The HUD makes no sense on a desktop environment and since I have not tried it on a mobile device I cannot make a final judgement. My gut instinct is that the HUD will work on a mobile device and as the platform matures it will become better. Most people prefer Gnome3, let them use it with other distros.
I feel the true battle for Canonical lies in mobile devices and being an entity which can stand up against all the other closed eco-systems and manufacturers in this space. If they can keep it open for everybody so much the better for us all.
I have nothing but respect for shuttleworth, he is an extremely smart bloke who has invested a lot of his money in this, this obviously does not make Canonical exempt from criticism.
Whether HUD makes or does not make any sense is really up to discussion, I like pieces of the HUD and I think it can be great for my laptop (12''). That's a bit irrelevant though, since Unity does not work, has tons of bugs and you can't change anything (well, you can, but then you just expose more bugs). Also, even if the HUD were useful, it's responsivness is so sub-par, that's impossible to use. I for one don't have patience to wait after keystroke and before starting typing. It's an absolute engineering disaster and this is what is the real problem.
"My gut instinct is that the HUD will work on a mobile device and as the platform matures it will become better."
I think you're right. Unity works great on a netbook, purely for consuming. Fine for a mobile device.
There used to be a Ubuntu 'netbook remix' which came with Unity (before it was the default), and it fitted there perfectly.
Canonical are hardly alone in betting the farm on mobile-like interfaces. MS are doing it with Windows 8, and some of OS X >= Lion's interface is only usable with a multitouch trackpad.
Whether they're right or not is open to discussion, but it's clearly happening.
I feel the true battle for Canonical lies in mobile devices and being an entity which can stand up against all the other closed eco-systems and manufacturers in this space. If they can keep it open for everybody so much the better for us all.
I have nothing but respect for shuttleworth, he is an extremely smart bloke who has invested a lot of his money in this, this obviously does not make Canonical exempt from criticism.