Sony Ericsson releases SDK for Xperia X1 Panel Interface, panel download service in the works (updated: video)

We know what you're thinking -- it's Windows Mobile 6.1 fool, we've got the developers kit already. True, but not the SDK that allows developers to create custom, interactive panels for the touchscreen QWERTY's Panel Interface. Sony Ericsson claims that, "The Xperia X1 will offer the richest mobile user experience, putting the world at the fingertips of the user." In other words, the expectations have been set, developers, so you'd best get to downloading the free SDK -- you've got your work cut out for you. Sony Ericsson will offer a panel download service in the future, showcasing all the panels built by you, Google, and other partners.

The Panel Applications are meant to be simple, rich, and fully-interactive allowing quick access to your data -- eMail, calendar, multimedia, games, IM... you name it. But don't take our word for it, SE explains the new panel ecosystem in the video posted after the break.

Update: Screenshot of the rudimentary, "Get More Panels" interface after the break.

Read -- SDK download
Read -- Press Release

[black @ Sep 3rd 2008 4:31AM]

And word if this will come in a CDMA flavor?

[black @ Sep 3rd 2008 4:44AM]

Edit...I meant to say "any", not "and".

[L @ Sep 3rd 2008 4:58AM]

Ask yourself: when have you last seen a CDMA SE?

Exactly...

[Tonicboy @ Sep 3rd 2008 4:34AM]

Maybe it's an unfair kneejerk reaction but... the thought of having to deal with a Sony Developer's Kit makes me cringe. Their software has always been painful.

[Adderz @ Sep 3rd 2008 5:17AM]

@Saab

I see what you did there...the problem is imate simply resell HTC devices. Which run WinMo, an entirely un-touch-friendly interface.

YOu cant deny that Apple have been the first company to push touch technlogy further than it has ever gone in the last few years. Windows had stagnated...now innovation is being pushed. I just hate that people refuse to accept that Apple actually did something RIGHT. If you hate a product because its crap fair enough, but when you hate a product when its great, youve got issues.

Just as a note, i own a HTC Touch Cruise.

[KarlW @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:03AM]

Just try and watch the video. Panels look like a stupid idea - it's got tiny, unrecognisable thumbnails of applications instead of icons and text.

They also try and show off using 3D animations with the panels. It looks cheap. To this day, nobody has cared about Flip3D. They seem to be trying to copy that most undesirable of "features".

[loosely_coupled @ Sep 3rd 2008 4:41PM]

Exactly.. This will be just pathetic. It's still Windows mobile for god sakes... WINDOWS MOBILE!

Choice and competition is great, but seriously, just get an iPhone and call it a day. Even with it's annoying lack of proper MMS, It is years ahead of any other smartphone .

[Adderz @ Sep 3rd 2008 4:53AM]

And do you know what spurred all these touch friendly innovations? the iPhone.

Im sorry it had to be said. Now i will open the flood gates to all the irrational Apple haters that simply hate Apple because they are Apple.

[andrew @ Sep 3rd 2008 4:59AM]

that's fine. More choice for us consumers!

[andrew @ Sep 3rd 2008 5:01AM]

alos i had a motorolla A1000 touchscreen phone, and it was good, i believe that was before iPhone, not that it matters.

[Saad Rabia @ Sep 3rd 2008 5:11AM]

And do you know what spurred all these touch friendly innovations? the imate.

Im sorry it had to be said. Now i will open the flood gates to all the irrational Apple lovers that simply hate imate because they are imate.

[Saad Rabia @ Sep 3rd 2008 5:15AM]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0UjU0rtavE

[Adderz @ Sep 3rd 2008 5:22AM]

@saab

Its just a shame your wrong. imate simply resell HTC devices, they didnt innovate anything, they rebadge and resell others innovations.

Winmo and Palm got the ball rolling, but Apple has perfected the touch friendly interface. Its sad when people hate a good product simply because its Apple. Give respect where respect is due i say.

FYI, i own a HTC Touch Cruise. I covered up WInMo with Winterface tho :-P

[LordFarkward @ Sep 3rd 2008 6:02AM]

Saad, just trick the apple fanboys by typing it as iMate and you'll have them think that it's one of jobsie's underlings and will love the iMate to death.

