Holo vs Palm OS Interface
ホロ / Palm OSインターフェース
Holo comes from Google UI and Palm OS Interface from Platform Screen Languages. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Holo
Google's design language for Android, introduced with 3.0 and pushed so hard that carrying it unmodified became a compatibility requirement for every 4.0 device. It rules a black ground with hairlines and lets a single cyan blue carry selection, focus and progress. It arrived as a guarantee as much as a look, since an app that asked for the theme by name would be drawn the same way even on a phone wearing a manufacturer's skin.
Palm OS Interface
Palm OS turned a tiny monochrome screen, stylus and strict memory limits into a consistent pocket work tool through the Title, Category menu, Command Bar, hardware buttons and Graffiti writing area.
| Holo | Palm OS Interface | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 2011–2014 | 1996–2009 |
| Family | Google UI | Platform Screen Languages |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | White text on black, with sections divided by one pixel hairlines instead of filled panels / A single cyan blue at #33B5E5 lighting only selection, the underline of a text field, and progress / A full width action bar pinned to the top, and a strip of Back, Home and Recents keys at the bottom / Tab labels and list section headers set in bold, all uppercase | A roughly 160 by 160 low-resolution monochrome screen / Title at upper left and Category pop-up at upper right / A Command Bar rising from the lower edge and four application buttons / Thin one-bit icons, rules and the Graffiti input area |
| Best used for | Recreating an Android app screen from roughly 2011 to 2013 with the period's actual widgets and theme names · Building hierarchy in a dark admin screen from hairlines and one accent color, without adding panels or shadows | Handling calendar, contacts and notes quickly with an extremely small display and few inputs · Reconstructing an early PDA from its stylus-centered sequence, not only its pixel surface |
| Type | One geometric leaning sans across the whole interface, in two weights only. Tabs and section headers go uppercase with the tracking opened slightly. | Use a sturdy bitmap face that separates letters at small sizes and reduce labels to one word. |
| Composition | A full width action bar is fixed at the top and a single column list fills the space under it. Sections are separated by hairlines rather than white space, and a strip is reserved at the bottom for the navigation keys. | Fix Title and Category above, the list in the middle, and commands and input below to reduce screen changes. |
| Material | Ground is black or a pale #F3F3F3, text is white or dark gray, and rules are one pixel of white at reduced opacity. Restrict the accent to #33B5E5 alone and let it glow only on press, selection and progress. | Work in one-bit black and white, using thin rules, reversed selection and roughly 16-pixel icons for state. |
| Caution | Redrawing the widgets so they no longer inherit from the theme throws away the one thing this style buys you, which is looking identical across devices, and leaves your app the odd one out on a skinned phone. | Monochrome pixel UI alone is not Palm OS. Preserve the division of work among stylus, hardware keys, Graffiti and on-screen commands. |