I think Apple is trying to get a jump on Microsoft 8's form, fit & feel of its tiles in the startup menu. At this point, its hard to say who has copied whom, but it appears both may end up looking very similar with similar purpose & function for the home page. I think Apple will handle the start-up menu issue differently, & I don't see them eventually going to touch-screen TV for say, an 80" screen.
Apple certainly went all in with iPhone OS back in 2007 but what MS has been doing since WinPh7 are active tiles which are distinctly different from the static icons, save for badges, that Apple has used.
I can see how MS could have started to follow Apple's lead here but they quickly evolved past it. If anything it's a copy of Flipboard which first appeared in 2010, but I have to think that it's not likely Apple copied from them either, or vice versa.
So SJ rejected this before there was iOS, before there was an app store. Maybe then it was rejected because you could provide for the limited number of choices using the previouse drop down menu design. Now with the potential of hundreds of choices, that design previous design is not practical. He never said why it was rejected. I guess it was in a different context.
Thank goodness Margolis is here to step into the spotlight when “nobody else” at Apple says no to bad design, and the only person who ever did is gone.
Well yes, let's have him get is 15 minutes of fame with a statement that he can't prove and Apple, due to their cult of secrecy, will never refute
I don't see what all of the fuss is about. pull down menus is backwards to me. I think the icons can be square rather than rectangle. Plus, if we can easily delete the one's we don't use, since I don't watch professional sports, those can be eliminated.
They are baked in so they would never let you delete them. But if you could just reorder Tim to the bottom that would be good
I swear the first thing I thought when I saw that new TV UI was:
"That doesn't look like something Steve would have approved."
And its real simple: the colors of the UI are competing with the colors in the movie posters. It ends up as a cacophony of colors...and the eye doesn't know where to land.
Sorry but most posters on this thread aren't qualified to comment. Design isn't just opinion and it can't be determined by anecdotal nonsense like, "My kids like 'em." You either have a trained and sophisticated design eye -- or you don't. (very few do)
This UI sucks and is a bad sign moving forward.
A good design will appeal to about 95% of its audience...and won't provoke 1/3 of the fanbase to say: "it sucks!"
Unless...it sucks.
By that criteria the fully Jobs vetted OS X rollout was a complete design disaster. And we are well into the era of bad signs.
I don't care that it is now a grid of icons but the implementation is crap. Most TV screens would be 40" or more and they can't fit all the icons on the screen ? Massive huge plates for icons, reminds me of Lotus Notes ... I think I'm going to be sick.
how ridiculous....sj also liked the first versions of ical, which were crap. Sj was not unerring in his design judgement. Flower power imacs? Hockey puck mouse?
It is a startlingly bad UI from almost any point of view and for a variety of reasons.
People here took me to task when I said Steve would never approve of it. It seems I might have been correct though.
I have been taken to task for os x bad ui desicions repeateadly here by the usual suspects, and I also claimed Steve would have never approved... For some things we will never now if he would or wouldn't. I sure hope the people who can take the right decisions reach the right executive places at apple. I have suggested that apple, esp. so in os x, should offer far more choice for customization than they are currently offering since very apparently the guy who had the flair to say no to bad design choices is no longer with us.
The interface of the atv though is particularly bad, and it amuses me to no end what I read here from some people that seem like they are prepared to rationalize away ANY current design choice of apple. I think apple could issue an atv ui with a static turd in the centre of the screen and they would still find something good to say about it along the lines of say... well you 've looked at what a turd google tv is, at least apple are open about it.
Trust me, there's never any 'consensus' by 'design experts'...Design means so many things to different people, and when it comes to UI, functionality is just as important and plays a huge role in the design process.
If good design was different for every person...there would be:
-No professional designers
-No art schools
-No Apple Computer
Design is predicated upon both universal principles as well as adopted cultural nuances. A good designer must know and master both.
The design of an Apple Store, the design of ipods and ibook Air...the iOS GUI ...appeal to almost everyone...because they employ well established design principles.
The reason this iTV design fails so miserably is it's a bastardized combination of two clashing designs: the Rounded bright and colorful icons in the lower half...and the rectangular (equally colorful) colors at the top.
This design is in fact a departure from the iOS design, where there is symmetry and consistency--cubic icons against a neutral background with no other visual clutter.
