Brandon Miniman
11-25-2006, 05:41 PM
The scroll wheel becomes of use when you’re moving through emails, websites, and menu lists. It’s got a good tactile feedback – each scroll movement is an increment (you can feel a “notch”) and so scrolling is precise.
One-handed usability in the Smartphone OS is key, so when OEMs include utilities and applications to improve one-handed usability, it’s very welcomed.
Samsung programmed the scroll wheel to also an interesting shortcut menu that displays on the right side of the device if you hold press the wheel for about two seconds. You can choose whether the shortcuts are displayed as a list or as icons. There’s a lot of versatility as to what you can have in the list, as seen in the configuration utility (bottom image). You can set a shortcut to any folder, file, application, even website URL. I haven’t found myself using this feature very often because calling it up requires a tap-and-hold of two seconds, which is a long time when you’re trying to access something quickly. Perhaps a registry hack could remedy this. I rather have a Today plugin that displays all my important shortcuts, though the advantage to the quick-launch application is that you can use it while using other programs.
Navigation: Day 1 (http://pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=news&id=3914), Day 2 (http://pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=news&id=3919), Day 3 (http://pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=news&id=3920), Day 4 (http://pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=news&id=3921)
One-handed usability in the Smartphone OS is key, so when OEMs include utilities and applications to improve one-handed usability, it’s very welcomed.
Samsung programmed the scroll wheel to also an interesting shortcut menu that displays on the right side of the device if you hold press the wheel for about two seconds. You can choose whether the shortcuts are displayed as a list or as icons. There’s a lot of versatility as to what you can have in the list, as seen in the configuration utility (bottom image). You can set a shortcut to any folder, file, application, even website URL. I haven’t found myself using this feature very often because calling it up requires a tap-and-hold of two seconds, which is a long time when you’re trying to access something quickly. Perhaps a registry hack could remedy this. I rather have a Today plugin that displays all my important shortcuts, though the advantage to the quick-launch application is that you can use it while using other programs.
Navigation: Day 1 (http://pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=news&id=3914), Day 2 (http://pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=news&id=3919), Day 3 (http://pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=news&id=3920), Day 4 (http://pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=news&id=3921)