Windows 8 appears to adopt Mac OS X Lion's monochrome, iPad-like icons

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  • Reply 101 of 158
    macrulezmacrulez Posts: 2,455member
    deleted
  • Reply 102 of 158
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Firefly7475 View Post


    I know we don't take this guy seriously, but this was too funny... according to Dilger the Windows 8 desgin is radically departing from Mac OS X Lion at the same time as copying it.



    One has to wonder what kind of mind can be ok with logic like this!



    Windows 8 design to radically depart from Mac OS X Lion

    Monday, August 29, 2011

    By Daniel Eran Dilger

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    Windows 8 appears to adopt Mac OS X Lion's monochrome, iPad-like icons

    Wednesday, August 31, 2011

    By Daniel Eran Dilger



    Another funny thing...it has been known for months now that the windows 8 tests are done on pre-alpha software...what we see is NOT what we'll get*.



    I do hope they take design elements from WP7...such a minimalistic UI would do well in desktop form IF they tweak the secondary UI (Old windows) to be more metro like...let me see if I can find a mockup.....







    that would look amazing as a REAL desktop interface...granted the learning curve would be massive but I think it would be worth it in the long run...



    unfortunately I have a feeling we're going to get an Aero experience...which, IMO...is hideous and thank DeviantArt for themes.
  • Reply 103 of 158
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AbsoluteDesignz View Post


    the above image



    Holy frick, that's great. I almost want to use something like that.
  • Reply 104 of 158
    "A video demonstrating a new feature in Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 also appears to out a bold new design decision by the company to closely copy Apple's controversial shift toward monochromatic, high contrast icons."



    the international troll community must be sniggering with you.. hoping no one would spot the huge gaping flaws in this statement. The windows 8 design is based on the ever evolving metro design language that microsoft has had in a number of diverse commercially available products since 1995 (hard to find good screenshots of encart 95, oddly, but here's a good one from encarta 2003 with high contrast monochromatic iconography). This design language predates any version of IOS by 12 years, and lion by 16.



    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_(design_language)



    it should also be noted that many apple supporters have been very vocal at the lack of taste, and design capabilities of any, and pretty much every microsoft product ever released. Your article looks more like you're admitting that apple is (not for the first time) copying microsoft, not the other way round.



    now please. shh. idiots. and crawl back under your rock.



    edit: fixed wikipedia URL
  • Reply 105 of 158
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by shao View Post


    now please. shh. idiots. and crawl back under your rock.



    Not sure that was warranted.
  • Reply 106 of 158
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by shao View Post


    "a video demonstrating a new feature in microsoft's upcoming windows 8 also appears to out a bold new design decision by the company to closely copy apple's controversial shift toward monochromatic, high contrast icons."



    the international troll community must be sniggering with you.. Hoping no one would spot the huge gaping flaws in this statement. The windows 8 design is based on the ever evolving metro design language that microsoft has had in a number of diverse commercially available products since 1995 (hard to find good screenshots of encart 95, oddly, but here's a good one from encarta 2003 with high contrast monochromatic iconography). This design language predates any version of ios by 12 years, and lion by 16.



    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/metro_(design_language)



    it should also be noted that many apple supporters have been very vocal at the lack of taste, and design capabilities of any, and pretty much every microsoft product ever released. Your articile looks more like you're admitting that apple is (not for the first time) copying microsoft, not the other way round.



    Now please. Shh. Idiots. And crawl back under your rock.



    ftmfw!!!!!!!!
  • Reply 107 of 158
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    Not sure that was warranted.



    this poorly researched article wasn't warranted either, but here we are. It's not for the first time either.
  • Reply 108 of 158
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by shao View Post


    this poorly researched article wasn't warranted either, but here we are. It's not for the first time either.



    By imagining your entire life savings in AAPL stock, you can get a feel for why DED might be a bit nervous and paranoid.
  • Reply 109 of 158
    axualaxual Posts: 244member
    I do not care. That is all.
  • Reply 110 of 158
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Menno View Post


    Actually, you can: http://youtu.be/yiJ9fy1qSFI





    Back on Topic: High Contrast isn't something apple "Invented" and it DOES NOT MATTER who the first person to bring it to computers was. Seriously, it doesn't.



