so that it is a single
click to read it or mark it for later, rather than two clicks. On a
superficial layer it might not seem important but when this is a daily affair
it will become irritating.

------
gmac
This would be excellent. _Especially_ on the lock screen, which is currently
almost nothing but wasted space.

~~~
rayboyd
When the phone is locked do you really want it to expose information? My
personal preference is no.

~~~
CamperBob
Point being, that should be your call, and his, and not Apple's.

------
sambeau
This is a great example of design-first open development. A great design was
published and developers arrived to create it.

This is exactly what I was talking about here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2270870>

------
oemera
I hate to be that guy but PLEASE spell it right! It's not an IPhone it's an
iPhone.

This is not unimportant cause Apple wont let your into the App Store before
you spell it right (at least in the App).

~~~
DougBTX
I think that the casing of the first letter of the title is forced by HN.

~~~
oemera
Oh didn't know that. Thanks!

------
pkulak
And if you'd actually like to do something like this, get an Android phone.
You can't replace home or lock screens on an iPhone.