I don't care that it is now a grid of icons but the implementation is crap. Most TV screens would be 40" or more and they can't fit all the icons on the screen ? Massive huge plates for icons, reminds me of Lotus Notes ... I think I'm going to be sick.
The scale of the icons are grossly oversized. However, the market for the Apple HDTV that will be developed is yet to materialize.
You have to envision your iPad/iPod Touch/iPhone being your Inspector Panel and the HDTV interfacing directly with the AppleTV and/or in conjunction needing to test different form factors and Application categories traditionally perceived to be the sole domain of TV and Movies.
I trekked off to the local shrine of to buy one but so loathed the UI I departed empty handed, not feeling the need for any more ugly complexity in my life. It felt like trying on cheap shoes.
Really? A screen the size of a wall, and I'm supposed to scroll? I don't think so.
Looks like the AppleInsider copy and paste job forgot to include the Next Web update with a clarification by Mr. Margolis:
"Update: In a comment, Michael Margolis clarified the UI and the elements Steve Jobs took issue with:
The new UI shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. There is a clear effort at Apple to make everything match the look and feel of their popular iOS products – starting with Lion and increasing momentum with Mountain Lion.
To be clear – he didn’t like the original grid. This was before the iPhone was popular and before the iPad even existed.
Given that the iPad is far more successful than the AppleTV, migrating the AppleTV to look more like the iPad was probably a very smart move – even if some of the users of the old UI don’t prefer the new one."
Oh, there you go - all this insinuation that Apple design is going down the tubes without SJ is rubbish.
What AppleTV really needs is a Spotlight-like top level search. From the home screen, type in a string that will show results from Computers (movies, tv, music, photos), Netflix, iTunes movies/tv, and so on. Too many screen to click through without this.
Of course, Siri would be nice too, but I'm sure they are saving that for the actual TV...
Used to be a subtle and calming "landing site", "Home Page", "Desktop", whatever you want to call it.
When you would flip your 40" TV screen onto the AppleTV port; or when you would back your menu button all the way back to the "main screen" and then walk away, it was always a beautiful screen that I would not mind leaving displayed on my 40" TV all day long.
Now... It's a fucking billboard. A bunch of ugly fucking corporate logos and poorly designed icons. A bunch of shit that I don't want to have to weed through every time I want to make what was, previously, a simple menu choice.
I don't give a rat's ass if Harry Potter is the top movie. I don't want it on my default AppleTV screen unless I purposely am asking the question; "What's the top movie?"
Looks like the AppleInsider copy and paste job forgot to include the Next Web update with a clarification by Mr. Margolis:
"Update: In a comment, Michael Margolis clarified the UI and the elements Steve Jobs took issue with:
The new UI shouldn?t come as a surprise to anyone. There is a clear effort at Apple to make everything match the look and feel of their popular iOS products ? starting with Lion and increasing momentum with Mountain Lion.
To be clear ? he didn?t like the original grid. This was before the iPhone was popular and before the iPad even existed.
Given that the iPad is far more successful than the AppleTV, migrating the AppleTV to look more like the iPad was probably a very smart move ? even if some of the users of the old UI don?t prefer the new one."
Oh, there you go - all this insinuation that Apple design is going down the tubes without SJ is rubbish.
Actually what is rubbish is the insitance that a vast number of apple's user base who are despising the inane iOS-ification of pretty much anything apple, resulting in some pretty bad ui choices -with the atv exemplifying this- are somehow against apple, or seriously misguided, or behind the times, or whatever...and the short sightedness by apple's management thinking that if they make everything look like iOS, regardless of the requirements of the appliance they make, they will sell more. They will sell more in the short term but in the long term they 'll dilute so much of what apple is about, pushing the limits of innovation and design for consumer products as well as NOT pandering to immediate market expectations that it will cost them dearly.
Apple doesn't have to be a boutique tech manufacturer like they used to, but they can't either be an everything to everyone manufacturer as they are aiming to be now. The brand will go to shit if everything looks like ios (which is also starting to date) eventually. There is a fine line between uniformity of style and banality. In the case of the atv uniformity to ios means interfaces that are neither very functional nor very well designed. Is that what post SJ apple is aiming at? No matter how much Margolis sugar coats his bitting and revealing comments, it takes a stretch of the imagination to consider this a smart move.
