Experience Oriented OS on Location Aware Device

Stumble on this blog post from Engadget:
Locus OS concept video shows the future of computing… right now, which mentions about a UI concept video created by Barton Smith (Vimeo, Behance, Twitter). Although the visual is quite appealing, what interests me is the following ideas:

1. to organize our computer usage into experience-based, rather than application-based. Users can focus on the actual content and function of interest, freeing them from remembering the application that is actually working under the hood. Barton suggests six group of experiences and their specific actions:
   • Media: music, movices, tv, podcasts, radio, images, texts, marketplace
   • Memories: capture, record, view, share
   • Connections: phone, sms, browser, mail, maps, calendar, contacts, web apps
   • Documents: create, explore, marketplace
   • Creations: create, explore, marketplace
   • Games: console games, portable games, community, marketplace
2. At #1:00, the video shows that user can organize the relevant resources base on context (project, time, name, location), seeing a bunch of papers and folders that you can physically grab and interact with them, instead of seeing the computer files as uni-size icons.
3. Desktop is location aware, and the device can automatically switch to different desktop profile base on the location or context: kitchen, study, driving, public transport…etc

3D desktop with physic engine

3D interactive desktop with physic engine is not a new concept. BumpTop is an application that is already available with a free version and a pro version for $29. However, it is still using the desktop/icon analogy, just making it more visually appealing.

image source: BumpTop. See video at the end of this post.

Hardware

On top of the Locus OS, Barton Smith has an industrial design concept called Stream way back at 2008, which is a mobile device designed for such context based usage. Some of the visions in this design seem to be realized by Apple’s iPad.

Speaking of iPad, it is indeed an interesting device that is technically capable of creating this kind of location-awared, task oriented workflow experience. Unfortunately, Apple only ports the existing iPhone OS to it, which is still very application-based. Furthermore, the tens of thousands of apps available in App Store, which Apple considered the strength of iPhone/touch OS, can be seen exactly as a weakness too. The current SpringBoard app launcher only limits user to have 9 pages of apps in it. User must also remember the page number in order to correctly locate the app that he/she has manually placed, if not randomly dropped to an empty spot by the App Store. Yes, there’s a Spotlight search feature built-in to the OS, but user must remember the correct app name to be able to find it. Thanks to some creative app writers, some of the application names are just impossible to remember. (Shazam, Chomp, Echofon…these are not English!)

Also, Apple locks down the hardware so that no one can develop such a third-party OS. The only possible ways would be to either make it for jail-broken iPad, or an big app that sits on top of the native iPhone OS.

More about OS

Further thoughts on the task oriented OS and file organization method:

PersonalBrain – a file/resources/knowledge organizer that uses non-linear, mind mapping technique. The same file can be linked from different parent node, as well as having multiple child nodes.

iPhone SpringBoard 2.0 Concept by AskTOG, Nielsen Norman Group – an improvement on iPhone SpringBoard app launcher that allows user to group apps based on context: home, work…etc. This is resonant with Locus OS’s multiple desktop profile.

Locus OS concept video:

BumpTop video tour: