Apple Software design

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
I've recently read some reviews on Motion Apple's new motion graphics application for video. Normally a program written from the ground up can tend to be a little sparse in UI. We all know Apple's OSX is progressing nicely but I'm particularly impressed with what they've done with some of their recent new apps or upgrades.



DVD Studio Pro- Apple really has done a great UI job with this app. It's not only gorgeous but highly functional. They only complaints I've read are about sluggishness on some systems. Everyone from Pros to Novice are able to get up to speed with this application quickly. Great job.



Apple Remote Desktop 2.0- Nice clean use of brushed metal UI and Aqua. They've wrapped up a nice group of features and this app shows a lot of promise. Some initial bugs being reported but I'm sure they'll be fixed soon.



Motion- This apps UI is impressive. I read a very comprehensive review from Peter Wiggins from Creative Cow and I learned a lot. Motion is not a toy..it goes pretty deep once you start using the layering and timeline functions. Keyframing is always available when you need it. Most people seem to say that whatever they need just happens to be right there meaning the developers brainstormed a lot about what the users next step would be. Kudos Apple. By version 3 I predict Motion overtakes After Effects. Sorry Adobe but if you don't do a total overhaul of AE you won't stand a chance.



Logic 7- This is not a shipping product yet and all I have are 7 pics of the Beta to go off of but it seems like Logic 7 will be the next app to see a much improved UI. Apple Loops will be integrated very nicely and I'm sure there will be plenty of other touches that musicians love. I cannot wait for this product.



Apple is definitely on a roll. They have really done a good job on their Pro apps. Now I see the apps coming closer and integrating in very cool ways. This is one of the reasons why I so desperately want an Apple Office. I'm salivating about what Apple would bring to the table in this genre. Open Office and the like are nice MS Office clones but we don't want that do we? Don't we want to see Apple's take on the integrated suite? Imagine the graphics powers they could extend to creating fancy spreadsheets.



I'd love to see more software. I dont' always agree with the people that hate seeing Apple create software. Every market that Apple devotes resources to creates a Halo Effect that increases opportunities for other developers. Final Cut Pro killed Adobe Premiere on the platform but Premiere never created a "Cottage Industry" devoted to it. Final Cut Pro has.



I'd love to see Apple apply their design talents on a nice simple 3D program aimed at video Pros. Like the Soundtrack of 3D or something. If they could utilize Motion's procedural behaviors within a 3D app for animation they'd be looking at a hit.



I love Apple software. I want more.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 28
    maffrewmaffrew Posts: 166member
    Have to agree with pretty much everything here.



    I'd never used a Macintosh OS, or any Mac software until my PowerBook arrived earlier this year, but now I love it. Apple software isn't just gorgeous, it's simple and deceptively powerful. A great combination.



    I'd love an Apple office suite too, i'm sure Apple could do a great job of it.
  • Reply 2 of 28
    kim kap solkim kap sol Posts: 2,987member
    Keynote was also a really good 1.0 release written from the ground up (well I suppose most 1.0 apps are written from the ground up. ) And it may very well kick some PowerPoint ass when it hits 2.0 (if one believes PowerPoint is still better than Keynote.)



    CoreImage should provide some fantastic transition effects...the ripple effect seen in the CoreImage demonstration by Phil would be a nice soothing transition between slides.



    Once Tiger hits the streets, FCP, iMovie, iPhoto, Keynote should all get a nice upgrade that utilizes CoreImage/Video...and who knows what else Apple will add to those apps between now and Tiger's release.



    QuickTime 7 should also provide some new features to FCP and iMovie...and probably other apps too.



    iChat 3 with H.264/AVC and the new iSight should kick some major butt too. How many PC users will be able to say with a straight face that they had a 4-way video conference without the help of some expensive custom equipment and software? They haven't even caught up to Macs when it comes to video-conferencing image quality in the consumer-end of the spectrum. They won't get 4-way for awhile.



    Macs sold after Tiger is released will, out-of-the-box, have the ability to make 4-way video-conferences and 10-way audio-conferences. This is a pretty neat package for offices. All that's missing is the office suite.



    And Macs are more expensive how?



    If Apple wanted to play the same game as PC manufacturers and Microsoft, they could ship a Mac without some very important programs that are already bundled with Macs today and just charge for them separately.



    The price may fool a lot of people but not me...you buy a Mac and you get excellent apps to go with it.
  • Reply 3 of 28
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kim kap sol

    Keynote was also a really good 1.0 release written from the ground up (well I suppose most 1.0 apps are written from the ground up. ) And it may very well kick some PowerPoint ass (if one believes PowerPoint is still better than Keynote.)



    kim kap sol



    D'Oh! How could I forget Keynote! I love the Keynote UI and if there's a K2 coming I expect even better things!



    I even like the Automator interface also. If it is inviting and people actually use it then it really could be a killer feature.



    I really think it's time for Apple to really start contrasting the differences between OSX and Windows when Tiger comes. Apple stores are a step in the right direction but potential switchers really know how cool Apple is. Buy some HP Pavilions and put'em in each store. Show people why OSX is light years beyond XP.



