I think they are still very serious about interface guidelines. By and large. iTunes is a little bit the exception of this. Someone in this thread (can't remember who) mentioned, that iTunes is a bit different,
because this app will emerge into a media store app, (which it is
already a bit nowaday). I second that view. So iTunes have have to be different, in order to show its particular purpose (managing and buying stuff from the IMS).
What a pity Apple just haven't found out the final form. They are still experimenting,so what.
I don't think that i.e. iTunes and Finder have to be similar
in appearance. Why? They feed completely different purposes.
Apparently you have no idea what the point is on following UI guidelines, and don't care (based on your 'so what' comment, I also get the feeling that you think experimentation with release software is OK as well). As an OS provider, you set up guidelines that all programs should follow so that using a program and switching between programs works seemlessly. The reason Macs (or MACs, if you're a windows user) had the "easy-to-use" label is because you could get a program, install it, run it, and get right to work because it would work like all other programs.
Apple broke this when they decided they needed to add the brush-metal look to iTunes (then to half the other OS X apps). Now some argued it made sense because those that used it were this type or that type, but that's assuming users knew and understood the logic behind it, and that developers followed the same rules. The problem is, then, they didn't, and apple didn't.
When Tiger was released, Apple, in a stupid move that puts your "They're still serious" comment to rest, Mail has a completely different UI look then anything else (not one to use Mail, I don't know whether it looks like iTunes or iTunes has a different look altogether).
Finally, on the UI front, even if Apple did care about UI guidelines, they apparently only care about that on the Mac side, as they don't even try to follow any Windows conventions for that platform.
As to the "they should look different because they feed different purposes". Technically you can say the same thing about many an app. That's not the point. You don't make new UIs just because you're making an app that's going to allow you to buy stuff off the internet (and if that's the case, shouldn't it look like safari, another app you use to buy stuff off the internet?).
And to blow the rest of my rant, as to the comment that the app should look the same on Macs and Windows (Bedamned the UI guidelines!) because its an 'ipodapp', that's just crap. Should printer software have their own look because they're printer apps? Everyone yells and screams when MS makes a version of Word that looks like the Windows app, but Apple doing the opposite is OK? Don't think so.
Oh, and as for the icons that keep reappearing, thanks for letting me know. I'll avoid installing it on my work PC until that gets fixed (I'm the same way, although, to me, iTunes is an app, not a utility). But I wouldn't blame that so much on Apple being nefarious (adding the icons to the desktop, system tray, quick launch bar, etc, is nefarious). It could be they just made a crappy installer. This would explain why the installer keeps re-running, as opposed to just iTunes creating the icons over and over again.
When Tiger was released, Apple, in a stupid move that puts your "They're still serious" comment to rest, Mail has a completely different UI look then anything else (not one to use Mail, I don't know whether it looks like iTunes or iTunes has a different look altogether).
There is one program that I am aware of, Xcode 2.0 has the same look as Mail. It confirms your other statement because it really doesn't help. I don't know what the two have in common to justify that theme when no other program gets it.
From what I've done, album artist field doesn't help. To get cover flow to work right, you need to (a) make sure the album is marked as a collection, and (b) make sure you've selected the Album column. Whether they have the same "album artist" or not seems to not help, but if you sort by song name, you'll always get 20 views of the same cover.
Now I'm confused about what you want to happen. "Album artist" definitely solves the problem which I thought you were having, which is:
Sort by album, when you hit a compilation album, you see the cover for each track, instead of just once for the whole album.
If you sort the list by song title, surely you expect the cover to show up in lots of different places throughout the flip view? Sorting by song title sorts the songs alphabetically and therefore inherently splits up albums and artists.
Mail has a completely different UI look then anything else (not one to use Mail, I don't know whether it looks like iTunes or iTunes has a different look altogether).
Apple used to be fastidious about interface guidelines. But all that and their supposed "attention to detail" went out the window with OS X. I'm waiting for it to return, but I fear that it may never do so.
They pay a lot of attention to the way things work, while experimenting more with the visual interface.
It's functionally consistent, though not visually consistent.
Apple broke this when they decided they needed to add the brush-metal look to iTunes (then to half the other OS X apps). Now some argued it made sense because those that used it were this type or that type, but that's assuming users knew and understood the logic behind it, and that developers followed the same rules. The problem is, then, they didn't, and apple didn't.
This is just dumb.
No one went to go use iTunes and was like "What? Brushed metal? Oh my god! How do I use this?" That never happened.
Buttons in iTunes are just like buttons in any other program.
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When Tiger was released, Apple, in a stupid move that puts your "They're still serious" comment to rest, Mail has a completely different UI look then anything else (not one to use Mail, I don't know whether it looks like iTunes or iTunes has a different look altogether).
