Palm OS User Interface Guidelines (2003) [pdf] (opens in new tab)

True. And of course there is no problem with other stores like fdroid.

But somehow google play is different, which is why I added the highly integrated part.

I think fdroid actually helps google play by going so far the other direction that it excludes most apps, so you cannot have fdroid as your only app store. (to be clear I highly approve of fdroids policy and would not change it)

But there are even other app stores that cover both bases, allowing all the non free apos from play store and yet not being google. But then the problem is trust. I trust the apps in say the ubuntu repos and in fdroid, but say Aurora store? ehh, maybe? I would normally not even slightly consider installing apks from a 3rd party like that, but I got an eink tablet that can't install google play, so was more or less forced to try it just on that device. But that's not my phone. I don't have or do anything important or sensitive on it.

So while I am still sure that Google is doing multiple things that keep play store practically unavoidable necessity, it's probably also a combination of other, kind of coincidental factors too like fdroids strict principles and no obvious basis to trust any other store. Maybe some of those other factors are not immutable.

Maybe it's just an impression thing or a failure of marketing and Aurora is exactly the answer and exactly as trustworthy as any official major linux distro repo, and I just don't have that impression for some reason.

I'd want to add "Designing Interactions" by Bill Moggridge (IDEO, designer of the first 'laptop' computer):

https://www.amazon.com/-/en/Designing-Interactions-Press-Bil...

I adore Tog on Interface by Bruce Tognazzini, who led the earliest editions of Apple's HIG. He explores ideas that have been lost to time, like tailoring an interface to a user's personality.

I wonder how much of their own guidelines they violated with MacOS Tahoe.

It's on my list as well. I really appreciate the MacOS handles progressive disclosure, something most environments either get wrong or misunderstand (caugh caugh GNOME caugh caugh)

ETA: One thing I forgot to mention is how playful MacOS was (and to an extent still is). They recognised that the easiest way to learn something is by messing with it and seeing what happens. It also caused it to be very approachable through what I like to call 'professional unprofessionalism'. It wasn't afraid to use silly metaphors or graphics to get a point across without crossing the line into seeming out of place in a work environment or feeling infantilising

I read it and it partially inspired the entire project. It made me realise how inaccessible modern design is despite being held up as best in class and easy to use

The real problem is you can’t have a DE separate from the programs that run therein, so everything just apes windows ;or sometimes macOS; badly.

To really break free you have build all the programs too, with the new UI paradigm.

IMHO if you can afford some setup time just skipping the DE entirely is still the best option. My i3wm setup plus some scripts and services was super lean and efficient. Still buried it for reasons I can't remember, switched distro too, but when I find the time I'm eager to create a tiling WM, wayland native UI on NixOS again.

Please can we just have Windows 98 again. Not the kernel, kernels are better now, but UIs have only gone downhill from there. Win9x was peak "it just works" (as long as it doesn't crash so please, no win9x kernels)

Certainly not a reference, rather I'm looking at what each platform does good and trying to combine them in a way that empowers the user rather than fearing them

1) I'll be sure to reach out

2) You still use AOL? Is it just you've had it long enough to not want to switch or do you actively choose to use it for some reason I might've missed?

I love KDE, especially since Plasma 6 release but oh man is the Settings program poorly designed and littered with settings 99% of users will never need.

So many options placed seemingly at random. Similar options like lockscreen, login screen and desktop background settings spread out over 3 different main categories.

Customization options so extensive and granular one can only wonder about their purpose. Even in their latest release blog post they chose to brag about the new ability to change intensity/thickness of frames. I don't think most people care about stuff like this.

Until recently defaults were straight up insane like single click to open folders/launch programs, touchpad scroll being inverted etc.

If you navigate to Settings -> Sound you'll be presented with some options but also buttons in the top right that will open a mostly empty screen with a few additional options. Why not split the whole page into parts and present everything on a single screen? Why not tabs?

Sometimes those buttons in the top right have different behavior. Some will open a whole new page ansd sometimes it's just a popup and other times it's a dropdown.

