I also had Palm Pre (best OS ever)
I miss so much the coherent handling of cards/browser tabs. (Obviously much easier on a system where everything is a HTML tab).
I have limited experience of BBOS10, but I fell in love with itās UX. There were so many good ideas there imo. Are you saying that Palm Pre was even better? 
I think this is the wrong approach. While conversion rate is important, itās not only because of new users grasping the basics for the first time. Usability as a daily driver is even more important. Adapting everything for the new users will most probably create a monster for usability for daily tasks.
That said I do think that the new answer gesture is better, not because itās a better UX, but it needs less UI hints and doesnāt make the daily task of answering worse than the previous gesture.
I blame that on bad UI hinting. Since pulleys are inherent to Sailfish OS, they should come naturally after a few days, if the user is given enough incentives to use them. Perhaps the fallback of tapping the icon is a curse here, since it allows users to never learn to use the pulley effect.
Perhaps not using pulleys for āeverythingā (where possible) has the same effect? Have you tried to go all in in any of your mockups?
I feel it depends on the size of the phone. I cannot easily hold my Xperia 10 securely, and at the same time reach the buttons in the mail application comfortably.
Reaching the bottom of the screen, with one hand, is painful. Iād rather scroll two times (fast scrolling is really good), than try to contort my hand, so that my thumb reaches the reply or delete buttons.
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+1000000 agree <3 !!!
I use this mantra. Everything is alright at the end. If itās not alright itās not the end. 
Letās se how this os looks in one year or two. You have toons of work to do but letās hope for good result! And I like communication now, it has improved hugely. <3
Iād rather have a hardware call pickup and call termination button instead of endless touch screen interface design changes. It would be so moch more convenient to pick up calls by camera button or by power button, and terminate by camera or power button and yet it does not happenā¦ whatās going wrong here? Normally I donāt want to lose any time on figuring if and how to accept or decline - I will accept quickly (please - by button) or turn the phone on itās belly and thatās that.
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Unfortunately new design isnāt for me eitherā¦
I guess, I just use-to old one ā¦and I am very logical person ))
Thank you for share the information for the decision making process and here the opinionā¦
The variations are more sub-variants of Option Aā¦ no option of keeping up/down variations werenāt presented. As the first what come to mind - keep old answer, and on the reject/mute give options on reject/SMSā¦ do welcome ā add graphics for it with green/red arrows, for other usersā¦ ))
Answer/Mute/Rejectā¦
I may be wrong, but why would you want to reject the call anyway? When you busy (in meeting etc.) all you need to do is make phone be quiteā¦ rejecting to me is āemotionā, when you want to show that you are REJECTINGā¦ and if someone have time to an emotion ā lets give that option to themā¦ but keep the original way for people who concentrate on work.
