XPERIA X1 Panel to Control the Saab 9-X Air

[Reggie]

It seems like Sony Ericsson and Saab is teaming up to add wireless mobile access to control seats, doors, rear compartment, and lighting on the upcoming Saab 9-X Air. According to the press release:

Some of the car features will be remotely controlled by the Sony Ericsson Xperia™ X1, providing a premium mobile user experience through its unique customisable touchscreen panels:

* Control ambient lightning
* Control front and rear seat settings
* Lock the car
* Open the rear compartment
* Switch on and off the lights (blinkers, main lights…)

This is great news! I believe this is an excellent example of the XPERIA X1’s Panels at work as it provides a customized view for specific applications, in this case controlling the Saab 9-X Air.

Read the full article.

[JKingGrim]

I believe this is an excellent example of the XPERIA X1’s Panels at work as it provides a customized view for specific applications, in this case controlling the Saab 9-X Air.

I just dont see why this needs to be a panel though. Any windows mobile phone could do this. Why not just make it a program? Thats my problem with panels. Its things being made as panels that should just be applications. The fish panel, WM today screen, the widget panel, ect are good examples of things that make good panels. They make good home screens. Why would I want my SAAB controls to be a home screen? I probably wont use the panels, which means I would not be able to use things like the SE media browser. Why is something like that a panel when it should just be a program?

[bloob]

JKingGrim - all good questions indeed. When does a program become a panel? What is the material difference between running a program and a panel?

[Egeria]

Isn't a panel just a visual interface for a program?
That's how i would make it. otherwise it doesn't make any sense for me...

[i_will_not_buy_iphone]

I think they just wanted something "cool" to separate the X1 from the crowd of WM phones. And the only thing they came up with were the panels.
I don't really care, I don't think I will be using them much.

SE ain't no Apple when it comes to creativity...

[Carlin]

Originally Posted by Egeria

Isn't a panel just a visual interface for a program?
That's how i would make it. otherwise it doesn't make any sense for me...

SE call it a desktop. That means you can have several shortcuts to programs (and other stuff, perhaps ONE program as "desktop") on each desktop. I believe that one of the desktop has the e-mail function on it, and that makes it download new e-mails when you activate that desktop.

So, yes it's and interface, but I don't think it's an interface in that meaning you wrote.

[n4v1n]

i think the best way to put it is widgets

[Carlin]

Originally Posted by n4v1n

i think the best way to put it is widgets

Do you mean like a GUI widget? As I don't know the meaning of the word, I went to Wikipedia.org and got a bit more confused =P
Widget - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[JKingGrim]

Well a panel can do anything. I believe they can just be simple xml, or they can be actually coded. All I'm saying is panels is a good idea for things that you would normally want on your desktop like widgets, calendars, weather, today screen, fish panel, ect. IMO It is counter-intuitive however, to use panels for things like the FM player, media browser, and SAAB controls. These things should be applications. Panels are your home screens. When you close/minimize all open apps, it returns you to your currently selected panel.

[Reggie]

The way I look at it, yes, a Panel can be a standard WM app. It can be much more though.

I view a panel as an 'aggregator' of things that are important. You can say that it is a collection of widgets or information arranged in such a way that is meaningful to the user. It can be a Panel for sports scores or on-going games, a Panel for communication and maybe social networking, or maybe a company specific Panel showing what is important for a sales associate. If you look at it this way, Panels really make sense.

The key here however is the Panels SDK. The Panels' success will depend on how easy it is to create Panels from the developers and users point of view.