    People assume that Mac software is just like PC software. It doesn't dawn on them that Apple has had Human Interace Guidelines that developers have followed for years. They don't realize how this helps them acclimate faster to new products.



    If Apple had a suite imagine some of the demos they could do.



    1. Web surfing with Safari. You place an order from an online store. You are presented with a confirmation page and asked to print the page for your records. You don't want to waste paper for this so you just hit a icon from the Safari toolbar and it saves the page %100 to a Webkit enabled Apple WP.



    2. You want to send someone a video but there are some notes you want them to know about it. You could send an email and attach the quicktime file but instead you grab the playing QT file and drag-n-drop into your WP document. It plays and you scale it to the right size, add your notes and click an icon that opens mail and attaches the encapsulated file as an attachment. This would work sweet for iSight video.



    3. Someone sends you a pdf of their resume for proofreading. You notice some awkward sentences and mispelled words. You annotate the resume using features in pdf kit and send back to your friend



    4. I'd love to see a graphical way of plugging in data to a spreadsheet. Like a smaller app that lets you build the logic and then insert the data into the cells with the equations. Kinda like wysiwyg html, you'd always be able to get at the cells while you were working to fix any tweaky stuff. Then you could add some of Apples great graphics to the spreadsheet to complete. This would be like Macros without the danger.



    I'm sure Apple could blow my piddly ideas away and wrap it up in a very cool interface. I think Mac users deserve to have these type of apps.
  • Reply 4 of 28
    deestardeestar Posts: 105member
    The only thing I would say is that there are different UI styles/features between apps. From what I've seen motion is the prettiest and most innovative UI that apple have done for a while. It would be nice if apple now bring all the pro apps inline with motion i.e transparent dashboards etc.



    In fact it would be awesome if the transparent dashboards become a standard pallete window that all developers could use. I would love to see Adobe use them in there creative suite.



  • Reply 5 of 28
    kim kap solkim kap sol Posts: 2,987member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by deestar

    The only thing I would say is that there are different UI styles/features between apps. From what I've seen motion is the prettiest and most innovative UI that apple have done for a while. It would be nice if apple now bring all the pro apps inline with motion i.e transparent dashboards etc.



    In fact it would be awesome if the transparent dashboards become a standard pallete window that all developers could use. I would love to see Adobe use them in there creative suite.







    Yeah the transparent dashboard would be great if it were used in more Apple apps and even available to developers (although I'm sure they would be used wrongly...like drawers)...I could see many apps that use context sensitive inspector windows switch to transparent dashboards...OmniGraffle?
  • Reply 6 of 28
    Quote:

    Originally posted by hmurchison



    If Apple had a suite imagine some of the demos they could do.



    1. Web surfing with Safari. You place an order from an online store. You are presented with a confirmation page and asked to print the page for your records. You don't want to waste paper for this so you just hit a icon from the Safari toolbar and it saves the page %100 to a Webkit enabled Apple WP.





    I already do this with save to PDF.
  • Reply 7 of 28
    banchobancho Posts: 1,517member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by stupider...likeafox

    I already do this with save to PDF.



    I second the vote for save to PDF.
  • Reply 8 of 28
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    pdf is fine. HTML IMO is a bit more efficient and works better with more products but we'll see.
  • Reply 9 of 28
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by hmurchison

    pdf is fine. HTML IMO is a bit more efficient and works better with more products but we'll see.



    Um, considering that PDF can be produced anywhere there's the capability to print, and since PDF can be read into/by just about anything out there... what 'more products' do you have in mind that HTML 'works better' with?



    Give me PDF over HTML any day for receipts and such. I want an *exact* copy of what I see on the screen, not a data file that can be too easily contended was altered. (Yes, yes, you can easily alter a PDF file too, but most people don't realize that. They *do* know you can much with HTML in any editor.)
  • Reply 10 of 28
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Oh I love both options. I guess I'm going through the same "syndrome" that Dvorak is. This months PC Magazine had me cracking up because he said Adobe's pdf reader is a glacial mound of crap(paraphrasing). He said that unkknowingly clicking on a pdf file elicits a "Noooo" reaction. That's exactly how I feel. I see Preview popping up pdf so quick I get jealous. On a PC there are no tools that I know of that fast.



    I guess I'll be spared soon enough. Love the annotation featues of pdf kit. I hope developers of cocoa apps use it right away.



    Frankly I wonder why the MS Office bozos insist on sending files that don't need to be edited in .doc. I guess it just goes to show you the lemmings approach to computing. "I have to have Office because saving to pdf would be too easy".
  • Reply 11 of 28
    banchobancho Posts: 1,517member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by hmurchison

    Frankly I wonder why the MS Office bozos insist on sending files that don't need to be edited in .doc. I guess it just goes to show you the lemmings approach to computing. "I have to have Office because saving to pdf would be too easy".