    This "OMG everyone is copying apple" shtick is about as annoying as people who scream "First!" after a post on a real news site. Apple adopts ideas from others, others adopt ideas from Apple. That's how technology, art, fashion, HUMAN PROGRESS works. If you think apple's never adopted an idea from other company, you're fooling yourself. This DOESN'T make them any less innovative, or lower the quality of their products AT ALL. That's just how the world works.



    amazing. looks as good as anything MS has done.
  • Reply 111 of 158
    cpsrocpsro Posts: 3,198member
    The low-contrast icons in Lion are terrible for users with failing eyesight.
  • Reply 112 of 158
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gustav View Post


    Uhm... the word has been used that way since at least the 80's. Perhaps you should look beyond Wikipedia and get out into the real world.



    went through the 80's as a young man. i never heard anyone use 'gay' to mean 'stupid'. heard it used as an 'insult' but not to mean 'stupid'.

    get out in the real world and find a job and see how long you keep it using that term that way.

    maybe people are using it now to mean 'stupid' but they are just ignorant, probably homophobic, losers.
  • Reply 113 of 158
    shrikeshrike Posts: 494member
    I agree with the folks who are saying MS is not copying Apple here. MS's metro UI design in Win8 and WP7 is refreshing in that it is doing things a different way. Don't know if it is successful, but it is refreshingly different.



    As for the grayscale icon design, it's convergent design. If it is good design to have grayscale icon design, then all OS UI should use. It's only copying if they use the exact same icons.
  • Reply 114 of 158
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bettieblue View Post


    Wow people really care about this stuff?



    Yes, that's the point. People who care have an opinion about people who care about craft and excellence. Other people, such as yourself, advocate the cheapest, ugliest crap available and try to suggest that anyone who gives a damn is a raving, frothy cultist.



    Your hate comes from an awareness of your own inferiority combined with an unwillingness to admit you are wrong, so you project your own self loathing upon other people, causing you to scamper to an Apple blog to troll.
  • Reply 115 of 158
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Jacksons View Post


    Right! When Metro was first demonstrated, this site was full of nay-sayers commenting on how stupid it was to have square boxes, with white on black cut off text.



    And now it turns out that stupidity was blattent copying!?



    Which one is it?



    PS: Have fun not streaming music from the iCloud, while the stupid Metro users can stream any song available in the entire library of available music at the touch of button



    Let me clear things up for you: Elements of Metro are unique (and I'd say crap, but that's just my opinion), but this article isn't about Metro, it's about iOS-like icons that Microsoft is layering over the top of Windows 7 to make it touch friendly. Microsoft's successes have come largely from elements it took from Apple/NeXT. Microsoft has coined a lot of unique ideas (or arbitrary changes, like using Start to shut down) but they were overwhelmingly not good and unpopular.



    That's why, despite rebranding Office and Windows with new looks and new logos EVERY release, there isn't anything to carry forward because its all disposable crap fashion, like H&M. Immediately dated because its just flashy bling noise appealing to unsophisticated clients. Apple has tended to build things with some taste, so it doesn't radically depart from its style every time it releases a product.



    Even things that people now say looked bad in retrospect were original and kind of cool at the time, like the brushed metal look or the original aqua. It's hard to think of nice looking things Microsoft has produced over its monopoly period. It's only been in the last few years since the Vistapocalypse that it has produced some attempts at good looking stuff (Metro/Bing), but those aren't the company's most popular products.
  • Reply 116 of 158
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Firefly7475 View Post


    Connotes



    Based on a pre-beta snap of a demo video about native ISO/VHD support the OP has concluded that Windows 8 has ripped off the Metro-style OSX Lion monochrome icons.



    An example of just how heavily Windows 8 rips off OSX Lion is presented below.



    You are confusing W8's web apps with its UI. The UI is iPad icons. The colorful web pages Microsoft designed to replace the ugly Windows desktop are nice looking, but just like Windows 3.1, they're only a fresh coat of paint until you scrape back a corner and see the old Windows Vista/7 running behind it (just like Win on DOS).



    This is not a new product, its a facade layer, just like Motoblur or TouchWiz on Android.
  • Reply 117 of 158
    mennomenno Posts: 854member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Corrections View Post


    Let me clear things up for you: Elements of Metro are unique (and I'd say crap, but that's just my opinion), but this article isn't about Metro, it's about iOS-like icons that Microsoft is layering over the top of Windows 7 to make it touch friendly. Microsoft's successes have come largely from elements it took from Apple/NeXT. Microsoft has coined a lot of unique ideas (or arbitrary changes, like using Start to shut down) but they were overwhelmingly not good and unpopular.



    That's why, despite rebranding Office and Windows with new looks and new logos EVERY release, there isn't anything to carry forward because its all disposable crap fashion, like H&M. Immediately dated because its just flashy bling noise appealing to unsophisticated clients. Apple has tended to build things with some taste, so it doesn't radically depart from its style every time it releases a product.



    Even things that people now say looked bad in retrospect were original and kind of cool at the time, like the brushed metal look or the original aqua. It's hard to think of nice looking things Microsoft has produced over its monopoly period. It's only been in the last few years since the Vistapocalypse that it has produced some attempts at good looking stuff (Metro/Bing), but those aren't the company's most popular products.



