In their effort to become relevant in the consumer market, Research in Motion (RIM) knows that the UI of their products is very important. This is how they came to the conclusion that they need more UI designers to help them improve their future tablets and smartphones that will run the QNX OS. So, they bought TAT.
I’ll be honest here, I don’t think this is a big loss for the Android platform. First of all, G1 didn’t have an impressive UI by a long shot, and second I haven’t seen anything lately from TAT besides concepts. What’s the point of showing off with some futuristic – 5 years from now – type of interfaces if you’re not going to actually deliver them?
Another problem I’ve had with their “impressive” UI concepts was that they didn’t seem terribly functional, more gimmicky than anything else. Phones are something we use daily, not once every month. We don’t need the design to stay in the way of what we’re trying to do with the phone.
I’d much rather take the UI layer from the SPB guys, which is actually shipping soon, than TAT’s concept UI. That being said, I look forward to seeing what Matias Duarte has done with the stock Honeycomb UI.
Via – Phandroid