The image on the right made the rounds on the internet, via theNextWeb, this week. TheNextWeb asked people whether this is a step in the right direction, or a step in the wrong direction.


Personally I think that the direction is right-ish. It's a step in the right direction, i.e. there needs to be a notification screen on the iPhone and iPod Touch, but this isn't quite it. For one thing this screen is highly reminiscent of the Home Screen on Windows Mobile. The one thing I hated about my Windows Mobile Home Screen was the fact that if I wanted some information I would have to scroll down. This kind of defeats the purpose of a Home Screen as a HUD (heads up display) which is what it's supposed to be - a quick overview of what is happening.


If information is going to be on the HUD (or Home Screen if you will), it needs to all be visible and not scrollable.


In addition, I think that the HUD needs to be the lock screen and not the first screen you see when you unlock your device. The point is that you don't have to unlock in order to see what's happening - who called, who messaged, what appointments are coming up and what the weather is. All your quick access information would just be there, on the lock screen. Since it's supposed to be on the lock/unlock screen (in my opinion), then you don't need the bottom row (dock) of icons.


I do suppose that some people would want to have access to the HUD when their phone is unlocked. I can see some use case scenarios for that. In that case I would say that a HUD could be implemented in the spotlight screen. If you need to do a spotlight search, you can tap on the search bar and the keyboard comes up, otherwise, the bottom portion of the spotlight screen can be used to house information such as current weather in a specified location, upcoming events, incoming messages, missed calls and so on.


While the design is a little flawed (they are copying windows mobile for heaven's sake ;-) ), I still think that a HUD is needed on Mobile OS X.