They slightly changed the visual appearance of the icons. Again, I don't think anyone drew a blank when they opened up Mail in Tiger. (Actually, the buttons now actually look like buttons... I bet you the usability has gone way way up.)
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Finally, on the UI front, even if Apple did care about UI guidelines, they apparently only care about that on the Mac side, as they don't even try to follow any Windows conventions for that platform.
But iTunes is unbelievably easy to use. This isn't because it follows "guidelines", it's because it's really really simple. Everyone gets it.
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As to the "they should look different because they feed different purposes". Technically you can say the same thing about many an app. That's not the point. You don't make new UIs just because you're making an app that's going to allow you to buy stuff off the internet (and if that's the case, shouldn't it look like safari, another app you use to buy stuff off the internet?).
No one created a new UI. Most of the conventions are exactly the same as they were in System 1.0, things are just shiny.
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And to blow the rest of my rant, as to the comment that the app should look the same on Macs and Windows (Bedamned the UI guidelines!) because its an 'ipodapp', that's just crap. Should printer software have their own look because they're printer apps? Everyone yells and screams when MS makes a version of Word that looks like the Windows app, but Apple doing the opposite is OK? Don't think so.
Well, iTunes is the best looking program for Windows, so I don't think anyone really complained about it :P
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Apparently you have no idea what the point is on following UI guidelines, and don't care (based on your 'so what' comment, I also get the feeling that you think experimentation with release software is OK as well). As an OS provider, you set up guidelines that all programs should follow so that using a program and switching between programs works seemlessly. The reason Macs (or MACs, if you're a windows user) had the "easy-to-use" label is because you could get a program, install it, run it, and get right to work because it would work like all other programs.
Apparently you don't know the meaning of the word "guideline." (Hint: synonyms include 'suggestion,' 'advice,' and 'direction.')
Programs do (shock) different things. Photoshop, for example, (shock) doesn't sort catalogue MP3s. iTunes does that. Therefore, they (shock) work differently! It's because they do different things! Wow!
Guidelines are a basic set of "best practices." They're there to keep people from doing incredibly stupid (or ugly) things. If you followed the guidelines, you would end up with a pretty good app. That doesn't mean that if you can do better, you shouldn't. They're guidelines, not restrictions.
What is it with the UI consistency Nazi's? It really doesn't bother me. In fact, the more consistent a particular UI is, I bet the quicker people will get tired of the appearance of that particular design.
What is it with the UI consistency Nazi's? It really doesn't bother me. In fact, the more consistent a particular UI is, I bet the quicker people will get tired of the appearance of that particular design.
Apparently you don't know the meaning of the word "guideline." (Hint: synonyms include 'suggestion,' 'advice,' and 'direction.')
Programs do (shock) different things. Photoshop, for example, (shock) doesn't sort catalogue MP3s. iTunes does that. Therefore, they (shock) work differently! It's because they do different things! Wow!
Guidelines are a basic set of "best practices." They're there to keep people from doing incredibly stupid (or ugly) things. If you followed the guidelines, you would end up with a pretty good app. That doesn't mean that if you can do better, you shouldn't. They're guidelines, not restrictions.
I'm an in-house designer for a College and I have to follow guidelines everday.
The guidelines I follow, are certainly NOT suggestions or advice, they are strict rules to follow when placing our corporate logo and its spacial relation to the page and other graphic elements.
I've also been a freelance designer for numerous years now and have many "design guideline manuals" from corporations. All of which ARE NOT suggestions or advice, they are strict rules I must follow to be sure their branding is consistent across all the promotional materials I create as well as stuff they outsource to other designers/agencies.
On a side note ... brushed metal is so '03.
Make everything clean like Camino and Leopard will be a nice looking UI.
I'm an in-house designer for a College and I have to follow guidelines everday.
The guidelines I follow, are certainly NOT suggestions or advice, they are strict rules to follow when placing our corporate logo and its spacial relation to the page and other graphic elements.
I've also been a freelance designer for numerous years now and have many "design guideline manuals" from corporations. All of which ARE NOT suggestions or advice, they are strict rules I must follow to be sure their branding is consistent across all the promotional materials I create as well as stuff they outsource to other designers/agencies.
On a side note ... brushed metal is so '03.
Make everything clean like Camino and Leopard will be a nice looking UI.
Corporate guidelines are different. Of course Coca-Cola wants you to design in Coca-Cola red.
Apple isn't trying to make every app the same app ever. This isn't branding.
No one went to go use iTunes and was like "What? Brushed metal? Oh my god! How do I use this?" That never happened.
Buttons in iTunes are just like buttons in any other program.
They slightly changed the visual appearance of the icons. Again, I don't think anyone drew a blank when they opened up Mail in Tiger. (Actually, the buttons now actually look like buttons... I bet you the usability has gone way way up.)
