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Sigh... Yes, let's take a GUI that has been in use for 9 years, successful the entire time, and revamp it.
Let's burdon the authors with having to actually have graphic designer degrees and include fatter resources in their binaries.
I'm all for simplifying the interface, but turning it into XP (note the EVER INCREASING BUTTON SIZE) or OSX (no, we do NOT need transparency on a handheld PDA, ever) is not the right direction.
And I personally take issue with the "Tabs are the way to solve everything" mantra everyone is spewing these days. Tabs on a PDA are most-definitely NOT the best way to represent the interface. I tried one of those tabbed launchers, and when I was done sorting my applications, I had over 18 tabs. Great, so now how do you solve the problem of scrolling across a tab bar? I've seen launchers add an overflow dropdown, a chevron to scroll to the right and left, etc.
Nope, tabbed interfaces on a PDA is definitely the wrong direction.
And I'm saying this with conviction to prove a point: Without third-party support for your platform, its dead. Period.
Let the third-party developers write those spiffy launcher replacements (like they already do). Let them write the skinning applications (like they already do). Let them do the spiffy customization of the interface. Let the SDK behind the development be powerful enough to allow it, but don't enforce a particular design on users who may not even work that way.
If you drop a tabbed launcher on PalmOS by default, and people like myself don't like it, what do we do? Buy a non-tabbed one from a third party? Now you're back to Microsoft's paradigm: Provide a sub-par default, and get users to spend EVEN MORE money to bring it back to proper functionality.
Interesting ideas, but then again that's why concept cars never hit the streets. It gets people thinking outside the box... er, PDA. <grin>
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