Comments
I think Apple is trying to get a jump on Microsoft 8's form, fit & feel of its tiles in the startup menu. At this point, its hard to say who has copied whom, but it appears both may end up looking very similar with similar purpose & function for the home page. I think Apple will handle the start-up menu issue differently, & I don't see them eventually going to touch-screen TV for say, an 80" screen.
Apple certainly went all in with iPhone OS back in 2007 but what MS has been doing since WinPh7 are active tiles which are distinctly different from the static icons, save for badges, that Apple has used.
I can see how MS could have started to follow Apple's lead here but they quickly evolved past it. If anything it's a copy of Flipboard which first appeared in 2010, but I have to think that it's not likely Apple copied from them either, or vice versa.
Thank goodness Margolis is here to step into the spotlight when “nobody else” at Apple says no to bad design, and the only person who ever did is gone.
Well yes, let's have him get is 15 minutes of fame with a statement that he can't prove and Apple, due to their cult of secrecy, will never refute
I don't see what all of the fuss is about. pull down menus is backwards to me. I think the icons can be square rather than rectangle. Plus, if we can easily delete the one's we don't use, since I don't watch professional sports, those can be eliminated.
They are baked in so they would never let you delete them. But if you could just reorder Tim to the bottom that would be good
How much more of these pseudo-revelations of a post-mortem Jobs will we have to read about?
They are baked in so they would never let you delete them. But if you could just reorder Tim to the bottom that would be good
BREAKING: Staunch Apple fans call for Tim Cook's marginalization!
The one thing we know it wasn't the UI of the Apple TV before. If something not right at the time it doesnt means it cant be good later.
I swear the first thing I thought when I saw that new TV UI was:
"That doesn't look like something Steve would have approved."
And its real simple: the colors of the UI are competing with the colors in the movie posters. It ends up as a cacophony of colors...and the eye doesn't know where to land.
Sorry but most posters on this thread aren't qualified to comment. Design isn't just opinion and it can't be determined by anecdotal nonsense like, "My kids like 'em." You either have a trained and sophisticated design eye -- or you don't. (very few do)
This UI sucks and is a bad sign moving forward.
A good design will appeal to about 95% of its audience...and won't provoke 1/3 of the fanbase to say: "it sucks!"
Unless...it sucks.
By that criteria the fully Jobs vetted OS X rollout was a complete design disaster. And we are well into the era of bad signs.
The Devil Wears Prada is the top movie on iTunes? Bullshit! Tell me it ain't so!
You can be sure:
The six movies were chosen for variety and for their appeal to a wide variety of demographics.
After about a week with it, I have to agree that the new UI grates. I miss the simplicity and subtlety of the previous one.
Interestingly, however, my kids (both teenagers) prefer the new UI.
Can't win them all, I suppose......
No offense - I'm sure yours are exemplary - but taste isn't standard equipment on teenagers.
how ridiculous....sj also liked the first versions of ical, which were crap. Sj was not unerring in his design judgement. Flower power imacs? Hockey puck mouse?
bingo.
It is a startlingly bad UI from almost any point of view and for a variety of reasons.
People here took me to task when I said Steve would never approve of it. It seems I might have been correct though.
I have been taken to task for os x bad ui desicions repeateadly here by the usual suspects, and I also claimed Steve would have never approved... For some things we will never now if he would or wouldn't. I sure hope the people who can take the right decisions reach the right executive places at apple. I have suggested that apple, esp. so in os x, should offer far more choice for customization than they are currently offering since very apparently the guy who had the flair to say no to bad design choices is no longer with us.
The interface of the atv though is particularly bad, and it amuses me to no end what I read here from some people that seem like they are prepared to rationalize away ANY current design choice of apple. I think apple could issue an atv ui with a static turd in the centre of the screen and they would still find something good to say about it along the lines of say... well you 've looked at what a turd google tv is, at least apple are open about it.
Trust me, there's never any 'consensus' by 'design experts'...Design means so many things to different people, and when it comes to UI, functionality is just as important and plays a huge role in the design process.
If good design was different for every person...there would be:
-No professional designers
-No art schools
-No Apple Computer
Design is predicated upon both universal principles as well as adopted cultural nuances. A good designer must know and master both.
