Now This Is the Android Phone We Want: Naoto Fukasawa's INFOBAR A01

We're just entering our 2nd week of carrying around a Windows Phone 7 model after a 5 year sabbatical and it's notable how quickly and easily we've become comfortable using the tile-based GUI (more about this next week with a full review). But one thing we've noted after a week is wanting more control over customizing the tiles on our screen…much like this Japan-only Android handset, which appears to be the lovechild of Windows Phone 7 and Apple Widgets.

Japan's carrier KDDI au tapped the expertise of our favorite Japanese industrial designer, Naoto Fukasawa, to create a 3.7" qHD 960x540 pixel handset in conjunction with a GUI which they call, iida UI.

An 8 megapixel CMOS sensor camera for photos, Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS inside, and available in four designer colour theme layout. But most notably a dazzling customizable tile-based user interface makes us hope domestic designers take note and "borrow" some of these ideas and offer a divergent path away from the overly masculine direction of Android devices offered thus far, because in likelihood, we'll never see the A01 here in the US.

Comments (5)

I don't understand. with the launchers available today for the android, you could create this tiled look...

Kaz: we'd argue most of the ones we've seen don't look as thoroughly thought out/integrated as we'd like. Customization options built upon the foundation set by someone specializing in user interface beats out patched UI.

Now that's a nice phone.

I agree with Kaz, with Launcher Pro & about an hour browsing the market this look could easily be replicated and even bested. That's the beauty of Android, you can wait for someone to design an interface that you like, or do it yourself.
Personally I prefer to have full control over my user interface because often specialized user interfaces focus on things that I personally don't care for (ie social media seems to be the huge focus nowadays).

Greg: The problem is that none of the apps that you will install on this phone will look anywhere as integrated. This UI is certainly more integrated than Motorola/LG/Samsung's efforts, but you will still be taken back to old Android uglyland once you launch an app.

The real solution is just to get Windows Phone 7. :)