I have a groovy feeling about this as well. It's going to create a lot of bitching and moaning, however, once things start to change. As forward thinking as a lot of Mac users are, sometimes small changes bring about great fury. I've read hundreds of posts regarding the thinner iMac. Many people don't understand why this is a valuable design concept.
I hope Ive and his team respond quickly to valid user complaints (hello...where is the Select All button in Mail and Camera). If they eat their own dogfood and use the hell out of their creations, I don't think this will be a problem.
(Psst...can we have the option to show the iPhone keyboard with one more row of frequently used punctuation marks?)
I have a groovy feeling about this as well. It's going to create a lot of bitching and moaning, however, once things start to change. As forward thinking as a lot of Mac users are, sometimes small changes bring about great fury. I've read hundreds of posts regarding the thinner iMac. Many people don't understand why this is a valuable design concept.
Yeah, I fall into that camp. I admit to being a little nervous about what Ive might do with interface design because his direction in hardware, while aesthetically remarkable, is leaning towards form over function, sometimes sacrificing performance to achieve prettiness. Making things pretty is fine, but making tools less productive strikes me as a bad idea. In cases where the goals of performance and pretty conflict, I'd prefer the former be given priority.
And you're right, I do NOT understand why the thinner iMac is supposedly a "valuable design concept." I'd LIKE to, but I don't really understand the benefit. Can you explain it to me?
So does Ive actually have software people reporting to him now? The press release said he would "provide leadership and guidance" but it didn't say of any specific group would be reporting to him. I noticed on LinkedIn a lot of Apple HI/UI/UX employees have design degrees not software engineering degrees.
"Yes, yellow leather and 18 gauge thread (that's 120 for Europeans) wasn't the best idea."
To be honest, this doesn't bother me so much.
What does bother me is that they spent time doing this, rather than adding features or fixing bugs.
Consider iOS's Podcasts app. Nice reel-to-reel UI, which I'm sure took someone a long time to develop.
Sadly, they didn't spend that same amount of time making the app actually work. For instance, it periodically resets and claims that every single episode of some podcast has not been heard. It so utterly filled with bugs that it's useless.
Now I do believe looks are important. But they're not *everything*, and it seems that's all Apple has been doing. Perhaps that was Forestall, and if so, good riddance.
I'm more than happy a design guy is now in charge of the two OS platforms (coming from a design background myself). I really do hope Apple look outside to see what third party devs are doing. The jailbreaking community have done some absolutely wonderful work, and shouldn't be ignored. Things like LockInfo, Winterboard and Siri tweaks are simplistic and productive tools. In OSX, things like Totalfinder and Mountain Tweaks bring real functionality to simple tasks. Now I only hope we can get rid of the cartoon graphics in iOS and OSX. PLEASE!!!
I could really look forward to a future where UI design is driven by competition between Ive at Apple and the Metro team at Misrosoft.
(Although I think of Metro the way I think of the UIs on Star Trek: super cool, and the nerd in me loves them as much as the artist in me... but I’m not sure they have the instant intuitive usability that a mainstream product for NON-nerds should have. iOS comes really close in that regard—the best that has yet existed.)
+++
Ahh… The iOS UI.
I suspect that the iOS UI from the 2007 iPhone up to and including the 2011 iPad was mainly Steve Jobs doing...
As close to perfection, for a computing appliance, as the world has seen!
As the world moves forward with the convergence of desktop hardware/software with tablet hardware/software -- a further rethinking of the proper UI is needed.
IMO, the greatest single objective for hardware and software (both OS and Application) is to "get out of the way".
"There is a loyalty that I have for Apple and a belief that this company has an impact beyond design which feels important. I also have a sense of being accountable as we really live, sometimes pretty painfully with the consequences of what we do."
The above should have read "There is a loyalty I've for Apple..."!
OT, I just aquired an early 2006 Mac Mini running 10.4. I am having real fun playing around with it as this is the first time I have worked with Tiger! Fun to see how different it is from Win XP (which I was actually using in 2006). My entry point into Mac OS was Snow Leopard with my late 2009 27" iMac.
Yeah, I fall into that camp. I admit to being a little nervous about what Ive might do with interface design because his direction in hardware, while aesthetically remarkable, is leaning towards form over function, sometimes sacrificing performance to achieve prettiness. Making things pretty is fine, but making tools less productive strikes me as a bad idea. In cases where the goals of performance and pretty conflict, I'd prefer the former be given priority.