I didn't say it made it hard to use. All I stated was that having different looks for different programs is just plain stupid. The whole point is that programs look and act alike. If you want to go into the world of "Every program can look its own way!", that's fine. But then don't start harping how you don't use Firefox because the UI elements don't have an aqua look. Or that a program looks like a cheap windows port. Or why does some program put menus in their windows instead of the menu bar. Where does a developer have to stop following a guideline and just say "Hey, I want to put 'preferences' under the Edit menu, Quit under the Help menu, and add "New Document" to my program menu! And I can do it, because those are just guidelines!"
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Originally Posted by gregmightdothat
But iTunes is unbelievably easy to use. This isn't because it follows "guidelines", it's because it's really really simple. Everyone gets it.
Actually its only really, really easy to use once you know how to use it. There've been many of people who never knew that if you clicked the button in the top-right of the screen, the browser displays. And while most might get it, there's still some things that make no sense (like why, when I have a playlist of podcasts, won't it play more than one in the list, but on my ipod it will?).
Quote:
Originally Posted by gregmightdothat
Apparently you don't know the meaning of the word "guideline." (Hint: synonyms include 'suggestion,' 'advice,' and 'direction.')
Programs do (shock) different things. Photoshop, for example, (shock) doesn't sort catalogue MP3s. iTunes does that. Therefore, they (shock) work differently! It's because they do different things! Wow!
Guidelines are a basic set of "best practices." They're there to keep people from doing incredibly stupid (or ugly) things. If you followed the guidelines, you would end up with a pretty good app. That doesn't mean that if you can do better, you shouldn't. They're guidelines, not restrictions.
Wow, of course they work differently. But that doesn't mean they should look or act radically differently. For what reason does Mail's different buttons make the program better? Or iTunes scrollbars? They don't. They're just different for difference sakes.
Just because its apple who changes the UI elements doesn't make it OK. If Adobe came out with a whole new interface that looked more Vista Aero and OS X Aqua, people would complain, not say "But it doesn't do the same thing as any other program on your computer, so it really shouldn't look the same!"
One of the reasons Mac users always felt 'superior' to Windows users (besides their huge egos, that is) is they always could make fun of the slip-shod, anything goes approach windows developers give their programs. That and the fact they still use and support arcane key-combos for generic routines like Ctrl-Ins for copy, Alt-f4 for quit, and Ctrl-F4 for close window (and trying to figure out when to use Ctrl and when to use Alt). Hell, there was even a version of Office that used Alt-X for quit. If you've ever used WMP for windows, you know what a joke UI that is (wait, how do I get to the menu again?). And that's the famed slippery slope you start going down when you turn your 'guidelines' into 'suggestions'.
Apple isn't trying to make every app the same app ever.
At least they can bother to make similar actions behave in a similar way and use the same keystrokes without having to change them in Keyboard Preferences.
Fullscreen playback in the DVD player is a different keystroke than in Quicktime Pro and iTunes with no logical reason for them to be different. I've pointed out several similar incongruities with other Apple-made software in other threads so I'm not going to re-state them right now.
Corporate guidelines are different. Of course Coca-Cola wants you to design in Coca-Cola red.
Apple isn't trying to make every app the same app ever. This isn't branding.
Oh, wait, I get it now. Guidelines are different then guidelines, depending on what type of guideline you're talking about. OK. So, exactly, then, which of Apple's guidelines must be followed and which aren't?
Oh, and I thought I read on hear that one reason iTunes looks different is because they're trying to promote a brand.
But no matter how you cut it, the iTunes UI is worse now than it was. Some new features are nice, but there was no reason why keeping the brushed UI look was such a bad thing they had to redraw it.
I didn't say it made it hard to use. All I stated was that having different looks for different programs is just plain stupid. The whole point is that programs look and act alike. If you want to go into the world of "Every program can look its own way!", that's fine. But then don't start harping how you don't use Firefox because the UI elements don't have an aqua look. Or that a program looks like a cheap windows port.
Because those programs are usually incredibly, incredibly ugly. Visually different isn't the same as incompetently ugly.
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Or why does some program put menus in their windows instead of the menu bar. Where does a developer have to stop following a guideline and just say "Hey, I want to put 'preferences' under the Edit menu, Quit under the Help menu, and add "New Document" to my program menu! And I can do it, because those are just guidelines!"
Um... I've been incredibly explicit that there is a huge difference between functional consistency and visual consistency.
Functional consistency is absolutely crucial.
Visual consistency is irrelevant.
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Actually its only really, really easy to use once you know how to use it. There've been many of people who never knew that if you clicked the button in the top-right of the screen, the browser displays. And while most might get it, there's still some things that make no sense (like why, when I have a playlist of podcasts, won't it play more than one in the list, but on my ipod it will?).