[Richard Lai @ Sep 3rd 2008 6:36AM]

@Adderz: to be fair though Jim Morrison, i-mate's founder and CEO, was a key member of the O2 XDA's design team when he was working for BT Cellnet (now O2). In an audio interview during the 3GSM 2006, he even boldly claimed that it was "me, myself and I" (speaking of himself) who designed the device, which would probably explain how he had the balls to leave O2 to set up his own company in Dubai: http://msmobiles.com/news.php/4919.html

So Saad is not technically wrong (as usual).

[Tonicboy @ Sep 3rd 2008 6:54AM]

@Saad

Haha, you're too funny, man. You seem to have confused taking a me-too Windows Mobile device and removing its keyboard with real innovation. I own an HTC Touch and believe me, there ain't a single thing innovative about it. Give Apple credit where its due - they innovated the UI and made it something that is easy (or even a joy) to use with just your fingers. THAT is true touchscreen innovation - not this maddening BS where I can use WinMo with "touch" 30% of the time but have to pull out the stylus the other 70%. WinMo sucks and so does the i-mate. No wonder they're out of business.

[Quikboy @ Sep 3rd 2008 7:01AM]

@Adderz : Have you ever seen a tablet PC? The touchscreen ones? Those came out way before the iPhone, and they work great and actually use finger-friendly touch fairly decent. Especially if it's running Windows Vista.

Apple just made if work for a mobile device. Now I know WinMo does have its many faults. Microsoft decided WinMo was meant to use a stylus since most phones running WinMo have ridiculously small screens, and the icons are parts of the UI are too small to manipulate otherwise. It's nice to see HTC and Sony attempt a better fix up of WinMo.

I give Apple credit for changing the cellphone industry all right. But it's not like they were the only company or person thinking how the cellphone could be perfect you know? I was thinking along the sames lines of the concept and wishing cellphones could be different. But I'd never buy the iPhone, because I find Apple far too locked-down, and hate managing through iTunes. That's why I'm really hoping WM7 is Microsoft's own game changer.

You don't need to look further than Microsoft Surface, touch-enabled Windows Vista, InkSeine, and a few other things to see that Microsoft's already been committed to making touch input a more present technology.

[Richard Lai @ Sep 3rd 2008 7:03AM]

@Tonicboy: is i-mate actuaaly dead now? Can anyone confirm? The latest news on their website was put up on 11 March 2008, so I wouldn't be surprised...

[Quikboy @ Sep 3rd 2008 7:09AM]

Oh, and actually the LG Prada was first to have "spurred all these touch friendly innovations".

[Tonicboy @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:43AM]

@Richard Lai

I'm not sure if they're technically out of business but no one buys their overpriced products and last I heard they were on the verge of bankruptcy.

[Muhammed @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:49AM]

@ Richard: I guess so, I-mate is nearly dead, as all of their "upcoming" devices were canceled.

[aqtrans @ Sep 3rd 2008 5:02AM]

Any news on getting this interface ported to other devices? That's one thing good about all these supposed iPhone killers running WinMo coming out, they all bring something new to the table that makes having a WinMo phone almost bearable.

[hazard @ Sep 3rd 2008 6:09AM]

I'm sorry but tiny scroll bars on a non-stulus touch screen is a catastrophe! This is one of the major weaknesses of WinMo.

Check out the video at 1:47

[y3k.nik @ Sep 3rd 2008 9:27AM]

I love how SE has designed the phone, but after going through the video, at the end of the day, I will have to pull out my stylus more often than I want to, and that will make me stick to my crappy O2 atom for some more time, because I am not buying an iPhone after already owning an iPod Touch.

[andrew @ Sep 3rd 2008 5:06AM]

gotta say it looks good

[iHateApple @ Sep 3rd 2008 5:10AM]

still no release date and price? c'mon sony

[Saad Rabia @ Sep 3rd 2008 5:18AM]

Shocial.

[Nando @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:27AM]

LOL!

[David @ Sep 3rd 2008 5:24AM]

It's all well and good that SE is developing a panel SDK, however if it's only available on the X1, I don't think the X1 will be able to generate the sales and user base to warrant the level of developer interest in building panels, compared developing apps for the iPhone, Android or to the general WM base (instead of solely for the X1). If, however, SE were to release the panel architecture to general WM base (which may not be possible due to the discussion of multimedia possibilities discussed in the video - it could be tied to the X1 hardware), panels might have a better chance of surviving.