And you're right, I do NOT understand why the thinner iMac is supposedly a "valuable design concept." I'd LIKE to, but I don't really understand the benefit. Can you explain it to me?
If you read Steve Job biography, you would understand that design comes before function at Apple, and it works. Instead of the engineers telling the designers what needs to fit into a computer box, Steve told his hardware guys, "I want the computer to look like this. Make the components fit". To explain the benefit of streamlining the iMac design. Two things. It is considerably lighter (using less materials to make, keeping the price down) and secondly you mentioned it. Aesthetics. If it looks remarkable and feels remarkable, people will want it. Its bringing the future into your hands. The look, the feel and the ease of use make Apple products desirable. It isn't form over function. The function is more than there. Apple have never compromised function on any device. It takes a holistic approach to bring this together. Its not luck, or hope, its a real desire to bring what designers dream of, into your hands. If we left it to the hardware engineers, we'd still be using beige boxes. Don't look at what isn't there, look at what is.
As far as consumer and pro apps are concerned, with the exception of lingering iWork, I think the rest of the apps are pretty good. Final Cut Pro X has grown to be a phenomenal product, despite the PR mess regarding its introduction. Music lovers enjoy Logic Pro
I think some added capabilities and interface dressing up to iWork right now would pay off handsomely since the public is now getting to see MS Office RT all stripped down and with a half-arsed touch interface bolted on... Being on par with RT Word and RT Excel is a lot easier than it would have been if MS hadn't shipped a crippled RT version of Office.
I totally agree with this! The opportunity is now!
If Apple can figure out what the top 80 percent features that people need in word processing and spreadsheet, then incorporate them into iWork -- they've got a winner.
There is a good possibility that a revised iWork could be more compatible with desktop MS Office then the windows RT Office implementation.
Keynote has some interesting possibilities… It could be enhanced for storyboarding, application prototyping, or even an iWeb-class web site development system.
I have a groovy feeling about this as well. It's going to create a lot of bitching and moaning, however, once things start to change. As forward thinking as a lot of Mac users are, sometimes small changes bring about great fury. I've read hundreds of posts regarding the thinner iMac. Many people don't understand why this is a valuable design concept.
Yeah, I fall into that camp. I admit to being a little nervous about what Ive might do with interface design because his direction in hardware, while aesthetically remarkable, is leaning towards form over function, sometimes sacrificing performance to achieve prettiness. Making things pretty is fine, but making tools less productive strikes me as a bad idea. In cases where the goals of performance and pretty conflict, I'd prefer the former be given priority.
And you're right, I do NOT understand why the thinner iMac is supposedly a "valuable design concept." I'd LIKE to, but I don't really understand the benefit. Can you explain it to me?
"Apple's design future will also need to balance the extreme of sophisticated, minimalist, utilitarian design with the whimsical, rich and customizable options many users like. In that regard, Ive is more likely to favor Apple's traditional route of leaning toward clean, expertly designed layouts, scaling back some of the flourish of Calendar and the oddball OS X Contacts."
I think that, for Ive, it's a rock and a hard place. However there is a solution and that is vector graphics! A lot of the problem with today's websites/software is that they are designed for specific screen sizes, once again designers have to account for yet another new screen size (iPad Mini) and it just bloats the software, so why not use vectors?
The bonus being that if a user likes minimalist design then they can have a particular theme and if they like the skeuomorphic detailed stuff then they can have it, but those themes are just a file with mathematical numbers in, no heavy graphics to load, it's not like processors can handle heavy vector use.
This article came across as an opportunity by the author to air some personal gripes, as for Apples neglected software like the non-updates stocks and shares/weather apps (widgets) I think it's time to let go of that fierce control and to allow 3rd parties to take over, that complete control Apple holds is of little use now, it may have been useful as a diving point in 2007 but now they're spreading the company too thin.
"Yes, yellow leather and 18 gauge thread (that's 120 for Europeans) wasn't the best idea."
To be honest, this doesn't bother me so much.
What does bother me is that they spent time doing this, rather than adding features or fixing bugs.
Consider iOS's Podcasts app. Nice reel-to-reel UI, which I'm sure took someone a long time to develop.
Sadly, they didn't spend that same amount of time making the app actually work. For instance, it periodically resets and claims that every single episode of some podcast has not been heard. It so utterly filled with bugs that it's useless.
