MeeGo UI Revealed

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We’ve already learned a few things from Intel’s developer conference, like the fact that Intel has gotten Android running on Atom-powered smartphones. The world’s largest chipmaker also showed off the first screens of what the MeeGo UI will look like. In one word, it’ll be “compartmentalized”.

The image up there is what MeeGo’s desktop UI will look like. As mentioned, everything will be sorted into different “compartments”. With one for schedule, one for social networking, one for widgets. Google’s Chrome will be the default browser, with the open-source Chromium being designated a “backup” browser and Firefox as a third-option.

Multi-touch will be supported in MeeGo in the middleware layer, and it will have software support for WiFi, WiMAX and 3G. They also showed off the mobile phone UI (in the gallery below), which will use the Fennec browser. It looks like it will have a heavy focus on social networking, with some cloud syncing abilities as well as VoIP support. The UI was running in both portrait and landscape mode. Like the ‘desktop’ version, it’ll also have multi-touch middleware support.

What do you think? I think it looks like the love child of MOTOBLUR and Windows Phone 7, with a hint of Android in there. Like MOTOBLUR, looks heavily focused on social networking, and looks like MeeGo would be right at home with a Sidekick-style slider texting device.

All in all, I don’t think it’s a bad UI. You could expect manufacturers like HTC or Motorola to put their own UI on top of it anyway, although Nokia probably will ship with the native UI. We’re supposed to expect the first MeeGo devices to ship later this year.