[Kelmon @ Sep 3rd 2008 5:52AM]

Exactly what I was thinking on reading this news. As much as the idea is nice, I somehow doubt that this device is going to have the clout with developers that will spur the development of panels for just this phone. If Sony are planning to use this panel interface on other models, or if it looks like this will sell volumes like the iPhone, then it becomes attractive. But for the moment I certainly wouldn't bother investing much time or effort in case there is not much of a market. That the device runs Windows Mobile should be sufficient for the moment.

[Ruben @ Sep 3rd 2008 7:24AM]

HTC TouchFlow 3D doesnt have an SDK either.

But at least Panels will be able to live on when WM7 comes out, since its simply an extension to the user interface, as opposed to a full replacement like TouchFlow.

At least making these panels doesn't seem like a difficult thing to do. A developer can slap one together and distribute it with x1 software packages. I'm sure with a few iterations of the X1, this will catch on. Sony just has to stick with this device, and make a few derivatives of it.

But this seems very proprietary. I don't see it being released to the general WM public for a while. Its a very nice task manager, but it seems destined to be used in WM7, since it does nothing to fix the 6.1 interface. I guess that's reassuring for me since this is my phone of choice.

[Chris @ Sep 3rd 2008 12:55PM]

"or if it looks like this will sell volumes like the iPhone"

No, it needs to sell as well as the iPhone & iPod Touch to have the same clout for 3rd party software. There is a potentially huge difference there.

[j.d.ripper @ Sep 3rd 2008 5:36AM]

talk about the just-rolled-out-of-bed look .... he has it down

[Intrepid @ Sep 3rd 2008 5:47AM]

Yeah... he's one 'cool' dude. Doesn't even have to try.............

[KingJackass @ Sep 3rd 2008 10:23AM]

And he has a dreamy voice.
Bollywood's version of James Earl Jones.
Bollywood's Vader?

[Mark Brown @ Sep 3rd 2008 5:41AM]

Wow look how fidley the touch screen looks, he has to use his fingernail to touch some of the areas correctly!

The keyboard looks minuture on the screen, much more of a mess than it looked in original pictures

[mahrib @ Sep 3rd 2008 6:22AM]

Thats why it has the slider keyboard, duuh

[Pastry Chef @ Sep 3rd 2008 5:46AM]

Having used Windows Mobile for about 2 years, I fully expect all that eye candy to slow to a crawl once a user has used the device for a while.

What Sony Ericsson should do is develop their own OS.

[Samo @ Sep 3rd 2008 6:13AM]

HELL no!!!! As an avid Sony product lover, even I can see their s/w is as good dung...

Just look at their mobile phone O/S... slow as hell.

[TareX @ Sep 3rd 2008 7:08AM]

....Or adopt Android and write whatever Panels UI they want for it.

[maveric101 @ Sep 3rd 2008 1:05PM]

the thing's got a 528 MHz CPU, so it might be fine.

[Omen_20 @ Sep 3rd 2008 1:31PM]

Thats what I'm waiting for TareX, a SE phone with good storage that comes with Android. I love the look and the 3 input device scheme of the X1 but I want Android on it.

[Firehose @ Sep 3rd 2008 6:34AM]

@Saad

Imate rebadges HTC devices, it never makes nor builds them.

[Ondra Soukup @ Sep 3rd 2008 6:39AM]

See how he has to scroll on the side of the device with his fingernail ? Windows Mobile user experience at its best....it's sad, it's really sad :(

[BChau @ Sep 3rd 2008 7:08AM]

Doesn't it supports gesture like what HTC has done for its Touch Series phones?

[TareX @ Sep 3rd 2008 7:02AM]

Who's going to be thinking about WM 6.1 devices, come 2009? We're talking NVidia Tegra, Gesture camera recognition...etc.

I think it's too late.

[hazard @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:24AM]

I guess you will be if you're thinking Tegra ..

[BChau @ Sep 3rd 2008 7:38AM]

I like the idea of having the SDK to customize the interface. Good on you, Sony.

HTC should also release an SDK for develoeprs to add/modify tabs within the TouchFLO 3D interface.

[IY @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:18AM]

I was WinMo fanboy once...............now I am an Iphone fan. As of today WinMo cant come even close to Iphone GUI and beautiful 3.5'' multi touch screen.

When people say that Iphone is more of a toy and WinMo has more business oriented functions......this I can agree on.

We will see what X1 has to bring, but I am sure its nothing major...just another WinMo phone.

[zoara @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:35AM]

Anyone for buzzword bingo? That video was cringeworthy.