Now I do believe looks are important. But they're not *everything*, and it seems that's all Apple has been doing. Perhaps that was Forestall, and if so, good riddance.
Well, I doubt if they spent very much time implementing the leather look. The hooks have to be there, anyway, so it's probably not a whole lot more than substituting one image for another.
Besides, the people who make the images are probably not the people who fix bugs or add features.
I am extremely excited by Ive's "promotion" and future work on human interfaces at Apple. It can only be good because the interface was really going the wrong way with all that horrible skeumorphism bad taste... I can't wait to see iOS and OS X evolve with Ive's great design in mind...
However there is a solution and that is vector graphics! A lot of the problem with today's websites/software is that they are designed for specific screen sizes, once again designers have to account for yet another new screen size (iPad Mini) and it just bloats the software, so why not use vectors?
The bonus being that if a user likes minimalist design then they can have a particular theme and if they like the skeuomorphic detailed stuff then they can have it, but those themes are just a file with mathematical numbers in, no heavy graphics to load, it's not like processors can handle heavy vector use.
This article came across as an opportunity by the author to air some personal gripes, as for Apples neglected software like the non-updates stocks and shares/weather apps (widgets) I think it's time to let go of that fierce control and to allow 3rd parties to take over, that complete control Apple holds is of little use now, it may have been useful as a diving point in 2007 but now they're spreading the company too thin.
Hmm, interesting.
1. If you're not a troll and actually have a valid point, why not use a real e-mail service to sign up here?
2. I like the idea of vector graphics everywhere, particularly since everything's moving to retina.
3. No themes, period. The UI works because it is the way it is, not because people get to choose how it looks. They don't know how best to make it look. You want an example of how that is bad, look at Android. Now look at Apple's reviews, customer satisfaction, developer standings, and ecosystem over the past, well, decade.
4. It is not time for Apple to "let go", they are not "spreading the company too thin", whatever that means.
The biggest problem with the skeuomorphic approach is that it tends to constrain real innovation that might be possible for the interface of that particular app. Calendar is maybe the best example. Apple took a major step backwards here. They basically said: "We're done with calendar. There's nothing new, innovative or useful that can be done here." I believe that's wrong. But the application of the whole desktop calendar metaphor, I believe, constrained and even blinded them from the possible innovations here.
The podcast app is cute but kinda stupid and useless. Again there are probably some great possibilities if they discard stupid things like real-to-real tape deck imagery.
I just think the skeuomorphic approach has been over done and taken way too far. That said it doesn't mean they need to go the complete opposite extreme. Other places like the Compass and Notes...eh...not such a big deal. There's probably not much improvement to make to lined note pads or the classic compass (though there might be some with that.)
I do like some of what Microsoft is doing in Metro. There's something to be said for the cleaner look, simpler icons, etc.
It will certainly be very interesting to see what Ive's leadership and team (I seriously doubt he's going to be mocking up UI's himself) will bring to this area of Apple's products. Some greater unity and consistency as well as a clearer vision would be a major improvement.
I think iWeb is a missed opportunity too. It had (has?) the potential to be a standard, a perfect fit in the iLife suite and with the potential to develop into a pro version. What better way to push the HTML5 standard than to produce a classy Apple app that gets the masses using it? Generally speaking, it seems to me that the software side at Apple doesn't get the love it once did, whether Jony at the helm of HIG improves the situation time will tell.
On Transatlantic language wrangles: one I really don't get is 'I could care less'. What does that mean exactly? 'I could not care less' makes sense, it means the matter has no relevance to you, but 'could care less' ?
Comments
I have a groovy feeling about this as well. It's going to create a lot of bitching and moaning, however, once things start to change. As forward thinking as a lot of Mac users are, sometimes small changes bring about great fury. I've read hundreds of posts regarding the thinner iMac. Many people don't understand why this is a valuable design concept.
I hope Ive and his team respond quickly to valid user complaints (hello...where is the Select All button in Mail and Camera). If they eat their own dogfood and use the hell out of their creations, I don't think this will be a problem.
(Psst...can we have the option to show the iPhone keyboard with one more row of frequently used punctuation marks?)
I'm really excited about this, much more so than the new products to be honest
Quote:
Originally Posted by bugsnw
I have a groovy feeling about this as well. It's going to create a lot of bitching and moaning, however, once things start to change. As forward thinking as a lot of Mac users are, sometimes small changes bring about great fury. I've read hundreds of posts regarding the thinner iMac. Many people don't understand why this is a valuable design concept.
