Apple step aside: GUI on Synaptics' concept smartphone is a total game changer

When you take a step back and look at the new crop of cell and smart phones coming onto the market these days, it's almost as if all of the entries are working off of one or two designer's playbooks. Whereas one handful of entries (ie: Motorola's Q, Samsung's Blackjack, etc.) with their exposed or hidden thumbboards appears to have been mostly inspired by Research in Motion's Blackberries, others are clearly transmogrifications of the standard cell phone design. Even most of the speculation around Apple's forthcoming entry points to an industrial design that isn't too far afield from what's already on the market (for sure, it's the UI that will make the difference there).

So, it should come as no surprise what happens when Synaptics, a company whose legacy is primarily related to the touchpads found on many notebook computers, decides to show up at CES with a concept phone.  Instead of using existing cell phones as a starting point for the design, Synaptics used the touchpad. Of course, touchpads aren't very exciting and by now you're thinking what touchpads and phone design could possibly have to do with one another. Well, what if the touchpad was glass? And what if there was a sophisticated graphical user interface under the glass that was operable with your forefinger -- one that had nothing to do with any of the interfaces on the market today? In some ways, what I saw in Synaptics' Onyx concept phone here at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is the sort of device that I'd actually expect from Apple. It does everything you'd expect a phone to do, it's an entertainment platform, and it's the most refreshing change in handset design I have ever seen. Checkout the video and see if you agree:

Here's another image and the video.