Um... even my computer illiterate friends have no problems figuring it out. Yeah, there's some minor inconsistencies, and yeah, not everyone is gonna use every feature, but the bulk of the program you can figure out within 5 minutes.
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Wow, of course they work differently. But that doesn't mean they should look or act radically differently. For what reason does Mail's different buttons make the program better? Or iTunes scrollbars? They don't. They're just different for difference sakes.
Like I said, Mail's buttons work a lot better. A lot of people didn't recognize the old ones as clickable buttons.
Also, like I said, iTunes' scrollbars don't work any worse. Whatever sake they may be different for is irrelevant. I'd also venture to say that all the scrollbars in Leopard will probably look pretty similar.
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Just because its apple who changes the UI elements doesn't make it OK. If Adobe came out with a whole new interface that looked more Vista Aero and OS X Aqua, people would complain, not say "But it doesn't do the same thing as any other program on your computer, so it really shouldn't look the same!"
Actually, Adobe did just that for Lightroom, and while Lightroom itself isn't so great, I can't say I've heard anyone complain about the UI. It looks really slick, and nothing like any other Mac OS program.
People only complain when stuff looks like Office 97, because that's trash.
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One of the reasons Mac users always felt 'superior' to Windows users (besides their huge egos, that is) is they always could make fun of the slip-shod, anything goes approach windows developers give their programs. That and the fact they still use and support arcane key-combos for generic routines like Ctrl-Ins for copy, Alt-f4 for quit, and Ctrl-F4 for close window (and trying to figure out when to use Ctrl and when to use Alt). Hell, there was even a version of Office that used Alt-X for quit. If you've ever used WMP for windows, you know what a joke UI that is (wait, how do I get to the menu again?). And that's the famed slippery slope you start going down when you turn your 'guidelines' into 'suggestions'.
Well, no, actually. Alt-F4 and friends are a part of the Windows guidelines.
Also, one thing I'd like to point out, is that you seem to be of the opinion that Apple wrote this mystical guideline a few years ago, and that because of it, the user interface should NEVER CHANGE EVER. Is that a fair assumption?
Oh, wait, I get it now. Guidelines are different then guidelines, depending on what type of guideline you're talking about. OK. So, exactly, then, which of Apple's guidelines must be followed and which aren't?
When you get fired from a job from not using them, they're "requirements." Just because some people call requirements guidelines doesn't forever change the definition of guidelines.
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Oh, and I thought I read on hear that one reason iTunes looks different is because they're trying to promote a brand.
The iTunes brand wasn't defined by brushed metal. It is defined, though, by Myriad Pro, so you'll never see Apple show iTunes written in say, Palatino.
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But no matter how you cut it, the iTunes UI is worse now than it was. Some new features are nice, but there was no reason why keeping the brushed UI look was such a bad thing they had to redraw it.
Unless you cut it by the fact that it's really slick right now in terms of organization and space utilization and they hid of all the stupid functions (like the equalizer) that (hardly) anyone used.
Oh, wait, you were taking something entirely subjective and then made the assumption that everyone in the world agreed with you.
If you abandon the OS provided API for UI widgets, there is also the issue of bloat, potential buggyness in the UI elements, and additional development time that may be better spent elsewhere*.
The OS provides routines for drawing scrollbars, buttons, etc etc, but if you want to make your own, you have to design and implement each one from scratch. Also, if you don't spend the time making sure that your UI elements that look different still work the same as standard OS UI elements, then the visual inconsistency will lead to functional inconsistency.
* Maybe iTunes 7 wouldn't be so damn buggy if they'd spent more time on core functionality than on experimenting with the look of the UI elements?
If you abandon the OS provided API for UI widgets, there is also the issue of bloat, potential buggyness in the UI elements, and additional development time that may be better spent elsewhere*.
The OS provides routines for drawing scrollbars, buttons, etc etc, but if you want to make your own, you have to design and implement each one from scratch. Also, if you don't spend the time making sure that your UI elements that look different still work the same as standard OS UI elements, then the visual inconsistency will lead to functional inconsistency.
* Maybe iTunes 7 wouldn't be so damn buggy if they'd spent more time on core functionality than on experimenting with the look of the UI elements?
Actually, this isn't true. You've probably heard of "Object Oriented Programming." It means that you can reuse code really efficiently.
In Cocoa, and I'm assuming in Carbon (I've never dealt with HIVIews though), it's really easy to adjust the drawing schemes of a control.
Typically, you either subclass it and override the drawing methods, or subclass it's "cell" and override it's drawing methods. (A cell is a side class that many objects use for drawing.)
All of the functionality remains the same, there's no restarting from scratch at all.
