Mobile Thursdays is our weekly roundup of the latest (or most interesting) in mobile, curated by our very own Laurence Veale. We publish on a Monday, simply to rival Luke W.

This week, we’re talking about Clear, the much talked about ‘to-do’ app.

Shek, one of our newest UXers, asks are the “traditional usability heuristics finally outdated?” This may be true, considering the app:

• provides no visible controls
• has no undo button
• has different gesture controls from other apps (a swipe instead of a tap)

Is it worth breaking design patterns for a new type of interaction? One of our visual designers, David Donohue thinks not. He says that this app does nothing for him that other ‘to-do’ apps don’t do already. “If I was feeling particularly negative I’d say it was a classic case of designer-smug!”

What do you think? Is there value in breaking a design pattern?