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This is where the disagreement comes in. (Keep in mind that this is one person's view and I'm upfront about this being a personal set of opinions.) The Hero looks very nice, but it suffers from having a lot of unnecessary junk. It's shaped oddly. Its buttons look very cheap. That back looks like something out of the 80s. I don't like the plastic iPhone back, but the Hero's is worse. The UI looks very chaotic (except…
You do make a strong point, though as I see it, you take an usability point of view rather than a pure eye-candy one. I have to admit I have not looked at the usability of Sense UI for the Hero with such scrunity, and I also have to admit you make some very good points. It is true that the iPhone's UI is simple, streamlined, consistent, and stays out of your way (most of the time) while managing to be nice on the eye…
This isn't to say refinements and improvements aren't welcome (which Apple has done with the iPhone), but a truly good design/UI will stand for years. (Great ones will last decades.) For another consumer-electronics based example, when was the last time Apple dramatically changed the UI on scroll-wheel iPods?