Gadgetory

hey guys it's Brandon Minnemann from pocketnow.com and in this video we're gonna compare the homescreen interfaces of the four operating systems that are out there right now for mobile devices so we have webOS running on the Palm Pre Plus on Verizon we've the Google Nexus one here running on Android 2.1 windows mobile 6.5 point three on the HTC hd2 and of course iOS here on the iPhone 3GS so we're gonna step through all of these devices and talk about the philosophy behind all of these homescreen interfaces and try to determine which one makes the most sense although of course in the end it's very subjective which one works the best for you so it's clear away these devices and start with the iPhone as we know by now the iPhone is a very simple interface and that is Bella we can slide to the right to unlock and then we are presented with icons and more icons and more icons and of course you can move the icons around on the screen you can add internet short internet shortcuts here you cannot add a shortcut to dial somebody quickly which is kind of annoying Apple obviously believes that you should be going into programs to do anything on your device so you can't see quickly your next appointment or go preview your email or anything like that everything requires another step to get into the application of course you can jailbreak your iPhone you can get a lot of information such as whether a next appointment or a quick look into your email right on your home screen but of course that voids your warranty and that many people want to jailbreak it's very likely that we're gonna see a refresh to the home screen interface of the iPhone coming up in version 4.0 of the operating system but for now it's very application based and that's it let's go to the HTC hd2 which takes an entirely different approach HTC believes that you should be able to access the important data of your phone right from the home screen so they've created sort of mini applications all along the home screen so you get your favorite people here you have your messages your email I don't have that set up a panel for internet favorites and you can search Google right from here and then they have a new one here for reading books so this really prevents you from having to go into the Start menu to launch any programs it's a very interesting way of presenting the interface the problem that I always had with HTC sense or touchflo 3d as they call it said it requires a lot of finger travel so if I want to get over to say the reader panel I have to look down here and be very precise and land right on the little reader icon it's not always so easy to kind of do that without looking well it's impossible to do that without looking so most of the time I spend here on the home screen I like to add my favorite programs right to this area so that I don't have to be scrolling back and forth to access different things but a very unique interface from HTC Sense where you don't have to join with applications to check your email it's all your favorite people look at your photos listen to your music check your calendar it's really all right here and and it's really an interesting way to sort of organize the homescreen let's take a look at the Google Nexus One which is sort of a combination between the iPhone and the HD 2 so I'm gonna unlock the screen here now with Android devices and the Nexus One here we have multiple home screen interfaces kind of like the HD 2 although this is a lot more customizable and we can have up to two on the right and two on the left one and then also five home screens where we can add a variety of widgets widgets that allow you to see the weather and tap into Facebook and see your calendar so it's a very customizable interface and you can jump from screen to screen by tapping and holding down here on these dots and then sometimes it doesn't work and then it gives you a little preview of all of the home screens that you have so you can quickly jump over to the right and to the left we're hearing that the next version of some Android devices is actually going to have a pinch functionality multi-touch on the home screen that will allow you to zoom out and see all of your home screens sort of in one view now cool thing about the the Android home screen here is that you can add links to call people you can add links to programs add links to internet shortcuts you can have a variety of widgets as we just saw a quick way to access your communications manager a Twitter widget a lot of programs out there that you can get in the Android application market actually have an Associated widget so if you really want to experience a program or you can place its respective widget onto your home screen and be able to access it that way so very customizable Android interface that kind of merges the iconic based system of the iPhone with the ability to access various program functions and see your data without having to drill into applications like found on the hd2 now let's take a look at the Palm Pre Plus which of course is running webOS software so we can slide to unlock here so I'd say that the webOS operating system is closer to the iPhone than anything in terms of the amount of information you get on the screen you really don't get any information you can customize four of these buttons down here the way you do that is by tapping and dragging by opening up the program tray and then you can slide down another application but you only get five applications on the screen at one time and of course you can access these at any time when you're in an application by tapping and gesturing upwards which is a nice touch but again when you're in your home screen you get to see nothing but the open applications and sort of four programs that you can launch it's a little bit annoying because you can't see your next appointment or the weather again like the iPhone you have to continually go into various programs but fortunately on the on Web OS you can have multiple programs open at one time and so if you really like to see your weather if you really like to see your email you can just keep them open as cards and then access them by just tapping on them and opening them that way and when you flick away all the cards you are left with a nice picture and not much else really so if I were to write these home screen interfaces against one another I would say the most customizable is definitely on the Google Nexus One or Android in general you can really add widgets and customize shortcuts and customize many different home screens to access the information that you need in terms of eye candy I definitely give it to the HTC Sense interface on the hd2 it elegantly brings forth data and information from various programs and your photo viewer and other forms of multimedia right on your home screen interface which makes it a joy to use so you don't have to constantly dig into applications in terms of multitasking obviously webOS is built around the premise of these cards that allow you to multitask but in terms of usability there's not much you can do with just four icons that you can change on the bottom of the webOS interface and finally the iPhone is probably the most simple the most basic uncluttered way of experiencing a smartphone you don't get any choice in how these things look on the screen you can't add any data but again we're probably going to get a big update for the iPhone interface that moves past this just iconic based interface in the near future so that was just a quick comparison of the homescreen interfaces of the four major smartphone operating systems that's it for now