And oh man just navigating Settings sucks. Main list consists of single and two level options with two level options opening another, mostly empty vertical pane so the actual size of the right pane changes with top text jumping around depending on what you press. So why some settings have two levels and some have tabs and some have those junky top right buttons that need their own back button to show up in the interface whenever they're pressed? I'm not for or against any of those design choices but why all of them at random? I just want some goddamn consistency.

Cherry on top is the bloat most distros choose to install alongside Plasma desktop. Dragon Player? kMail? Does anyone even use these? I dislike Gnome a lot but at least their preinstalled software is minimal, elegant and actively supported/developed. Most KDE programs look like they stopped receiving updates in 2008.

I still think it's a great DE but there's much room for improvement.

Can only speak for myself but the problem is that with KDE there's always stuff I need to go in and change because I don't like the defaults, and then I fall into a rabbit hole of endless tweaking from which it's difficult to escape because no matter how much time I spend I can never get it to be just right.

It's quality issue from my experience. Nobody ever bothered with polishing the defaults and the "option bombardment" is really bad incoherent design instead of having too many things.

I remember spending hours customising the KDE 5 task bar clock, trying to correct the padding. Eventually I gave up customising it and switched to GNOME.

KDE app customisation is also a mess compared to something like foobar2000.

The wealth of things in the KDE settings are things people will likely never change or are things that can be tweaked but don't necessarily need to be. For example, let's look at GNOMEs settings app. It has menus and options for all the things that the average user needs (network settings, mouse and display options, etc.) but leaves out, for example, things that people need to change for specific workflows (like the option to have focus follow the mouse). A settings app should let the user set things needed for the functions of a computer to work properly while separating deeper level customization for those who want it.

I think emacs does a very good job at this. You can configure most of the settings people need to be productive in a text editor from the menu bar while leaving the extremely rich customization of emacs to the options menu and elisp config files

Yeah, but it has the same issue I have with elementary: it uses a toolkit nobody uses or would use for anything else

I can give a list of ones I'm studying CUA (87 and 91 versions) Awaita Breeze Material (primarily 3, but also 2 and 1) Apples HIG Microsofts HIG and Motifs HIG Some of these aren't technically HIGs and are rather "design-systems" but they all contain the commonality of trying to set up a consistent model for user-interaction in their environment

they still, to this day, pretend the concept of a system tray doesn't exist. unfortunately applications expect one, so they put it behind a menu in a dropdown with a picture of a ghost so you know an app is hiding somewhere

it's insane

Its not that (thats actually really good) its the application design being unsuitable for complex tasks

I agree to an extent. I have some problems with it but I appreciate the way it approached new users. Instead of instantly trying to accommodate them it instead presented itself to the user in ways that let the user learn, sometimes the hard way.

Nah - peak was Windows 7.

Still in the planning phases. I've had many ideas and am excited to share them

Even better, IIRC on the Treo the phone key would turn it on?

I had a Treo 600 and and then 650 from around 2003 until 2007 when the iPhone came out. The 600 was among the best devices I've ever had. Rock solid, did exactly what it said it did. The 650 would crash randomly just sitting there. Not quite as bad as a Windows phone of the era, but a substantial regression.

You can buy styluses for iPhone (or any smartphone) but they have round squishy tips for the capacitive touch screen. They aren't any better than a finger, probably cause the display is tuned for a finger. I only use mine when phone or tablet is on stand.

Apple could put the technology for Apple Pencil in iPhone, but probably not worth the cost for number of people who would use it.

In fact my keyboard is still broken from that "misdetected keyboard button press" bug they introduced some time in iOS26. Gotta see whether that's fixed in 26.3. Embarrassing!

Typical smartphone aspect ratios are too awkward to be great for use with a stylus in my opinion, and is exacerbated by bezels having been all but eliminated.

If I were to design a smartphone for stylus use, I think it'd look something like an iPad mini, with its squarish ratio and thicker bezels, shrunken down by ~20%.

I still use Palm Desktop (4.1.4, not even 6.2.2!) to manage my contacts.