Yeah, I fall into that camp. I admit to being a little nervous about what Ive might do with interface design because his direction in hardware, while aesthetically remarkable, is leaning towards form over function, sometimes sacrificing performance to achieve prettiness. Making things pretty is fine, but making tools less productive strikes me as a bad idea. In cases where the goals of performance and pretty conflict, I'd prefer the former be given priority.
And you're right, I do NOT understand why the thinner iMac is supposedly a "valuable design concept." I'd LIKE to, but I don't really understand the benefit. Can you explain it to me?
To be honest, this doesn't bother me so much.
What does bother me is that they spent time doing this, rather than adding features or fixing bugs.
Consider iOS's Podcasts app. Nice reel-to-reel UI, which I'm sure took someone a long time to develop.
Sadly, they didn't spend that same amount of time making the app actually work. For instance, it periodically resets and claims that every single episode of some podcast has not been heard. It so utterly filled with bugs that it's useless.
Now I do believe looks are important. But they're not *everything*, and it seems that's all Apple has been doing. Perhaps that was Forestall, and if so, good riddance.
Great article.
I'm more than happy a design guy is now in charge of the two OS platforms (coming from a design background myself). I really do hope Apple look outside to see what third party devs are doing. The jailbreaking community have done some absolutely wonderful work, and shouldn't be ignored. Things like LockInfo, Winterboard and Siri tweaks are simplistic and productive tools. In OSX, things like Totalfinder and Mountain Tweaks bring real functionality to simple tasks. Now I only hope we can get rid of the cartoon graphics in iOS and OSX. PLEASE!!!
+++
Ahh… The iOS UI.
I suspect that the iOS UI from the 2007 iPhone up to and including the 2011 iPad was mainly Steve Jobs doing...
As close to perfection, for a computing appliance, as the world has seen!
As the world moves forward with the convergence of desktop hardware/software with tablet hardware/software -- a further rethinking of the proper UI is needed.
IMO, the greatest single objective for hardware and software (both OS and Application) is to "get out of the way".
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
"There is a loyalty that I have for Apple and a belief that this company has an impact beyond design which feels important. I also have a sense of being accountable as we really live, sometimes pretty painfully with the consequences of what we do."
The above should have read "There is a loyalty I've for Apple..."!
OT, I just aquired an early 2006 Mac Mini running 10.4. I am having real fun playing around with it as this is the first time I have worked with Tiger! Fun to see how different it is from Win XP (which I was actually using in 2006). My entry point into Mac OS was Snow Leopard with my late 2009 27" iMac.
Quote:
Originally Posted by v5v
Yeah, I fall into that camp. I admit to being a little nervous about what Ive might do with interface design because his direction in hardware, while aesthetically remarkable, is leaning towards form over function, sometimes sacrificing performance to achieve prettiness. Making things pretty is fine, but making tools less productive strikes me as a bad idea. In cases where the goals of performance and pretty conflict, I'd prefer the former be given priority.
And you're right, I do NOT understand why the thinner iMac is supposedly a "valuable design concept." I'd LIKE to, but I don't really understand the benefit. Can you explain it to me?
If you read Steve Job biography, you would understand that design comes before function at Apple, and it works. Instead of the engineers telling the designers what needs to fit into a computer box, Steve told his hardware guys, "I want the computer to look like this. Make the components fit". To explain the benefit of streamlining the iMac design. Two things. It is considerably lighter (using less materials to make, keeping the price down) and secondly you mentioned it. Aesthetics. If it looks remarkable and feels remarkable, people will want it. Its bringing the future into your hands. The look, the feel and the ease of use make Apple products desirable. It isn't form over function. The function is more than there. Apple have never compromised function on any device. It takes a holistic approach to bring this together. Its not luck, or hope, its a real desire to bring what designers dream of, into your hands. If we left it to the hardware engineers, we'd still be using beige boxes. Don't look at what isn't there, look at what is.
I totally agree with this! The opportunity is now!
If Apple can figure out what the top 80 percent features that people need in word processing and spreadsheet, then incorporate them into iWork -- they've got a winner.
There is a good possibility that a revised iWork could be more compatible with desktop MS Office then the windows RT Office implementation.
Keynote has some interesting possibilities… It could be enhanced for storyboarding, application prototyping, or even an iWeb-class web site development system.
