[greeter] Unique lock screen design w/ circle gestures to unlock

One simple thing that should add distinctive value, especially for us with the Bq Ubuntu case (front with hole cut out for the inner circle), is to add a clock. As it is now, I need to open the case to see what time it is, and even then it is hard to see because the indicator bar is so small.

Interesting idea: Think smart watch! -- What would the UI of a round Ubuntu Touch smart watch look like? I'm saying, when you reduce your phone's screen to the size of a smart watch. Probably like ... the circle lock screen? Ahhh!

What if the circle lock would look like an actual wrist watch face? Convergence down to the size of a smart watch. Be inspired by the beautiful design of Huawei smart watch. http://consumer.huawei.com/minisite/worldwide/huawei-watch/

I would like to take this idea further. From a developer point of view we should have all possibilities there are to plug-in into the greeter. Hence, as a developer you should be able to provide an application / plugin / addon (you name it) that provides:

- attaching background images, videos, animations to the greeter
- unlocking via a pin code
- unlocking via a gestures (circle, swiping, etc.)
- unlocking via fingerprint scan, iris scan, face recognition, DNA whatever (near-term sci-fi stuff)
- unlocking via remote commands and devices (e.g. via smart watch, near-field communication, etc.)
- placing emergency phone calls (included by default for regulatory reasons, obviously)
- etc.

This way the "circle design" could be totally optional, and it could be easily provided by fans of this idea in the Ubuntu community. It would also lead to a flexible, future-proof, clean design and implementation. Only the basis should be provided by "the platform", Ubuntu Touch.

All this "API stuff" is mostly technical, but UX needs to have their say too. Please, go ahead. I'd be happy to see some movement here. Cheers!

In the end, this idea is nothing new. Take a look at the competitors that we play catch-up with. *sigh*
How do they add app updates to the locked screen? (incoming messages and email, music being played, etc.)

There's nothing wrong with providing updates also via the greeter app, apart from the notification area. The greeter could theoretically be interfacing with the notifications. It could even be made a user choice whether to show updates in the greeter only, the notification tray, the audio tray, or all (default).

These are some cool ideas. But it is not useful to propose six different features in a single bug report, because the probability that all six of them will be prioritized the same way, and implemented at the same time, by the same person, is practically nil. Please report them individually.

I've created bug 1627753 that covers the "API and plugins" idea. (Please cast your vote there too if you care!)

I will now update the bug description above to make it more obvious that this feature request could be implemented as a "plugin" (or "scope") described in that bug.