Triumph of gimmickry over usability...
OK, so if I'm holding this phone (right-handed) so I don't drop it -- with a nearly 6" screen there's a fair amount of it trying to tip itself out of my hand. The ball of my thumb is covering the bottom three icons, I can't reach the next couple up, and the top few are a stretch that loosens my grip. Looking at that first image, I reckon southpaw guitar players have got a much better chance of using it than right-handers.
If they want to tweak the UI to make it non standard, they should take a leaf out of a Linux phone UI I saw at MWC a few years ago, which popped out an overlaly "fan" of icons from the middle of the screen at the right hand side, all of which fell under one thumb. It could do second level navigation, AND could fan from either the right or left screen edge, as you configured it...
Whatever happened to that....?
bestest,
M.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
