The way a triple head 1920x1280(ish) 24" desktop was so usable on a 10" 1024x768 iPad because I could zoom out.
Years ago I remember playing around with a proof of concept for Archy[1], a new user-interface concept by Jef Raskin. The basic idea was that all the contents of the computer were on a great big canvas, which you could zoom in and out of. One "folder" of pictures, might be little specks up in this corner, which you could then zoom in on and browse. Then you would zoom out, pan to the side and zoom in on something else. The browser's "links" were really tiny pages, so if you wanted to follow a link you would just zoom in on it and the new page would take up the screen.
It was a very interesting concept, although it was difficult to use at the time. But with pinch and zoom multitouch, I'm sure the whole experience would be worlds different.
I unfortunately can't seem now to find the demo I played with. :-(
I know that idea, does it now go by the name The Humane Interface (THE)? I haven't played with it in practice, but the way OS X does spaces+expose is similar.
Years ago I remember playing around with a proof of concept for Archy[1], a new user-interface concept by Jef Raskin. The basic idea was that all the contents of the computer were on a great big canvas, which you could zoom in and out of. One "folder" of pictures, might be little specks up in this corner, which you could then zoom in on and browse. Then you would zoom out, pan to the side and zoom in on something else. The browser's "links" were really tiny pages, so if you wanted to follow a link you would just zoom in on it and the new page would take up the screen.
It was a very interesting concept, although it was difficult to use at the time. But with pinch and zoom multitouch, I'm sure the whole experience would be worlds different.
I unfortunately can't seem now to find the demo I played with. :-(
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy