).So Matias Duarte was hired by Google after having worked for Palm on WebOS and multiple other mobile OSs before that. Typically speaking he is renowned for being the mobile OS UI god.
I don't agree. Let me explain. I have picked up WebOS at least two times. Something people like to claim from the rooftops is the most user intuitive mobile OS around. I'd like to smack those people in the face. I'd like to think that while I'm not the biggest geek around I am for the most part a big geek.... I can not use WebOS. I have tried, and every time I do I get stuck wherever the hell the last person left off. That isn't intuitive.
Don't get me wrong. Matias Duarte is a smart person. That much is abundantly clear to me based on this interview ( http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/07/excl ... ycomb-tab/ ), but his direction kind of scares me. Like for example he wants to make it possible to get rid of hardware buttons. While I completely understand his desire to do so and if I had a say in the matter I wouldn't be able to justify a "No" vote, the lack of hardware buttons scare me (especially when the system decides to freeze up and you can't interact with the touch screen).
The good news is of course that Android is established, and that even the most intense changes will only be single changes in particular areas, which would make the learning curve easy, or even for people like myself enjoyable (who doesn't love new features?). These new changes do potentially scare me, but I guess at the end of the day I'm more excited to see what can happen to Android.
The amazing thing about Android is that it is hardly 2 years old and has become the most active mobile OS in that short amount of time. Over that same amount of time Andy Rubin and his team have evolved it from a frankly a very weak OS to a juggernaut, and I continue to be excited to see what else is in store, because where most products would now, or in the near future start to become content and slow down, Android shows no signs of slowing down. Frankly I don't know who the bigger genius was - Andy Rubin, or the people at Google who realized Andy Rubin was a god in the mobile OS space.
