This is pathetic. Motorola and HTC, with their circus vixen’s arsenal of makeup slathered over Google’s native UI, ought to be ashamed. This idiotic LG/Prada luxury phone that nobody will buy has one thing going for it: it looks nice.
The hardware is nothing special — black rectangle, tacky branded back, gloss, etc.
But this skinned version of Gingerbread eschews all the aesthetic horrors, the orgiastic widget-dom of MOTOBLUR and Sense. Prada (or whoever cooked it up on its behalf) actually brings something Android has never shown as an OS: taste. Rather than looking like a crate of Duplo blocks turned upside-down, the elegant monochrome theme is restrained, clean, and beautiful. It’s coherent, as if someone thought the whole thing through. No visual tricks, no eye candy, no animated swirls and koi pond splashes. It’s designed.
Sadly, it’s trapped on a phone with crap specs tied to a fatuous marketing tie-in. The oil barons that will own this won’t appreciate the rarity of its sophisticated menus. I only hope someone at LG realises they have an Android phone skinned wonderfully, and let that proliferate like a million knockoff Prada bags.
Every Android phone should have this much thought put into the way its software looks. Every. Single. One. [Prada/LG Luxury HQ Palace]
Simon
Wednesday, December 28, 2011 at 3:32 PMWho would have thought.
Joshua
Wednesday, December 28, 2011 at 3:37 PMMeh. Someone will will put out a ‘go launcher’ theme soon enough to replicate this. If you like black and white, then this may suit you, but I like colour! And btw, stock ICS has the best looking android interface.
Sam
Wednesday, December 28, 2011 at 3:41 PMI’m going to sound like an Apple fanboi for this – but it doesnt matter how you skin your phone, the general aesthic of Android apps is all over the place – app/icon designs range from designed to compliment Gingerbread/ICS, to iOS look-a-likes and ports, to completely unique and unusual concoctions.
Don’t get me long, I love my Nexus, but as far as skinning is concerned, I’ve long since learnt that it’s hardly worth it because I’m doomed to having a mess of various visual styles and different stylized icons.
anonymouse
Wednesday, December 28, 2011 at 3:49 PMThat’s why you get an app like Desktop Visualizer that makes any App or Action have a customisable icon.
Sam
Wednesday, December 28, 2011 at 4:07 PMI’m well aware of such apps however two points:
a. I shouldn’t to use one.
ii. Any such icon packs I’ve used before invariably leave a few icons unskinned, looking ugly, and sticking out like dogs-balls against all the other themed icons.
I’m sticking by my guns on this one until a far more compelling argument otherwise is made.
Ozoneocean
Wednesday, December 28, 2011 at 6:28 PMI don’t really get your argument- App icons are produced by the app designers and can look like pretty much anything. That goes for stuff made for any platform.
Chazz
Thursday, December 29, 2011 at 2:57 AMShouldn’t have to use one? Just like one shouldn’t have to jailbreak their iPhone to get the most out of it?
Both sides have flaws but for me? I’d rather minor aesthetic flaws than having to void my warranty just to get something working as it should.
Ozoneocean
Wednesday, December 28, 2011 at 6:24 PMI’ll have to strongly disagree with the author her- Sense is quite elegant and simple, which is why it’s by far the most loved of the Android interfaces.
This Prada phone is also not too bad in looks. The black and white interface is simply a tribute to their first Prada phone and the first real slab style touchscreen phone. They did well to revive it.
Marcus
Wednesday, December 28, 2011 at 9:28 PMReminds me of System 6.
Charles
Thursday, December 29, 2011 at 12:10 AMMan black and white… can’t really go wrong there. Nice lookin’ gal that’s for sure but yes… specs… and no doubt it would cost an arm and perhaps a leg too.
smac
Thursday, December 29, 2011 at 8:13 AMSo you are surprised a Prada phone looks better than one designed by some geeks in a lab?
Ed Powers
Thursday, December 29, 2011 at 3:48 PMOoooooooooooo, the minimalisim, and its shiny. Oooooooooooooo.
So basically a iTool fan rote this article.
Gg
Thursday, December 29, 2011 at 11:39 PMYou. Leary don’t understand design at all… iOS is most Deffinatly minimal. It’s overtly glossy, gradients everywhere and a design that is 5years to old already.
Minimal design is the hardest design, because you have oohing to hide behind. There is no surprise that so much effort was put into a fashion branded device. Who would have thought that a design house would have put effort into design!