The Dual-Mode Active Standby
As you know, I recently reviewed the Sony Ericsson W960i, a Symbian-based UIQ handset with a touchscreen display and 8GB internal flash memory. It’s a Walkman-branded device, which somewhat compares to Nokia’s Nseries product line, being more consumer-oriented.
You can imagine how elated I was to discover that the W960i sports an Active Standby mode, just like my N95 does. However, I was even more elated to find that it not only supports a single-mode Active Standby, but dual-mode! There is a user-controlled setting that determines whether the Walkman music player is shown on the Active Standby or if it is in ‘business mode’, in which the current and future calendar events, email, to-do list, etc are shown. Fantastic!
Nokia and S60 take alot of heat for the Active Standby on the Nseries and Eseries handsets. The Eseries, to date, offer much more customisable Active Standby screens, while the Nseries don’t do much aside from show the calendar and to-do notes. More plugins have been added, such as the WiFi searching, Internet/device searching, and other information, but it’s not user-configurable. We’re just stuck with whatever Nokia gives us.
Users are also constantly barraging the Eseries and Nseries discrimination, rightfully pointing out that businesspeople have livecs after 5. How great would it be if Nokia/S60 were able to adopt the UIQ method of a dual-mode Active Standby display? Even better, what if you could schedule when it changed? Between 7am and 6pm, say, you could see your recent emails, calendar, scheduling, and that sort of thing. From 6pm till 6am, and on Saturdays and Sundays, instead you had ready access to your music, maybe the Share Online notification, and the weather.
I know that S60v3, Feature Pack 2 is supposed to offer the ability, in some form or fashion, to edit this. Let’s hope these better customization options are included in that.
Not to sound like a total usability arse, but that’s not a smart idea on SE’s part, nor on Nokia’s. The Active Standby screens should be plugin-able to allow for the toggling on/off of plugins related to the content you speak about. Having two screens is an extra step for the user. Allow a person to setup the default plugins with initially setting up the mobile, then from there, if there is something downloaded that would be able to take advantage of that screen, allow for the API calls for that to happen.
Adding the versatility to do more on the Active Standby/Today screen is a good thing; adding complexity to make it happen isn’t.