iPhone Homescreen Exposé Concept Surfaces

Posted by Arron Hirst on October 13th, 2009

It's been a want by many that Apple would introduce a system in which its users could organise their homescreens. The introduction of iPhone OS 3.0 saw the first step, with the addition of a system wide search engine - Spotlight. Next came the recent release of iTunes 9.0, and this saw the second step, introducing better syncing functionality with more control over where our apps are positioned and placed, even before we sync.

But with the iPhone running a watered down version of Mac OSX, with an operating system this powerful people are starting to wonder if this form of organisation could (and should) be taken to the next level. The only question is: Is Apple prepared to take it there? We're talking Exposé people, and yesterday, Sweedish design house Ocean Observations showed off their interpretation of what this functionality could look like, to MobileCrunch - and I have to say, I was impressed. Not by the invention of the concept, but by how easy it could be to navigate homescreens, with it.







The system they're proposing is simple. In the video above you can see exactly how Ocean Observations see it happening. Tapping the home button and you'll watch all your homescreens turn into a grid-like layout. From here, instead of swiping from left to right (which was supposedly why Spotlight was introduced in OS 3.0), you'd just tap the homescreen you want to shift to.

The amount of bubble notifications you had on each homescreen would then be displayed above the corresponding 'homescreen tile'. A neat concept, one I personally think Apple should implement. But you do have to ask the question: Would you use it? As it is now, I don't even use Spotlight. That said, something like this could be quite useful, don't you think?

Hit the comments and let us know what you think!