Monday, October 4, 2004
Do You Actually Use Landscape Support?
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 11:00 AM
After reading about the work that developers are having to put into making their apps landscape compatible, I came to realize something: since starting to use the Axim X30 a few months back, I have not, even once, used landscape mode in a real-world scenario. I've tested it out, shown it to people, but I've never used it myself in day to day scenarios. Why? Two reasons I think:
Having to navigate away from what you're doing and do the six-tap procedure needed to switch orientation is cumbersome. Why is it that Microsoft makes these critical features, such as changing screen orientation and shutting down applications, so difficult to do?
Landscape mode doesn't offer me any significant advantages. Because the user interface on the Pocket PC is so large (toolbars, icons, text, etc.) switching to landscape mode feels like it actually reduces the amount of workspace I have on the Pocket PC. And because 320 pixels isn't much bigger than 240 pixels when it comes to viewing Web sites designed for 800 pixel-wide screens, I can't say that landscape enhances my Web viewing (the one-column view rocks for that!).
Let's try a user survey below about landscape use. Here's the caveat on this survey: I only want to hear from people who are using their devices in 320 x 240 or 640 x 480 landscape mode. If you're running a resolution hack (SE_VGA or other) to give you true 640 x 480 resolution, you're of course going to find landscape mode useful. I'm interested in hearing from people who are using the devices with stock Microsoft landscape functionality, because I have a hunch most of you are like me: landscape sounded nice on paper, but in real life it's less than thrilling.
Having to navigate away from what you're doing and do the six-tap procedure needed to switch orientation is cumbersome. Why is it that Microsoft makes these critical features, such as changing screen orientation and shutting down applications, so difficult to do?
Landscape mode doesn't offer me any significant advantages. Because the user interface on the Pocket PC is so large (toolbars, icons, text, etc.) switching to landscape mode feels like it actually reduces the amount of workspace I have on the Pocket PC. And because 320 pixels isn't much bigger than 240 pixels when it comes to viewing Web sites designed for 800 pixel-wide screens, I can't say that landscape enhances my Web viewing (the one-column view rocks for that!).
Let's try a user survey below about landscape use. Here's the caveat on this survey: I only want to hear from people who are using their devices in 320 x 240 or 640 x 480 landscape mode. If you're running a resolution hack (SE_VGA or other) to give you true 640 x 480 resolution, you're of course going to find landscape mode useful. I'm interested in hearing from people who are using the devices with stock Microsoft landscape functionality, because I have a hunch most of you are like me: landscape sounded nice on paper, but in real life it's less than thrilling.
