Nokia’s N9 is an interesting new challenge to the iPhone. Its had a lot of criticism since it was announced a couple of days ago, but I want to concentrate on something I think it does pretty well: simplify the touch screen interface.
The system Nokia has devised for moving around on an N9 is designed for speed and one-hand operation, and to achieve that they’ve done something rather Apple-esque: reduced the options available.
The N9 home screen is actually three screens, that rotate in carousel between an events timeline (including notifications), an app launcher, and an app switcher. That’s it.
Once you’re inside an app – which you might reach from any of those three home screens – you return home by swiping in from a screen edge. Any edge, it doesn’t matter. Doing this swipe action pushes the current app out of sight, and drops you back in the home screen you were in last.
Now, they could have added more features. They could have made swipes in one direction do one thing, and swipes in another direction do something else. More features, yes, but also more complexity. I think they deserve some credit for saying “no” to themselves, for the stuff they’ve left out.
Here’s a video of Nokia’s Marko Ahtisaari introducing the N9:
So, over to you. What do you think of the N9? Does the interface appeal to you?
(In the interests of full disclosure: some of my friends work at Nokia, and I’ve worked for Ahtisaari before when he was running Dopplr, but none of that affects my personal opinions of the N9 and its user interface.)