Apple has gone to great lengths to make this really, really easy most of the time.
If Apple are just "skinning" the standard OS widgets, how come the new iTunes scroll bars do not respect the "Apple Global Domain" AppleScrollBarVariant DoubleBoth option, unlike every single other scroll bar on my system?
If Apple are just "skinning" the standard OS widgets, how come the new iTunes scroll bars do not respect the "Apple Global Domain" AppleScrollBarVariant DoubleBoth option, unlike every single other scroll bar on my system?
iTunes is in it's own little world because of Windows compatibility. They've always had their own widgets anyway.
Actually, this isn't true. You've probably heard of "Object Oriented Programming." It means that you can reuse code really efficiently.
O.K., so I was wrong about "starting from scratch", but it seems the other things are still true. It still requires more effort than using the standard widgets, and can be buggy. Also, you could forget to "patch" all of the widgets; for example, iTunes 7's equaliser has a normal aqua tick box and drop-down menu.
Why should developers spend their time making pointless alterations to standard code, when all that does is change how something looks, rather than focusing on core functionality?
Comments
I think they are still very serious about interface guidelines. By and large. iTunes is a little bit the exception of this. Someone in this thread (can't remember who) mentioned, that iTunes is a bit different,
because this app will emerge into a media store app, (which it is
already a bit nowaday). I second that view. So iTunes have have to be different, in order to show its particular purpose (managing and buying stuff from the IMS).
What a pity Apple just haven't found out the final form. They are still experimenting,so what.
I don't think that i.e. iTunes and Finder have to be similar
in appearance. Why? They feed completely different purposes.
Apparently you have no idea what the point is on following UI guidelines, and don't care (based on your 'so what' comment, I also get the feeling that you think experimentation with release software is OK as well). As an OS provider, you set up guidelines that all programs should follow so that using a program and switching between programs works seemlessly. The reason Macs (or MACs, if you're a windows user) had the "easy-to-use" label is because you could get a program, install it, run it, and get right to work because it would work like all other programs.
Apple broke this when they decided they needed to add the brush-metal look to iTunes (then to half the other OS X apps). Now some argued it made sense because those that used it were this type or that type, but that's assuming users knew and understood the logic behind it, and that developers followed the same rules. The problem is, then, they didn't, and apple didn't.
When Tiger was released, Apple, in a stupid move that puts your "They're still serious" comment to rest, Mail has a completely different UI look then anything else (not one to use Mail, I don't know whether it looks like iTunes or iTunes has a different look altogether).
Finally, on the UI front, even if Apple did care about UI guidelines, they apparently only care about that on the Mac side, as they don't even try to follow any Windows conventions for that platform.
As to the "they should look different because they feed different purposes". Technically you can say the same thing about many an app. That's not the point. You don't make new UIs just because you're making an app that's going to allow you to buy stuff off the internet (and if that's the case, shouldn't it look like safari, another app you use to buy stuff off the internet?).
And to blow the rest of my rant, as to the comment that the app should look the same on Macs and Windows (Bedamned the UI guidelines!) because its an 'ipodapp', that's just crap. Should printer software have their own look because they're printer apps? Everyone yells and screams when MS makes a version of Word that looks like the Windows app, but Apple doing the opposite is OK? Don't think so.
Oh, and as for the icons that keep reappearing, thanks for letting me know. I'll avoid installing it on my work PC until that gets fixed (I'm the same way, although, to me, iTunes is an app, not a utility). But I wouldn't blame that so much on Apple being nefarious (adding the icons to the desktop, system tray, quick launch bar, etc, is nefarious). It could be they just made a crappy installer. This would explain why the installer keeps re-running, as opposed to just iTunes creating the icons over and over again.
When Tiger was released, Apple, in a stupid move that puts your "They're still serious" comment to rest, Mail has a completely different UI look then anything else (not one to use Mail, I don't know whether it looks like iTunes or iTunes has a different look altogether).
There is one program that I am aware of, Xcode 2.0 has the same look as Mail. It confirms your other statement because it really doesn't help. I don't know what the two have in common to justify that theme when no other program gets it.
From what I've done, album artist field doesn't help. To get cover flow to work right, you need to (a) make sure the album is marked as a collection, and (b) make sure you've selected the Album column. Whether they have the same "album artist" or not seems to not help, but if you sort by song name, you'll always get 20 views of the same cover.
Now I'm confused about what you want to happen. "Album artist" definitely solves the problem which I thought you were having, which is:
Sort by album, when you hit a compilation album, you see the cover for each track, instead of just once for the whole album.
If you sort the list by song title, surely you expect the cover to show up in lots of different places throughout the flip view? Sorting by song title sorts the songs alphabetically and therefore inherently splits up albums and artists.