    Let me clear things up for you: Metro started in 1995:



    http://forums.appleinsider.com/showp...&postcount=105
  • Reply 118 of 158
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Shunnabunich View Post


    How on earth did DED get away with calling Lion's icons "high-contrast"? They're either the same photorealistic stuff they've been doing for years (i.e. app icons) or illegible light gray on lighter gray (sidebars). iOS toolbar icons I can see getting that description, but even then that's just incidental because it happened to make good design sense for toolbars. The entire premise of the Metro UI as a whole is that it's high-contrast and blocky, so it wouldn't make sense to do otherwise for those few little icons in the Start menu.



    In short, DED is getting needlessly desperate if that's the worst example of MS' infamous habit of copycatting he could find (and if it is, he's not trying hard enough).



    To explain things for you:



    Lion has the same desktop photorealistic icons of Mac OS X. Its menu bars, however, have been reduced to high contrast monochrome icons similar to Apple's 2007-era iPhone and the Menu Bar icons Mac OS X has always used in the top right by the clock.



    Prior to Lion, sidebars (Finder/iTunes) and window menus (Mail, etc) were usually colorful and somewhat inconsistent. Lion has incorporated the scaled down, less distracting monochrome icons of iOS & the OS X Menu Bar, both of which are designed not to scream for attention because they're always visible. The desktop is not always visible, so it doesn't have to be toned down or scaled back to basic icons.



    Metro, on the other hand, is flashy bright colors borrowing only iOS's heavy use of animation. But now the W8 UI is incorporating flat utilitarian icons for much the same reason as Apple. I don't think the article is boohooing Microsoft's copying as much as pointing out that Apple figured this stuff out first at every generation, as another poster commented:



    - sharp b&w icons at a time when the PC market was using blurry color with ugly graphics

    - classy use of understated colors and shades of gray ten years before Microsoft toned things down for Win2000

    - Use of iconic/cartoony icons that took advantage of color capacity in the early 90s, which Microsoft began to figure out 6-7 years later

    - Use of photorealistic graphics and translucency in MacOS X in 2001, which Microsoft didn't really adopt until Vista in 2007, because Windows lacked the underlying graphics technology.

    - Touch friendly understated menu icons with iOS, iPad and Lion starting in 2007, which Microsoft is trying to layer on top of Windows to use as its new thing sometime in 2013.



    Get it? If not, start at the top and re-read.
  • Reply 119 of 158
    shrikeshrike Posts: 494member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton View Post


    I'm pretty sure Microsoft's Windows 95 "beveled gray buttons" look was inspired by NeXTSTEP. The elements are all there: embossed group boxes, inset fields, and raised buttons, all done in gray (as opposed to white like Mac OS of the era. Before NeXTSTEP, UIs didn't look like this. After NeXT, everyone from Amgia to Motif to Windows adopted the "beveled control look."



    Yup, MS took a lot of the ideas from NeXTSTEP to make the Win95 UI. Dead giveaways to that are the close and minimize window control icons and the pseudo 3D looks. Then they started to go away from the Win95 design with subsequent releases. With Mac OS X, I think one of the problems is not enough negative space, and the white background. The separation between icons in icon view is too small.



    From Win95 to Win7, I think Win95-Win2000 have the best UI iconography and looks. After that, they started colorizing too much. And the hideous use of transparency that both Apple and MS started to use. Ugh, hideous.



    Now, if only Apple would get rid of the Menubar. It was nice for small screens back in the 80s. Today, it is an abomination. It's too bad Apple couldn't get rid of it with Mac OS X. Now, we have to wait for another OS cycle for the opportunity to get rid of it.
  • Reply 120 of 158
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by timgriff84 View Post


    Seriously? I've had Mac's since 2002 and every version of OS X since then, multiple iPods, an iPhone and have seen a lot of iPads. But I really can remember seeing a black and white interface on any of them. When thing's are gray on an Apple product there always either a metal effect or some sort of gradient, not solid black. Apple's newest icons are also all square with rounded corners.



    Take a look at the menu bar of one of your many "Mac's" and note the wide array of b&w icons surrounding the clock. Even the Apple men has been monochrome (has a gradient, but subtle) for years.



    There are also other places where Apple has used monochrome icons, such as at startup, the monochrome Apple logo, gear, and Option-boot icons for drives. Seems like with all your "Mac's" you haven't been very observant. You could also look at the early iPods, none of which were grey because they had B&W screens!



    The Zune wasn't ahead of this curve any more than Vista was--both were at least 6 years behind Mac OS X in 2001, but thanks for offering your Apocryphal Computer History to refute what everyone else sees as the simple truth.
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