Past Helio/Sidekick designer reworking Palm OS

One of the most prominent phone interface designers is now working for Palm for its next operating system, Engadget confirms in a hunt for new information. Matias Duarte, who designed much of the interface behind the Danger Sidekick and later moved on to Helio's custom interface, is now known through checks with sources and Palm itself to be a Senior Director in Palm's Human Interface and User Experience design group. The new executive quietly left his former post at Helio for the new position nearly two years ago in September 2007.

Little information is available about Duarte's current projects, though the designer has publicly acknowledged work on "something new" through an online posting and is in a role that would likely charge him with at least some of the interface design work behind the new Linux-based PalmOS. The sequel, nicknamed Nova, willl represent the first major refresh of PalmOS since version 5.0 was shown in 2002 and is known to have a much more Internet-centric design that also has an interface targeted at an entirely different class of user than either today's simpler PalmOS (used on the Centro) or the complex Windows Mobile (used for most Treos).