If there was ever any doubt that Mozilla could pull off something amazing with Firefox Mobile, this video pretty much stomps all over it.
Aza Raskin, head of user experience for Mozilla Labs, put this user interface concept demo on his blog this morning. Simply put: it rocks my face off. Their idea for how to handle tabs just about annihilates everything we’ve seen from other mobile browsers thus far, and the idea of tying nav controls/tab access to horizontal panning as a means of maximizing screen real estate usage is ingenious.
If they’re putting this much thought into the other aspects of Firefox Mobile, WebKit oughtta be shakin’ in its boots.
OK It’s a nice concept, but doesn’t it look very expensive when considering the power need for all the zoom (in/out/around) features? Battery life is a hard fact you have to face when developing for mobile…
Maybe you’ve not heard of Clutter WebKit. It’s much the same kind of useless blingy stuff.
Like most brilliant ideas, the genius is in the simplicity. I want this now.
Bruce — easy to see why you consider it blingy, but there is actually real interface design theory behind it:
http://safari.oreilly.com/0201379376/ch06lev1sec2