Google snags Palm webOS UI guru Matias Duarte to work on Android

You might have heard us (erm, OK, me) gush on occasion about certain aspects of Palm's webOS user interface. Now let us (erm, me again) gush a little about Matias Duarte, who has left Palm and is now User Experience Director for Android. And he's a friendly face among the Android leadership, having worked on the Sidekick with Andy Rubin when they were both still with Danger.

Some of you prefer the stock Android UI; others prefer Sense or (gasp!) Motoblur and TouchWiz. But we'd love to see the stock Android UI revamped.

In fact, we'll even go so far as to throw out this completely unsupported opinion: Now that Android's getting things together under the hood in Android 2.2 (and we're still expecting more before the end of the year), perhaps this move will bring a fresh UI to Android sometime next year. Stay tuned, folks. [All Thigns DEngadget; via PreCentral]

Phil Nickinson