Orientation commentsā¦
I am very sorry to those who can make it wrong, but not quite sure why would you miss-swipe on the alarms and callsā¦ I have my orientation locked on the phoneā¦ so lets lock it on the calls/alarm so there will be no issues when swiping for answer/rejecting, off/snoozeā¦ (but I think its already was like thisā¦) and if you mixing up what way your phone is (ex. Upside-down) you can stick a masking tape to the bottom part of the phone to make sure where is a topā¦
Observationā¦
Recently I have noticed that one famous chat app (green one) using swipe-up green button to answer the callā¦ this is after iOS have changed difficult slider answer/reject to buttonsā¦ (I think they did) good few years agoā¦
To me new feature, is like āback to futureā - an invention of something, from what other OS trying to move awayā¦ personally, I am answering the call, while I am raising my phone to my earā¦ I will never mistaken in the direction of the swipe and it always be enough screen space to make this (this is long sideā¦)
Consistencyā¦
Perhapsā¦ but all issue of consistency came out when we start ācomplicating thingsāā¦
I love Jolla (SFOS) for its simplicityā¦ I trust my phone just because it let me do what I need to do with out thinking (and great thank you for developers for this!) yet, I believe that you shouldnāt follow the attempt to replicate known OSsā¦ you need to be different (doesnāt mean awkward)
The off -top
I will stand for up/down swipe to the last ))
ā¦the real challenge of getting new (read using other OS) clients, is a PRā¦ (and native apps) ā¦ when people asking what phone I have ā I can not answer (canāt tell the story abt N9, Microsoft, Jolla etcā¦) ā¦ and I am answering that I am Geek )) give us (community) presentation abt SFOS ā we would spread the word ā need native app, make fundraising (sure development of Whats-app or Swipe keyboard not gonna cost a lotā¦ we would try to helpā¦ ) - but please let us keep our Jollaā¦ we are all hear, cause when we take iOS or Android into hands, we scared, we panicking, we feel the pain ā¦ save us pleaseā¦
Just checkingā¦
Have you hired anyone from Microsoft recently? ))
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In my opinion it just looks inconsistent and plain ugly. Am I the only one to find this a catastrophic outcome? I get panicked every time someone calls me. The telephone receiver pictogram looks like back from the 90s and isnāt aligned with the Jolla UX design at all, plain horror. Thank you Jolla for totally failing this. And on plus without any need to break that brilliant UI it was before. Itās so depressing.
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āyou can stick a masking tape to the bottom part of the phone to make sure where is a topā¦ā
A great idea, if the answer screen would always orient itself the right way. No need to remember how the phone is oriented then and we could keep the pull down @jpetrell
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This is why I got used to the up and down. Even if I hold the phone sideways or up-side-down I do not care about it as it is always the right direction.
I am using coderusā patch āAllow any orientationā!
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I never got confused with orientation when receiving a call, there was a clear indication red/green that showed the correct way to answer or not the call. So that argument is not that valid at least for me. The new design makes me nervous how to answer the call, and the green or red block while swiping left/right looks ugly I think.
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Nah, clearly the part of the phone where you have to stick masking tape is the camera.
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I second the new design decision.
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maybe, after patches for old pulley menu design, old button design, old remorse timer design someone will come up with a old dialer design* patch soon (which wil break with every system update, of course 
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I will try do that patch after I update to 3.4. For now Iām still on 3.3 because I use community port. But I already compared the difference in qml files.
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Slight update - after few days with new designā¦
- I have couple of times couldnt answer the call with one handā¦
- when opened some other application I āstuckā with āwhat do i have to doā¦ā - its in relation to the consistency - as earlier was always use pull-down menus, and now i am ājugglingā between new design (call answering style) and android appsā¦
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I am litterally having a bunch of āold {something} pulleyā patches installed on my phone.
- The āreturn old pulley menuā is here since the new āinvisibly thin lineā replaced the classic āglowā in SFOS2.
- The latest addition is the āpulley menu in E-mailā.
andā¦
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ā¦I am looking forward to the upcoming āreturn pulley on phonecall screenā patch. 
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In general I think that Jollaās marketing and branding should heavily emphasis the pulley menu as a core feature (maybe even in some logos for the OS, and prominently featured in all visual material).
If itās widely advertised, it will stick in the mind of users that āSailfish is this OS that relies heavily on pulleysā.
If users are clearly aware of this reliance of pulleys, whenever they are lost somewhere, theyāll first look at if there are pulleys on the current screen (and the old 1.x-style flashing glow helps a lot to notice them).
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I donāt hate the new answer experience to the point I would throw tantrums, but I really liked the old pulley one much better and cleaner looking and would want it back as an option at least. In my opinion the green gradient on the side of the screen when sliding sideways to answer is the worst feature of the new experience, since at least on Xperia 10ās long screen, it just looks kinda ugly when most of the green seems like solid color and only a small part of it has the actual gradient effect.
I second the suggestion of @sausset about having the arrows on the answer to be made bigger match the style of the ones on the lock screen.
4 Likes