So yesterday I'm at the one of the mobile phone stores shooting the S about android with one of the employees. They tell me that they recently took delivery of Garmin's new android phone running 2.1. they said they weren't supposed to show it since the phone is not yet available for sale, but he offered to pull one out and show it to me anyway.
The phone was brought out and turned on. Nice little machine. It seemd nice and solid with very clean styling, but nothing revolutionary going on. Once he turned it on though the trouble began. For some strange reason, Garmin has saddled their pretty little phone with the world's worst UI over android. the main page is this static folder thing on the left 2/3s of the screen, with a vertical sliding doc on the right. the interface takes you to garmin's preinstalled apps, and you can choose one of them to jump to the android desk tops. the problem is that in their infinite wisdom Gramin didn't set up the android desktop as the default. To go anywhere on this POS, you have to go through the home screen, which, as you guessed, is the stupid folder thing Garmin added to android. I was like, WTF, and the store clerks were laughing. They agreed that they loved android, but couldn't believe that they were selling such a crappy ui with this garmin. It really is too bad, since the phone itself was nice enough. Some companies really have no business getting into products they are unfamiliar with.
The phone was brought out and turned on. Nice little machine. It seemd nice and solid with very clean styling, but nothing revolutionary going on. Once he turned it on though the trouble began. For some strange reason, Garmin has saddled their pretty little phone with the world's worst UI over android. the main page is this static folder thing on the left 2/3s of the screen, with a vertical sliding doc on the right. the interface takes you to garmin's preinstalled apps, and you can choose one of them to jump to the android desk tops. the problem is that in their infinite wisdom Gramin didn't set up the android desktop as the default. To go anywhere on this POS, you have to go through the home screen, which, as you guessed, is the stupid folder thing Garmin added to android. I was like, WTF, and the store clerks were laughing. They agreed that they loved android, but couldn't believe that they were selling such a crappy ui with this garmin. It really is too bad, since the phone itself was nice enough. Some companies really have no business getting into products they are unfamiliar with.