Confirmed: Palm's Matias Duarte joins Google as User Experience Director for Android
By Nilay Patel 
posted May 27th 2010 11:20AM
posted May 27th 2010 11:20AM
posted May 27th 2010 11:20AM
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Interesting!...
@Almo This should help with the UI a bit
@Iceman Hopefully! Now if only my G1 would ever the light at the end of this venture
@Almo he's only one guy. I doubt he will have have much input into adroids future ventures.
@Almo
more like, World-Dominating...
@Almo
Job title "User Experience Director" eh?
Let see if he has any self respect and stands up to the idiots that think Flash is satisfactory on 2.2 at the moment, or will he cave being the new boy???
Wow! I'm hoping gingerbread will have some new ui elements :)
@drlisbon
Yeah, I'm sure they only hired him to take on a co-op students seat.
Obviously if he's Director, he has input AND control.
@drh isn't flash in beta still? and definitely works? should we ditch it and go html5 only and lose a majority of the internet?
@drlisbon So the title, User Experince DIRECTOR, doesn't mean anything to you? He'll likely have final say on all decisions regarding UI design. I've always wanted a little webOS with my Android :-)
@Almo
Take another Jab Mr. Jobs.
@drlisbon
You're right. He's sort of like a movie director, who obviously doesn't have much input into a movie.
@Almo "How's THAT for a bit of NEWNESS, huh?"
@Iceman I don't know of anyone who's succeeded in UI design with 2 different companies..... and I've worked in software design my whole life!
In fact Palm was full of ex Apple guys who thought they could re create their success at Apple. These were supposed to be hardware AND software guys.
@drlisbon
actually, he pretty much made palm as beautiful as it is, being the main driving force of the project, so id say hes going to have a big impact, but time will tell :)
@drh
hmm, i dont know, flash seems to be doing amazing enough as it is, what other alternative can do as good as it, let alone better than it?
Either way, now we'll have the best working phone OS AND the best looking/best working phone OS with android, this is a good day :D
Getting rid of the ugly would make Android a potential replacement for my iPhone. Android is just too crude and inconsistent right now.
Interestingly, this is the first post I've seen where commenters are actually willing to admin the Android UI is crusty. Hmm...
@masons
well if he brings too much of the webOS over to Android, say HELLO lawsuit.. Palm VS. Android.. Just because he may have been a lead designer and had final say so doesn't mean he can bring all of that over to Android.. But I'm sure he can help make some needed improvements and keep them seperate from Palm's patents..
@Almo
BEST.NEWS. EVAR.
I can't wait to see his print on Android 3.0...... he'll have a lot of fun abusing that Tegra 2 chip coming in Q4.
@drh You, my friend, need to hop off of Apple's strap on.
webdroid?
@koopiskation maybe he's there to help with the new android based sidekick
@koopiskation Sweet. I've long thought that the best parts of webOS, if added to Android, would make for pretty much the ultimate mobile OS. Now we might get to see if that hypothesis holds up.
@CRA1G
I doubt we're really going to see a merging of webOS and android. Outside of patent/legal concerns, my guess is that the android team wants to innovate, not simply copy a competing platform. Im sure he was brought in to revamp/improve the android UI, but Im not expecting it to resemble webOS all that much.
Does that mean we are more likely to get webos influenced UI for android? very nice!
I have a feeling this guy has more original ideas than just to recycle from Web OS, not to mention Web OS and it's elements are owned by another company. He also has to follow at least some of the conventions laid forth by Android, otherwise he risks shocking people out of the user experience they have become accustomed to. Should be interesting to see what he comes up with though.
@commenter7 Yes, please!!! :)
Yay!
Let's se what he brings to the platform. :D
@ChazClout It can be interesting, android UI not super eye candy for me, web OS looks really nice. Let's hope for a good changes :)
@tauttvisz Sense has some nice aspects
@ChazClout a lawsuit from HP?
This is great news. Maybe stock Android can get some of the polish it has so desperately needed. Excited to see what he does with it.
@Warai
This isn't just great news, its pure WIN!
Maybe he's going to whip up a tasty Gingerbread Man.
When you say "Palm's Matias Duarte", don''t you mean "HP's Matias Duarte"??
@Ruthless Prolly not. Still not approved, which I think technically makes them separate entities, and they still haven't ironed out branding/subsidiary/...
@Ruthless No, because even though HP owns Palm (even though that deal hasn't been finalised yet) Palm is still a separate company to HP.
@chaddledee Actually the only way these two companies are tied at this point is that HP and Palm have come to an agreement to let HP buy them. As of this moment HP has not bought Palm and so they are not HPalm yet.
Hope he brings the much needed in Android where it sucks the most.. its UI
@idrent
and the music player
@masta vaan, what exactly is better about WebOS music player over Android one's?
(I never played with Palm phones; I use Meridian player with Android.
This is good step towards creating something better with android
Nice!
Android in a sexy dress. Can't wait!
I have a feeling Gingerbread is going to be epic!
I love webos. Please let google use him to his full potential, or give him back!
Let's see what he will bring to Gingerbread
Pretty shocking...good move for Google though.
One wonders though what prompted this move? I mean with HP this guy would have had pretty much unlimited resources to make webOS even better....
Now he's moving to google for what?
@TheLondonExchange To play for a bigger fish in an ever-growing pond, plus where he is more needed and probably has even *MORE unlimited* resources.
@juanvaldez
google is definitely not bigger than HP when it comes to money...
As for playing a bigger role "fish" or w/e thats up for interpretation. Of course I don't like android or android fanboys so I don't see whats so alluring about his position.