After supporting the Dev for his previous hardwork and paying the $5, I really wanted to like 2.00; but unfortunately the Dev turned Dolphin into a great example of how NOT to design a mobile browser--even for super phones like Moto Droid and Nexus. There are innumerable NASTY coherency issues with respect to the UI and additional bugs that have made the program generally unstable, even leading to system instability. At this point, I'm even considering uninstalling it and reverting to 1.X.
I now consider this browser the epitome of bloatware and a resource hog. For instance, the Dev went through all that trouble to add a tab expose utility, and the implementation doesn't even show all six tab previews on one screen? Why do I want to SCROLL through the previews one-by-one? This is jsut a waste of time, as it replicates the same effect as scrolling through tabs one-by-one
It's quite obvious MGeek had his head in the sand ignoring user requests for simple improvements/bug fixes. Instead the dev ran off to completely revamp a UI that wasn't broken to begin with. Ironically, dolphin 2.0 is now less user-friendly than the old version. I guess this is just the greatest thing ever, though, if you like to spend more of your time dealing with a contorted, buggy user interface and less time actually using the internet....
Just some comments I sent the Dev below:
- User input now laggy and susceptible to 'ghost' inputs
- Notification bar is no-longer displayed on tab expose. It's nice to be able to quickly view notifications without having to go out to the homescreen.
- Preferred the slim expose bar signifying hidden menu at the top previously; the shadow is less elegant. New hidden menu bar at the bottom is redundant since it's quite obvious that pressing [MENU] will reveal that menu.
- Some people seemed to have liked the volume pg up/down function. Maybe bring this back as a settings option. It's nice to be able to control musicvolume though, since alot of people usually listen to music and read simulataneously.
- Appreciate the added pop-up url bar on menu-press, but as soon as you click it, it changes to the system default url entry which creates a big loss of continuity. Why not make this url bar active with voice search--the same as on the Dolphin Home Screen? The bookmark and share icons can be moved to the lower menu.
- My biggest UI issue is the organization of the two-level pop-up menus which generally bury functions in places that takes too long access them:
- First level pop-up menu:
- I would consider extending this menu to two rows of 5 icons to include the essentials, so you don't need to go to second level menu as often:
- Top row NAV: [BACK][STOP][HOME URL][RELOAD][FORWARD]
- Bottom row page Utilities: [BOOKMARK][SHARE][TAB PREVIEW][DOLPHIN HOME][LEVEL 2 MENU]
- Currently, the [HOME] icon takes you to the Dolphin Homescreen or 'Stage' as I'll call it. This icon should be used instead for User Home URL, as the home icon is the universal symbol is pretty much universally accepted for this shortcut.
- Likewise, the icon you are using in Row1, Column 2 of second-level menu would be better used to signify the Dolphin Homescreen/Stage
- Make the gesture overaly full screen width & connect visually to the bottom menu--don't float it. Remove the 'M' in gesture window, as it is distracting.
- Second level pop-up menu:
- TOO MANY icons and once again occupies too much screen real estate. You could easily decrease the size for each icon/hit-box to make things tidier. Would prefer to see some of the current webpage not occluded above the menu. Once again, visually connect to the bottom menu--don't float it.
- Remove the following to compact the menu if you reorganize the first-level menu as suggested:
- Share page, Home Page, Gestures (redundant since already 1st-level)
- Downloads; can also potentially be moved to the Dolphin Homescreen (Stage), since it's not necessary as a page tool
- Exit...are people really that dense that they can't figure out how to long-press the back button?
- Doing this, you'll get a compact, two-row second-level menu.
- You could also consider just removing the second-level menu icon from first-level menu and make this accessible via hitting the [Menu] hardware key twice. Users would quickly find this on their own.
- Other fixes
- As I mentioned previously, you should fix pinch zoom to not zoom out greater than page extents. Instead as user zooms back out toward 100%, you should begin to translate the page so that the full width and no more is displayed when at 100%. The current behavior is sloppy.
- See if you can fix the Facebook full site tool bar floating/disappearance problem. A lot of people use the full site, since the current official FB app is pretty lacking.
- Icons look muddy/low resolution. Consider not using outer-glow/shadows for your icons or toning it down.
- Consider updating the help page to show the most basic operations/shortcuts of using the browser FIRST.
The developer hasn't yet responded to my email. He's either swamped in complaints & too busy fixing the mess he created or just apathetic to user imput at this point-- quite a divergence from just a while ago when he was very vocal about responding to user input.
I'm about done though. Just give me 2.1 so I can root and enable pinch zoom on the native browser. This is the kind of mindless crap that's going to stunt Android's growth as a platform and forever keep it in the shadow of iPhone.
