AOL OpenRide: A Trip into the Next Generation of AOL Welcome to the QuadPane Adam Stone
In an effort to go beyond its traditional role as an internet service provider and ease into the realm of internet portals, AOL has put an interesting tool on the table.
Known as Helix (and AOL OpenRide before that), this beta internet application delivers a clever new multi-app interface, available to AOL subscribers and non-subscribers alike. It's a significant loosening of the reigns for a company that has earned its stripes through the tight control and management of content for its users.
But does the functionality of AOL Helix make it worth taking the trip? Well, that's the big question.
Helix's big innovation is a four-pane user interface designed to keep a user's most important applications all in the foreground simultaneously.
The QuadPane screen is split into quadrants, each delivering a different application: AOL Mail, AOL instant messaging (AIM), the AOL Explorer browser, and AOL's new Media Center.
Want to surf the web? Click on the browser pane and it jumps to the foreground, pushing other panes to the periphery. Click again to make Mail the main window.
Also packed into Helix are a variety of helpful (if often not overly essential) tools, including AOL's Desktop Search client, AOL Toolbar for Web browsers, and AOL Safety & Security (you'll have to wait on a Vista-supported release of this one, though).
At the intersection of the QuadPane's four windows is the Dynasizer tool, a click-and-drag button that allows users to resize their windows. Pull up and to the left, and the lower right pane gets bigger. By dividing the screen into panes, AOL apparently hopes to make it easier for users to access top applications without having to change screens.
If ease is the goal, Helix sometimes falls short. To make note of a "favorite" page in the browser, the user has to click a heart-shaped icon. Hover your pointer over the heart to discover it is called Share. Click the heart/Share button to mark a "Favorite." To find the favorites later, click a tab called Browser.
It's too complicated for the novice user, and just too annoying and nonsensical to the sophisticated user.
Other seemingly simple tasks present similar challenges. Take for instance the email feature, meant on the surface as a sure indication of AOL's efforts to move into the portal space. In addition to checking AOL email, users can check mail from other POP3 e-mail systems such as Google's Gmail.
This isn't simple, though. For one thing, it doesn't work with some of the most popular email systems. Want to check Yahoo! Email using Helix? You'll need a premium account, as OpenRide won't work with Yahoo!'s standard version.
To even get that far, you'll first need to put in your AOL name and password. Don't have an AOL account? You'll need to create one, for free, in order to proceed. Might as well: You'll need your AOL login information to access such basic services as the Helix's Help function.