Mail has a completely different UI look then anything else (not one to use Mail, I don't know whether it looks like iTunes or iTunes has a different look altogether).
You'll love Preview in Leopard then
Apple used to be fastidious about interface guidelines. But all that and their supposed "attention to detail" went out the window with OS X. I'm waiting for it to return, but I fear that it may never do so.
They pay a lot of attention to the way things work, while experimenting more with the visual interface.
It's functionally consistent, though not visually consistent.
Smart, imo.
Apple broke this when they decided they needed to add the brush-metal look to iTunes (then to half the other OS X apps). Now some argued it made sense because those that used it were this type or that type, but that's assuming users knew and understood the logic behind it, and that developers followed the same rules. The problem is, then, they didn't, and apple didn't.
This is just dumb.
No one went to go use iTunes and was like "What? Brushed metal? Oh my god! How do I use this?" That never happened.
Buttons in iTunes are just like buttons in any other program.
When Tiger was released, Apple, in a stupid move that puts your "They're still serious" comment to rest, Mail has a completely different UI look then anything else (not one to use Mail, I don't know whether it looks like iTunes or iTunes has a different look altogether).
They slightly changed the visual appearance of the icons. Again, I don't think anyone drew a blank when they opened up Mail in Tiger. (Actually, the buttons now actually look like buttons... I bet you the usability has gone way way up.)
Finally, on the UI front, even if Apple did care about UI guidelines, they apparently only care about that on the Mac side, as they don't even try to follow any Windows conventions for that platform.
But iTunes is unbelievably easy to use. This isn't because it follows "guidelines", it's because it's really really simple. Everyone gets it.
As to the "they should look different because they feed different purposes". Technically you can say the same thing about many an app. That's not the point. You don't make new UIs just because you're making an app that's going to allow you to buy stuff off the internet (and if that's the case, shouldn't it look like safari, another app you use to buy stuff off the internet?).
No one created a new UI. Most of the conventions are exactly the same as they were in System 1.0, things are just shiny.
And to blow the rest of my rant, as to the comment that the app should look the same on Macs and Windows (Bedamned the UI guidelines!) because its an 'ipodapp', that's just crap. Should printer software have their own look because they're printer apps? Everyone yells and screams when MS makes a version of Word that looks like the Windows app, but Apple doing the opposite is OK? Don't think so.
Well, iTunes is the best looking program for Windows, so I don't think anyone really complained about it :P
Apparently you have no idea what the point is on following UI guidelines, and don't care (based on your 'so what' comment, I also get the feeling that you think experimentation with release software is OK as well). As an OS provider, you set up guidelines that all programs should follow so that using a program and switching between programs works seemlessly. The reason Macs (or MACs, if you're a windows user) had the "easy-to-use" label is because you could get a program, install it, run it, and get right to work because it would work like all other programs.
Apparently you don't know the meaning of the word "guideline." (Hint: synonyms include 'suggestion,' 'advice,' and 'direction.')
Programs do (shock) different things. Photoshop, for example, (shock) doesn't sort catalogue MP3s. iTunes does that. Therefore, they (shock) work differently! It's because they do different things! Wow!
Guidelines are a basic set of "best practices." They're there to keep people from doing incredibly stupid (or ugly) things. If you followed the guidelines, you would end up with a pretty good app. That doesn't mean that if you can do better, you shouldn't. They're guidelines, not restrictions.
What is it with the UI consistency Nazi's? It really doesn't bother me. In fact, the more consistent a particular UI is, I bet the quicker people will get tired of the appearance of that particular design.
Hear Hear!!
Apparently you don't know the meaning of the word "guideline." (Hint: synonyms include 'suggestion,' 'advice,' and 'direction.')
Programs do (shock) different things. Photoshop, for example, (shock) doesn't sort catalogue MP3s. iTunes does that. Therefore, they (shock) work differently! It's because they do different things! Wow!
Guidelines are a basic set of "best practices." They're there to keep people from doing incredibly stupid (or ugly) things. If you followed the guidelines, you would end up with a pretty good app. That doesn't mean that if you can do better, you shouldn't. They're guidelines, not restrictions.
I'm an in-house designer for a College and I have to follow guidelines everday.
The guidelines I follow, are certainly NOT suggestions or advice, they are strict rules to follow when placing our corporate logo and its spacial relation to the page and other graphic elements.
I've also been a freelance designer for numerous years now and have many "design guideline manuals" from corporations. All of which ARE NOT suggestions or advice, they are strict rules I must follow to be sure their branding is consistent across all the promotional materials I create as well as stuff they outsource to other designers/agencies.
On a side note ... brushed metal is so '03.
Make everything clean like Camino and Leopard will be a nice looking UI.
I'm an in-house designer for a College and I have to follow guidelines everday.
