After acquiring the design firm The Astonishing Tribe last year, RIM finally has something to show for it in the form of these scrapbooking and weather apps for the Playbook tablet. They’re simple, but also extremely polished and intuitive, taking full advantage of the tablet hardware. Hopefully this is a good sign for the future of the Blackberry platform.
Well isn’t this interesting. Today, RIM announced its acquisition of The Astonishing Tribe, the interface gurus played a big part in defining Android’s look in its early stages. The BlackBerrys of the future just got a whole lot prettier.
newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http://www.youtube.com/v/g7_mOdi3O5E&hl=en&fs=1&fmt=22","customParams":[] ,"width":570,"height":400,"ratio":0.824,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube","wrap":true,"agegate":false} );
The ever-impressive Swedish interface gurus The Astonishing Tribe just posted a new video envisioning what kinds of screens we’ll be using in the year 2014. They stretch fluidly and share seamlessly, and I want to use them right now.
newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http://www.youtube.com/v/5GqJHaNRlas&hl=en&fs=1&fmt=22","customParams":[] ,"width":570,"height":412,"ratio":0.824,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube"} );
The Astonishing Tribe’s latest demo is Recognizr, an app that blends Polar Rose’s face recognition tech with augmented reality and social networking – point your phone’s camera at somebody’s face, and their contact info and social networks will magically appear.
The Astonishing Tribe, the design firm that more or less defined the look and feel of Android the first time around, has built an entirely new homescreen interface for the OS, in 3D. It’s alternately beautiful, gratuitous and bizarre.
Fuse is what Synaptics – who probably made the trackpad you’re swirling your finger on and maybe your phone’s touchscreen – says the next generation of touch phones will be like: You’ll be squeezing, touching and stroke the phone, all over.
An interface concept doesn’t have to be practical to be interesting, or to make current software seem dated and flat. Exhibit A: Swedish designinstitut* The Astonishing Tribe’s newest mobile phone interface, which is rendered in glorious 3D, and might be brilliant.
