Intel has unofficially offered a first look at its own Obsidian UI that it plans to bring to Tizen and potentially Android devices too.
Early screenshots of the Obsidian UI have come courtesy of an anonymous Intel staff member to Ars Technica that reveals some of the UI’s unique features.
Looking more like the Android and Windows Phone UI platforms that iOS, the Obsidian UI is still in a very early build but has distinctly square app icons and three buttons always available along the bottom of the display: phone, messages and contacts or people.
Instead of a round notification icon in the corner of the app icon like iOS, the Obsidian UI rotates the app icon by 45 degrees and adds a triangular red or green signal in the bottom point to indicate alerts like missed calls or new data.
The home screen icons are densely packed with much less room between them than with the Android or iOS UI designs, but still allow those that require attention to make that 45 degree turn, which is animated as you swipe to each home screen.
Obsidian will feature a slide-to-unlock feature on the Lock Screen with the handset launching the home screen to begin with. Users can swipe left to reveal a single contact screen, perhaps a favourites section, or left again to a full contacts list. Two swipes to the right though will reveal the apps screen.
When opening tabs, the Obsidian UI offers a quick-view pane along the bottom of the screen, including for apps like the clock and settings menu. To open the app in full, there is a button that appears at the bottom of the screen.
Intel hasn’t yet offered any release details for the Obsidian UI, but seeing as the UI is still in its very early stages it may be a while yet. If and when it launches though, the Obsidian UI will run over the Tizen 2.0 mobile OS.
Backed by the Linux Foundation with Samsung and Intel as the major funders, the Tizen mobile operating system will also support Samsung’s TouchWiz interface featured on smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S4.
It is an open source mobile operating system by nature and will be able to run Android apps with a simple code tweak.
Next, read why Samsung is hurting Android.