The design of an Apple Store, the design of ipods and ibook Air...the iOS GUI ...appeal to almost everyone...because they employ well established design principles.
The reason this iTV design fails so miserably is it's a bastardized combination of two clashing designs: the Rounded bright and colorful icons in the lower half...and the rectangular (equally colorful) colors at the top.
This design is in fact a departure from the iOS design, where there is symmetry and consistency--cubic icons against a neutral background with no other visual clutter.
I don't care that it is now a grid of icons but the implementation is crap. Most TV screens would be 40" or more and they can't fit all the icons on the screen ? Massive huge plates for icons, reminds me of Lotus Notes ... I think I'm going to be sick.
The scale of the icons are grossly oversized. However, the market for the Apple HDTV that will be developed is yet to materialize.
You have to envision your iPad/iPod Touch/iPhone being your Inspector Panel and the HDTV interfacing directly with the AppleTV and/or in conjunction needing to test different form factors and Application categories traditionally perceived to be the sole domain of TV and Movies.
Really? A screen the size of a wall, and I'm supposed to scroll? I don't think so.
"Update: In a comment, Michael Margolis clarified the UI and the elements Steve Jobs took issue with:
The new UI shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. There is a clear effort at Apple to make everything match the look and feel of their popular iOS products – starting with Lion and increasing momentum with Mountain Lion.
To be clear – he didn’t like the original grid. This was before the iPhone was popular and before the iPad even existed.
Given that the iPad is far more successful than the AppleTV, migrating the AppleTV to look more like the iPad was probably a very smart move – even if some of the users of the old UI don’t prefer the new one."
Oh, there you go - all this insinuation that Apple design is going down the tubes without SJ is rubbish.
Of course, Siri would be nice too, but I'm sure they are saving that for the actual TV...
When you would flip your 40" TV screen onto the AppleTV port; or when you would back your menu button all the way back to the "main screen" and then walk away, it was always a beautiful screen that I would not mind leaving displayed on my 40" TV all day long.
Now... It's a fucking billboard. A bunch of ugly fucking corporate logos and poorly designed icons. A bunch of shit that I don't want to have to weed through every time I want to make what was, previously, a simple menu choice.
I don't give a rat's ass if Harry Potter is the top movie. I don't want it on my default AppleTV screen unless I purposely am asking the question; "What's the top movie?"
Yes. It is bad design. It just is.
Looks like the AppleInsider copy and paste job forgot to include the Next Web update with a clarification by Mr. Margolis:
"Update: In a comment, Michael Margolis clarified the UI and the elements Steve Jobs took issue with:
The new UI shouldn?t come as a surprise to anyone. There is a clear effort at Apple to make everything match the look and feel of their popular iOS products ? starting with Lion and increasing momentum with Mountain Lion.
To be clear ? he didn?t like the original grid. This was before the iPhone was popular and before the iPad even existed.
Given that the iPad is far more successful than the AppleTV, migrating the AppleTV to look more like the iPad was probably a very smart move ? even if some of the users of the old UI don?t prefer the new one."
Oh, there you go - all this insinuation that Apple design is going down the tubes without SJ is rubbish.
Actually what is rubbish is the insitance that a vast number of apple's user base who are despising the inane iOS-ification of pretty much anything apple, resulting in some pretty bad ui choices -with the atv exemplifying this- are somehow against apple, or seriously misguided, or behind the times, or whatever...and the short sightedness by apple's management thinking that if they make everything look like iOS, regardless of the requirements of the appliance they make, they will sell more. They will sell more in the short term but in the long term they 'll dilute so much of what apple is about, pushing the limits of innovation and design for consumer products as well as NOT pandering to immediate market expectations that it will cost them dearly.
Apple doesn't have to be a boutique tech manufacturer like they used to, but they can't either be an everything to everyone manufacturer as they are aiming to be now. The brand will go to shit if everything looks like ios (which is also starting to date) eventually. There is a fine line between uniformity of style and banality. In the case of the atv uniformity to ios means interfaces that are neither very functional nor very well designed. Is that what post SJ apple is aiming at? No matter how much Margolis sugar coats his bitting and revealing comments, it takes a stretch of the imagination to consider this a smart move.