    It is part of what compels many to get MS Office. If they distributed things which did not require editing in a friendly neutral format then there goes another reason to bother with Office. (I'm certain you already knew this though and the question was rhetorical )
  • Reply 12 of 28
    pbg4 dudepbg4 dude Posts: 1,611member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by hmurchison



    I guess I'll be spared soon enough. Love the annotation featues of pdf kit. I hope developers of cocoa apps use it right away.



    Frankly I wonder why the MS Office bozos insist on sending files that don't need to be edited in .doc. I guess it just goes to show you the lemmings approach to computing. "I have to have Office because saving to pdf would be too easy".




    Do you listen to yourself? In one paragraph you express your desire to add markup to pdf files, and in the next you want office users to refrain from using a format that allows markup???



    If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college ...
  • Reply 13 of 28
    pbg4 dudepbg4 dude Posts: 1,611member
    Oh yea, on topic:



    I love how Apple builds their programs. How long did it take you to figure out iMovie? 10 minutes? 20? Now try Pinnacle Studio software on PC. How long does it take you to figure out this program?



    Same thing with GarageBand. Granted it's quite simplistic, but there is good functionality in this program and again, it took about 10 minutes to get GB setup to record from the line-in port on my PB.



    It's this intuitiveness and "it just works" that I like about Apple products.
  • Reply 14 of 28
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Definitely.



    My advisor came to me last year in a panic because we needed a demo movie for a conference submission. I told him to go find a DV/FireWire camera, and I'd do the rest.



    So we set it up, did the filming we needed and went back to his office.



    I plugged the camera in, imported the clips into iMovie, edited it all together, adjusted some lighting, etc, added transitions, text blocks, titles, the whole bit. Took maybe 20 minutes.



    "Wow, that was slick! How long have you been editing video?"



    "Um, this is my first time. I've never used iMovie before."



    He was floored, but then I had him sit down and try it, and he was utterly amazed, and hooked. "It works just like you'd expect it to... this is incredible."
  • Reply 15 of 28
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by PBG4 Dude

    Do you listen to yourself? In one paragraph you express your desire to add markup to pdf files, and in the next you want office users to refrain from using a format that allows markup???



    If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college ...






    You're mistaken about my meaning. Perhaps this is more clear. Office users frequently send out documents that will not require modification by the receiving party. Thus pdf would work fine or even formats like RTF in a pinch. Of course I'm no dummy I know Microsoft's money train is hitched to .doc. We crossed wires here because .doc can be marked up with a copy of MS Office or a program that reverse engineers the .doc format with as little errors as possible.





    Quote:

    It's this intuitiveness and "it just works" that I like about Apple products.



    Well that's good because us musicians don't like farting around with crappy stuff now do we?



    Kickaha I see stories like that a lot. Apple's not perfect but they damn sure do a good job generally with their software. We're pretty much left to nitpick stuff like a missing obscure codec or ranting at Apple for not standardizing on brushed metal or Aqua.



    Sorry all for my confusing rant. I'm desperate for a new approach to the Office Suite. I already have MS Office..no harm in seeing what else is out there. Actually I'm a bit excited about Nisus Express 2.0 coming.
  • Reply 16 of 28
    boemaneboemane Posts: 311member
    A bit off topic, but does anyone know if Motion can export to .swf (flash) ?



    .:BoeManE:.
  • Reply 17 of 28
    I'm not going to dispute the elegance of Apple's current offerings; nothing else seems to come even close. Look at third party developers though. The Mac-only shareware folks are doing for the most part an excellent job, but the big names are doing less and less to conform to Mac interface ideals.
  • Reply 18 of 28
    onlookeronlooker Posts: 5,252member
    How have you forgotten Shake? DVDSP3 has taken a few pages from Shake (which hasn't changed since Apple bought them), and I think all the pro apps will have the appearance of "node connections" sooner than you think. THe Emagic UI is also shining through on a few Apps as well - including DVDSP2, and 3. So don't forget to give credit to some of the great developers that Apple acquired along the way.



    I wish Apple would buy Luxoligy. OMG! They just released some new movies of the workflow, and interface today. They are awesome! I know already that Modo is going to be my main modeler. It is stellar!
  • Reply 19 of 28
    To be honest, I actually don't like Apple's Pro GUIs. Not so much the look, but the feeling of them, the widgets and controls seem less fluid compared to standard Aqua. It's more of a feeling when using them, than just looking at them.
  • Reply 20 of 28
    pbg4 dudepbg4 dude Posts: 1,611member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by sanity assassin

    To be honest, I actually don't like Apple's Pro GUIs. Not so much the look, but the feeling of them, the widgets and controls seem less fluid compared to standard Aqua. It's more of a feeling when using them, than just looking at them.



    I think this is due to the "flatness" of the professional UIs. Sometimes I can't tell if something is just being informative, or if I click it, will an option pane come up. I think it becomes a time-waster, but I've only used FCE so that's the closest to the pro app UI as I've come. Maybe if they gave out an instruction manual with FCE I wouldn't feel this way.
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