The open-ezx project launches [LWN.net]

The open-ezx project launches

Posted Oct 19, 2005 17:01 UTC (Wed) by ajross (subscriber, #4563)
In reply to: The open-ezx project launches by bronson
Parent article: The open-ezx project launches

Yup, that's pretty much the deal with this phone too. The killer application is the built-in Opera browser, which works surprisingly well for viewing typical web pages on the 240x320 screen. Everything else is pretty much junk. The email client is a joke (as is IMAP over GPRS). The Qt-based UI is astonishingly slow.

My favorite UI glitch is the "recent calls" list, which shows (no joke) only time of day for all the entries, even those made weeks ago.

But: you can get a shell on it (it's a USB CDC network device with a telnet daemon and samba running out of the box), compile lots of useful gadgets (ntpdate has been very helpful) and have a ton of fun, if you're already a Linux geek.

Unfortunately you can't build Qt programs -- they have a custom version that doesn't play well with the free downlaods. The only mechanism for writing UI software is J2ME. Hopefully the OpenEZX project can help to rectify this -- I joined the list, certainly.

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The open-ezx project launches

Posted Oct 20, 2005 19:11 UTC (Thu) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]

My favorite UI glitch is the "recent calls" list, which shows (no joke)
only time of day for all the entries, even those made weeks ago.

Just to clarify this a little, the Recent Calls log does have the dates of the calls, but you have to click on a call to see its date. Not saying this was a great choice, but many other phones don't include either the date or time in the top-level calls list; it's still better than that (and arguably more useful than just showing the day, at least for the most-common use cases). Even on a QVGA screen, in the normal font, there isn't room for both date and time plus an icon and a moderately long phone number if you want to use a single line (and, thereby, get more calls on a single screen).

The e-mail client may be minimal, but it's better than having none (again, most phones don't) and I found it very useful while traveling in Europe without my laptop. YMMV.

The open-ezx project launches

Posted Oct 20, 2005 19:23 UTC (Thu) by ajross (subscriber, #4563) [Link]

Even on a QVGA screen, in the normal font, there isn't room for both date and time plus an icon and a moderately long phone number if you want to use a single line (and, thereby, get more calls on a single screen).

Nonesense. You do this by giving up precision and showing only the higher order bits:

  17:42   sepreece
  10:23   ajross
  Tues.   Mom
  Tues.   sepreece
  Mon.    ajross
  Sep 21  sepreece
  Sep 11  ajross

This takes maybe 20 lines of code, a few hours, and a little creativity on the part of the author. Quadruple the effort if you want to internationalize it. The fact that it wasn't done tells me that the phone software was written on contract to a rigid and uncreative specification, and that the "designer" was more concerned with checklist features ("recent calls" -- roger that) than working software.

Which is to say: they did it like they did all their other software, and it sucks just as much. Having a linux kernel can't save Motorola from its lack of good design sense.

The open-ezx project launches

Posted Oct 20, 2005 20:54 UTC (Thu) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]

Disclaimer - I work for Motorola. I should have said so in the previous note, but forgot my e-mail address wouldn't be shown. It's not my intention to be an apologist for this product; I was trying to clarify a previous posting that I felt didn't provide enough information. Anything I say here is my personal opinion; I do not speak for Motorola.

Any product designed for a wide range of users is going to satisfy some more than others. Recent Calls is, in particular, an area where studies show that different people use the lists very differently. It's also an area where different geographical regions have different existing practices There are also cognitive-complexity issues in mixing different kinds of values (dates and times) in the same column. Again, it depends on the particular use case that matters most to the way a particular individual uses the phone - how often you use it to answer different kinds of questions - which is why design teams watch how users actually use the phone and apply that knowledge to new designs.

Again, I don't speak for Motorola and I'm not defending this particular decision (I would probably prefer your design, if asked, though it wouldn't make any real difference to the way I use the phone). If you're interested in our design processes, I believe there are papers in the CHI literature and trade press; our design side has gotten a lot of media attention lately.