[From Neil Tomlinson] I'm an interface snob, it's true, I admit it wholeheartedly. I'm a fan of both PalmOS and Windows Mobile but in recent years I have been left wondering why their interfaces seem so dated, I mean they both seem like long lost siblings of Windows 3.1...which was fine 10 years ago, but now with more CPU power than NASA had when they first put Neil Armstrong on the moon you would think the interface of your smartphone could be a bit better than an OS that came out way back in the early 80s.
Clearly HTC had that same thought, hence they went to the old drawing board and came up with TouchFlo, which for now will only be on the HTC Touch. HTC says the TouchFlo project had been started over 2 years ago and is in no way, shape or form a reaction to the Apple iPhone, I guess we'll just have to take their word on that one. HTC also goes on to say they had 100 of their best and most creative employees developing TouchFlo and all I can is if it took them over 2 years to develop this half baked today screen app, none of us have a right to knock Microsoft for taking 5 years to develop Windows Vista.
Now I'm the first person to not write off anything by just watching a video or two, after all your first impressions can be affected by expectations, which many times can be unrealistic ones. But after reading some of the early reviews from reviews that had the opportunity to test the HTC Touch, I see that my first impressions of TouchFlo were correct, which is to, very unimpressive.
"Why have companies with the experience of HTC and Microsoft still not woken up to simple concepts, like the fact that interface consistency is the key to moving quickly and efficiently around a mobile environment?"
That's a direct quote from Marek Pawlowski over at mobileuserexperience.com, since TouchFlo is more or less just a Today screen application you often end up in situations where you're bounced back and forth from an interface made for a thumb to an interface made where you need a Stylus….which more or less means the TouchFlo interface is pointless and just comes off as a knee-jerk reaction to Apple's iPhone which has an interface which has a user interface made with the idea of never using a stylus.
In the end I applaud HTC for the effort, but the execution is embarrassingly bad and in my opinion did not justify a press conference of any kind. In all fairness I don't think Microsoft gives handset makers much ability to change/tweak/hack the Windows Mobile interface so there isn't really much HTC could have done and real interface changes can only come from Microsoft...but still TouchFlo reflects very badly on HTC if this is the best they can do after 2+ years of work from their most creative workers.