The guidelines I follow, are certainly NOT suggestions or advice, they are strict rules to follow when placing our corporate logo and its spacial relation to the page and other graphic elements.
I've also been a freelance designer for numerous years now and have many "design guideline manuals" from corporations. All of which ARE NOT suggestions or advice, they are strict rules I must follow to be sure their branding is consistent across all the promotional materials I create as well as stuff they outsource to other designers/agencies.
On a side note ... brushed metal is so '03.
Make everything clean like Camino and Leopard will be a nice looking UI.
Corporate guidelines are different. Of course Coca-Cola wants you to design in Coca-Cola red.
Apple isn't trying to make every app the same app ever. This isn't branding.
This is just dumb.
No one went to go use iTunes and was like "What? Brushed metal? Oh my god! How do I use this?" That never happened.
Buttons in iTunes are just like buttons in any other program.
They slightly changed the visual appearance of the icons. Again, I don't think anyone drew a blank when they opened up Mail in Tiger. (Actually, the buttons now actually look like buttons... I bet you the usability has gone way way up.)
I didn't say it made it hard to use. All I stated was that having different looks for different programs is just plain stupid. The whole point is that programs look and act alike. If you want to go into the world of "Every program can look its own way!", that's fine. But then don't start harping how you don't use Firefox because the UI elements don't have an aqua look. Or that a program looks like a cheap windows port. Or why does some program put menus in their windows instead of the menu bar. Where does a developer have to stop following a guideline and just say "Hey, I want to put 'preferences' under the Edit menu, Quit under the Help menu, and add "New Document" to my program menu! And I can do it, because those are just guidelines!"
But iTunes is unbelievably easy to use. This isn't because it follows "guidelines", it's because it's really really simple. Everyone gets it.
Actually its only really, really easy to use once you know how to use it. There've been many of people who never knew that if you clicked the button in the top-right of the screen, the browser displays. And while most might get it, there's still some things that make no sense (like why, when I have a playlist of podcasts, won't it play more than one in the list, but on my ipod it will?).
Apparently you don't know the meaning of the word "guideline." (Hint: synonyms include 'suggestion,' 'advice,' and 'direction.')
Programs do (shock) different things. Photoshop, for example, (shock) doesn't sort catalogue MP3s. iTunes does that. Therefore, they (shock) work differently! It's because they do different things! Wow!
Guidelines are a basic set of "best practices." They're there to keep people from doing incredibly stupid (or ugly) things. If you followed the guidelines, you would end up with a pretty good app. That doesn't mean that if you can do better, you shouldn't. They're guidelines, not restrictions.
Wow, of course they work differently. But that doesn't mean they should look or act radically differently. For what reason does Mail's different buttons make the program better? Or iTunes scrollbars? They don't. They're just different for difference sakes.
Just because its apple who changes the UI elements doesn't make it OK. If Adobe came out with a whole new interface that looked more Vista Aero and OS X Aqua, people would complain, not say "But it doesn't do the same thing as any other program on your computer, so it really shouldn't look the same!"
One of the reasons Mac users always felt 'superior' to Windows users (besides their huge egos, that is) is they always could make fun of the slip-shod, anything goes approach windows developers give their programs. That and the fact they still use and support arcane key-combos for generic routines like Ctrl-Ins for copy, Alt-f4 for quit, and Ctrl-F4 for close window (and trying to figure out when to use Ctrl and when to use Alt). Hell, there was even a version of Office that used Alt-X for quit. If you've ever used WMP for windows, you know what a joke UI that is (wait, how do I get to the menu again?). And that's the famed slippery slope you start going down when you turn your 'guidelines' into 'suggestions'.
Apple isn't trying to make every app the same app ever.
At least they can bother to make similar actions behave in a similar way and use the same keystrokes without having to change them in Keyboard Preferences.
Fullscreen playback in the DVD player is a different keystroke than in Quicktime Pro and iTunes with no logical reason for them to be different. I've pointed out several similar incongruities with other Apple-made software in other threads so I'm not going to re-state them right now.
Corporate guidelines are different. Of course Coca-Cola wants you to design in Coca-Cola red.
Apple isn't trying to make every app the same app ever. This isn't branding.
Oh, wait, I get it now. Guidelines are different then guidelines, depending on what type of guideline you're talking about. OK. So, exactly, then, which of Apple's guidelines must be followed and which aren't?
Oh, and I thought I read on hear that one reason iTunes looks different is because they're trying to promote a brand.
But no matter how you cut it, the iTunes UI is worse now than it was. Some new features are nice, but there was no reason why keeping the brushed UI look was such a bad thing they had to redraw it.
I didn't say it made it hard to use. All I stated was that having different looks for different programs is just plain stupid. The whole point is that programs look and act alike. If you want to go into the world of "Every program can look its own way!", that's fine. But then don't start harping how you don't use Firefox because the UI elements don't have an aqua look. Or that a program looks like a cheap windows port.
