Photo by Android Community
Just when you thought the Android Project has fallen asleep a bit Google unveils some news at the I/O Conference to keep the rumours alive. Actually they showed their current version of the Android Platform on a Touchscreen Device similar to the iPhone.
(Via Android Community)
A new suit for the interface
The new UI uses lots of the iPhone metaphors like the home screen and the Shortcut Bar. They added some enhancements like the zooming interaction in the browser, dragging of the status bar and a more secure unlock gesture. Also you have to remember that this just one representation of the platform and that another phone vendor could just provide a totally different User Experience using the same underlying services and frameworks.
Street View
So let’s get to the point. The mobile Street View seems to be amazing and shows some of the potential of the whole project bringing a new level of services to the mobile world. The cool thing is that it works with a built in compass so you can actually turn around and manipulate the view on the screen.
What’s next?
Despite the few improvements in the interface design the overall potential of the project still seems big to me. The openness of the platform and the driving force of an innovative company like Google seems to be
a powerful combination.