answered
2015-03-14 01:49:35 +0200
I used to have a similar point of view, but as I was using Jolla more and more, soon I grew to prefer it over Harmattan's. The reason is that it allows you to see both the app and home screen completely.
Here is my use case. I always surf the Net with Firefox (for a number of reasons). It has a (kinda persistent) flaw: if the connection is lost, it shows the "connection lost" message, even if 90% of page was already downloaded and I was already able to read the site. This pisses me off to no end when I'm traveling with underground and cellular signal appears and disappears repeatedly. It's always a race between departing train and the loading page. But, if I cancel downloading the page before the "connection lost" message pops up, the already loaded info stays on screen and I can read it until I arrive on the next station.
So, here is what I do: as the train departs, I swipe Firefox sideways until it's 50% opaque and watch the cellular indicator on the home screen and the loading indicator of Firefox simultaneously. If the signal is lost, I just move my finger back to the edge of the screen to restore Firefox and click the X button. If Jolla was behaving like N9, I would
1) have to swipe the app to specific direction in order to see the signal strength indicator (i.e. it's impossible to "partially minimize" the app from left to right in such a way that the indicator is seen - only from right to left)
2) not see a (considerable) part of the app screen, because it is moved outside of the screen.
So, while the MeeGo's method is unarguably more intuitive, the Jolla's is more effective and practical. I am the kind of person who would spend a week learning Vim to become able to edit text more efficiently later, so counter-intuitive UI means nothing for me.
yes, i think with this behaviour especially new users, who are not familar with an ui like this, would much more understand what they are doing. and peeking would be possible as was before. but we should proof if this looks good, i can't imagine how it would look like
Zandi ( 2014-02-02 17:57:08 +0200 )editI know what you mean, and would be interesting to see. The transparent peak though proved very useful for me yesterday, when wanting to type a number from my missed calls to type into a text message. Sure, I could have used copy/paste, but I love those little "can't do that on an iPhone" moments! :)
FishesWillLaugh ( 2014-02-02 21:46:26 +0200 )edit