"Clothes make the man".
Expecting great things with Jony at the helm of Software as well as Hardware. Consistency, elegance, and ease of use.
Looking at the article, I'm remembering how much I liked Platinum.
I think that, for Ive, it's a rock and a hard place. However there is a solution and that is vector graphics! A lot of the problem with today's websites/software is that they are designed for specific screen sizes, once again designers have to account for yet another new screen size (iPad Mini) and it just bloats the software, so why not use vectors?
The bonus being that if a user likes minimalist design then they can have a particular theme and if they like the skeuomorphic detailed stuff then they can have it, but those themes are just a file with mathematical numbers in, no heavy graphics to load, it's not like processors can handle heavy vector use.
This article came across as an opportunity by the author to air some personal gripes, as for Apples neglected software like the non-updates stocks and shares/weather apps (widgets) I think it's time to let go of that fierce control and to allow 3rd parties to take over, that complete control Apple holds is of little use now, it may have been useful as a diving point in 2007 but now they're spreading the company too thin.
Well, I doubt if they spent very much time implementing the leather look. The hooks have to be there, anyway, so it's probably not a whole lot more than substituting one image for another.
Besides, the people who make the images are probably not the people who fix bugs or add features.
Jon is an absolute legend. I am sure he will sort out the mess of different ideas strewn across iOS and Mac OS X. Goodbye inconsistency!
Originally Posted by jewidrey
However there is a solution and that is vector graphics! A lot of the problem with today's websites/software is that they are designed for specific screen sizes, once again designers have to account for yet another new screen size (iPad Mini) and it just bloats the software, so why not use vectors?
The bonus being that if a user likes minimalist design then they can have a particular theme and if they like the skeuomorphic detailed stuff then they can have it, but those themes are just a file with mathematical numbers in, no heavy graphics to load, it's not like processors can handle heavy vector use.
This article came across as an opportunity by the author to air some personal gripes, as for Apples neglected software like the non-updates stocks and shares/weather apps (widgets) I think it's time to let go of that fierce control and to allow 3rd parties to take over, that complete control Apple holds is of little use now, it may have been useful as a diving point in 2007 but now they're spreading the company too thin.
Hmm, interesting.
1. If you're not a troll and actually have a valid point, why not use a real e-mail service to sign up here?
2. I like the idea of vector graphics everywhere, particularly since everything's moving to retina.
3. No themes, period. The UI works because it is the way it is, not because people get to choose how it looks. They don't know how best to make it look. You want an example of how that is bad, look at Android. Now look at Apple's reviews, customer satisfaction, developer standings, and ecosystem over the past, well, decade.
4. It is not time for Apple to "let go", they are not "spreading the company too thin", whatever that means.
The biggest problem with the skeuomorphic approach is that it tends to constrain real innovation that might be possible for the interface of that particular app. Calendar is maybe the best example. Apple took a major step backwards here. They basically said: "We're done with calendar. There's nothing new, innovative or useful that can be done here." I believe that's wrong. But the application of the whole desktop calendar metaphor, I believe, constrained and even blinded them from the possible innovations here.
The podcast app is cute but kinda stupid and useless. Again there are probably some great possibilities if they discard stupid things like real-to-real tape deck imagery.
I just think the skeuomorphic approach has been over done and taken way too far. That said it doesn't mean they need to go the complete opposite extreme. Other places like the Compass and Notes...eh...not such a big deal. There's probably not much improvement to make to lined note pads or the classic compass (though there might be some with that.)
I do like some of what Microsoft is doing in Metro. There's something to be said for the cleaner look, simpler icons, etc.
It will certainly be very interesting to see what Ive's leadership and team (I seriously doubt he's going to be mocking up UI's himself) will bring to this area of Apple's products. Some greater unity and consistency as well as a clearer vision would be a major improvement.
Notwithstanding Cook, Apple is now Ive's baby.
I think iWeb is a missed opportunity too. It had (has?) the potential to be a standard, a perfect fit in the iLife suite and with the potential to develop into a pro version. What better way to push the HTML5 standard than to produce a classy Apple app that gets the masses using it? Generally speaking, it seems to me that the software side at Apple doesn't get the love it once did, whether Jony at the helm of HIG improves the situation time will tell.
On Transatlantic language wrangles: one I really don't get is 'I could care less'. What does that mean exactly? 'I could not care less' makes sense, it means the matter has no relevance to you, but 'could care less' ?