Sprint introduces One Click, a new user interface for Sprint phones

The One Click interface as seen on the Samsung Highnote. Here it's showing your latest horoscope as well as a news headline.

(Credit: Sprint)

Along with several new phone announcements today, Sprint has also launched One Click, a new user interface designed to be highly customizable and easy to use. The One Click interface consists of eight shortcut tiles lined up along the bottom of the screen, which then lead to any of 14 available applications. They include the texting interface, Web access, e-mail, Sprint Navigation, Sprint TV Sprint Music, and other features. As you flip through the different shortcut tiles, you get a short little pop-up of that application's submenu, or a brief preview of the application itself. You can also customize the home screen to show brief news headlines.

We managed to get some hands-on time with this new interface, and I have to say I like it quite a bit. It's nice to have instant access to an array of favorite applications, a design aspect that so far has only been available for higher-end smartphones. One particular shortcut I found intriguing was the Google shortcut tile, which provides instant access to Google search, Gmail, as well as YouTube.

The One Click interface is only available for the LG Lotus, the Samsung Rant, and the Samsung Highnote for now, and Sprint says the Sanyo Katana Eclipse will get this new interface in November. The carrier hopes to roll out the interface to more phones in the future.