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Comment by mortenjorck | Hacker News Reader

The path from locked state to dial is quick enough for me on a 3GS, but I have to admit it's probably more steps than I would like. On paper, it actually looks kind of bad if it's a number you don't have in-directory:

1. Hit home or lock key 2. Swipe lock slider 3. Touch phone icon 4. Touch dialpad icon 5. Dial number

Vs. a featurephone or keyboarded smartphone

1. Hit unlock key or open clamshell 2. Dial number

What I'd actually like to see is a second slider on the iPhone's lock screen that goes straight to the phone without stopping by the springboard. That would pretty much bring it to parity with featurephone keypads.

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Yeh I never considered it that way before - it is quite a natural motion though (unless it is just practice :)).

I was thinking, personally, more about it's general usability. Like the easy tabs on the phone app (contacts,history,voicemail,dialer etc), the text messages layout, how accesible the contacts db is (and syncable with Google) and all the other bits.

It's not something specific I can place my finger on but lots of little neat bits that make it a really usable phone.

(edit: if you think about getting into contacts and dialing a number the swipe scroll and touch makes that probably faster/easier than a standard phone)

second slider is brilliant.

it wouldn't even be unintuitive. longways slide (current) for regular home. sideways slide to go straight to phone. I can't believe no one has thought of this.

Nexus One uses a two-way slider to answer calls -- left-to-right to answer, right-to-left to send to voice mail.

I found it terrible. Unintuitive, and hard to use even when you understand what it's doing.

yeah, but don't you think it would be better if they were in totally different axes?

Maybe you could use one slider with 2 directions. E.g. the slider button starts in the center, and you could slide it right to unlock and go to the home screen, or slide it left to go straight to the phone screen.

You forgot hitting the home button a second time if you have an app open. This is where a 3G can get really slow if the app is unresponsive.

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