Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

One specific idea, pre-approved for Y Combinator funding

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 28 posts

Re: One specific idea, pre-approved for Y Combinator funding

#3

Post by rms »

far33d wrote: post #2

Wouldn't this (supposedly) be the iPhone?

The iPhone interface is certainly revolutionary but there's room for another player in the mobile GUI marketplace. I'm not sure how you could make money with this, but it's something useful that users want, so YC would say you can figure out how to make money with it later. Probably by licensing the interface to the major cell phone companies, they're going to want to catch up to the iPhone.

Re: One specific idea, pre-approved for Y Combinator funding

#5

Post by aston »

rms wrote: post #3
far33d wrote: post #2

Wouldn't this (supposedly) be the iPhone?

The iPhone interface is certainly revolutionary but there's room for another player in the mobile GUI marketplace. I'm not sure how you could make money with this, but it's something useful that users want, so YC would say you can figure out how to make money with it later. Probably by licensing the interface to the major cell phone companies, they're going to want to catch up to the iPhone.

I think the challenge here is not to match the iPhone's interface, since that would require matching the iPhone's hardware.

What would be better is a plug-in-able OS that would make the RAZR's menus tolerable (and maybe could be used on phones with even worse hardware).

Re: One specific idea, pre-approved for Y Combinator funding

#6

Post by danw »

rms wrote: post #3
far33d wrote: post #2

Wouldn't this (supposedly) be the iPhone?

The iPhone interface is certainly revolutionary but there's room for another player in the mobile GUI marketplace. I'm not sure how you could make money with this, but it's something useful that users want, so YC would say you can figure out how to make money with it later. Probably by licensing the interface to the major cell phone companies, they're going to want to catch up to the iPhone.

I love the look and feel of the iPhone UI but there are some niggles. The phones main 'dashboard'/start screen wont scale. Every app is an icon on a grid. As soon as you have more applications than screen space there are going to be problems. It's interesting to see that apple also has a poor application launcher UI (fidner) on mac os x too. I wonder if someone will be foolish enough to create a quicksilver equivalent for the iphone?

Re: One specific idea, pre-approved for Y Combinator funding

#7

Post by danw »

aston wrote: post #5
rms wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone interface is certainly revolutionary but there's room for another player in the mobile GUI marketplace. I'm not sure how you could make money with this, but it's something useful that users want, so YC would say you can figure out how to make money with it later. Probably by licensing the interface to the major cell phone companies, they're going to want to catch up to the iPhone.

I think the challenge here is not to match the iPhone's interface, since that would require matching the iPhone's hardware. What would be better is a plug-in-able OS that would make the RAZR's menus tolerable (and maybe could be used on phones with even worse hardware).

The RAZR is quite locked down. I tried to create a better UI for it [this was several years ago when I had a RAZR. worst mobile UI ever] but the problem is that the only way in is to create a java app that has to be launched by the user. This java app is hidden deep inside the menu system your trying to fix.

Nokia S60's on the other hand are a dream to customise. I'm working on a new application launcher for my E61 right now and the difference is stagering. Being able to run python on your phone rather than java or C++ makes development tolerable. Hopefully nokias widgets coming this year will allow access to phone APIs from JS/CSS/HTML, then mobile will be as easy as web apps.

Re: One specific idea, pre-approved for Y Combinator funding

#8

Post by danw »

Check out TAT[0], they make incredible looking mobile UIs. Also check out the concepts from the Nokia design team[1].

[0] http://www.tat.se/conceptlab/

[1] http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=NokiaDesign

(Just realised I'm posting far too much in this story. Mobile UI is a great passion of mine. I think it's been downhill ever since the Nokia 3310. If any one else is passionate about improving the mobile user experience then please contact me at mobilaunch@danshub.com, I wish to pursue a startup in this area soon)

Post reply on HN