The Mobile Spoon has an informative review of the Blackberry Storm which includes the pros and cons of the haptic (touch ) feedback mechanism it employs. There is also a great techno-porno shot of the inside of the Blackberry Storm showing a single bubble button on the back that provides the sensation of depressing individual areas of the screen. According to the review it works well but not so much at the perifery of the screen which makes sense. Still its an elegantly simple solution.What I really like about this solution is not only the feeling of clicking, which doesn't really have value in anything other than tap and hold type gestures, but the fact that you can hover over an item, get feedback with highlilght, without activating it. That's something that the iPhone doesn't handle very well. Nice work guys!
1 comments:
Hi Richard,
Great point about hovering. We should start to see force-sensitive devices by the end of the year that take care of this issue!
For me, the problem with the Storm is that the "button" feels unstable. Force required at the edge is slightly different from that at the sensor...
Haptics, in the traditional sense would be more granular, enabling the user to not look at the screen to know what they are doing, so I see the storm as more of a marketing ploy. Until there is meaningful haptic feedback, pixel-based affordances will be just as effective.
On this line of thought, there isn't a reason for the storm to not have 4 force feedback sensors...one on each corner. This could lead to some very interesting experiences.
~Jonathan
www.pointanddo.com
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