Because those programs are usually incredibly, incredibly ugly. Visually different isn't the same as incompetently ugly.
Or why does some program put menus in their windows instead of the menu bar. Where does a developer have to stop following a guideline and just say "Hey, I want to put 'preferences' under the Edit menu, Quit under the Help menu, and add "New Document" to my program menu! And I can do it, because those are just guidelines!"
Um... I've been incredibly explicit that there is a huge difference between functional consistency and visual consistency.
Functional consistency is absolutely crucial.
Visual consistency is irrelevant.
Actually its only really, really easy to use once you know how to use it. There've been many of people who never knew that if you clicked the button in the top-right of the screen, the browser displays. And while most might get it, there's still some things that make no sense (like why, when I have a playlist of podcasts, won't it play more than one in the list, but on my ipod it will?).
Um... even my computer illiterate friends have no problems figuring it out. Yeah, there's some minor inconsistencies, and yeah, not everyone is gonna use every feature, but the bulk of the program you can figure out within 5 minutes.
Wow, of course they work differently. But that doesn't mean they should look or act radically differently. For what reason does Mail's different buttons make the program better? Or iTunes scrollbars? They don't. They're just different for difference sakes.
Like I said, Mail's buttons work a lot better. A lot of people didn't recognize the old ones as clickable buttons.
Also, like I said, iTunes' scrollbars don't work any worse. Whatever sake they may be different for is irrelevant. I'd also venture to say that all the scrollbars in Leopard will probably look pretty similar.
Just because its apple who changes the UI elements doesn't make it OK. If Adobe came out with a whole new interface that looked more Vista Aero and OS X Aqua, people would complain, not say "But it doesn't do the same thing as any other program on your computer, so it really shouldn't look the same!"
Actually, Adobe did just that for Lightroom, and while Lightroom itself isn't so great, I can't say I've heard anyone complain about the UI. It looks really slick, and nothing like any other Mac OS program.
People only complain when stuff looks like Office 97, because that's trash.
One of the reasons Mac users always felt 'superior' to Windows users (besides their huge egos, that is) is they always could make fun of the slip-shod, anything goes approach windows developers give their programs. That and the fact they still use and support arcane key-combos for generic routines like Ctrl-Ins for copy, Alt-f4 for quit, and Ctrl-F4 for close window (and trying to figure out when to use Ctrl and when to use Alt). Hell, there was even a version of Office that used Alt-X for quit. If you've ever used WMP for windows, you know what a joke UI that is (wait, how do I get to the menu again?). And that's the famed slippery slope you start going down when you turn your 'guidelines' into 'suggestions'.
Well, no, actually. Alt-F4 and friends are a part of the Windows guidelines.
Also, one thing I'd like to point out, is that you seem to be of the opinion that Apple wrote this mystical guideline a few years ago, and that because of it, the user interface should NEVER CHANGE EVER. Is that a fair assumption?
Oh, wait, I get it now. Guidelines are different then guidelines, depending on what type of guideline you're talking about. OK. So, exactly, then, which of Apple's guidelines must be followed and which aren't?
When you get fired from a job from not using them, they're "requirements." Just because some people call requirements guidelines doesn't forever change the definition of guidelines.
Oh, and I thought I read on hear that one reason iTunes looks different is because they're trying to promote a brand.
The iTunes brand wasn't defined by brushed metal. It is defined, though, by Myriad Pro, so you'll never see Apple show iTunes written in say, Palatino.
But no matter how you cut it, the iTunes UI is worse now than it was. Some new features are nice, but there was no reason why keeping the brushed UI look was such a bad thing they had to redraw it.
Unless you cut it by the fact that it's really slick right now in terms of organization and space utilization and they hid of all the stupid functions (like the equalizer) that (hardly) anyone used.
Oh, wait, you were taking something entirely subjective and then made the assumption that everyone in the world agreed with you.
The OS provides routines for drawing scrollbars, buttons, etc etc, but if you want to make your own, you have to design and implement each one from scratch. Also, if you don't spend the time making sure that your UI elements that look different still work the same as standard OS UI elements, then the visual inconsistency will lead to functional inconsistency.
* Maybe iTunes 7 wouldn't be so damn buggy if they'd spent more time on core functionality than on experimenting with the look of the UI elements?
If you abandon the OS provided API for UI widgets, there is also the issue of bloat, potential buggyness in the UI elements, and additional development time that may be better spent elsewhere*.
The OS provides routines for drawing scrollbars, buttons, etc etc, but if you want to make your own, you have to design and implement each one from scratch. Also, if you don't spend the time making sure that your UI elements that look different still work the same as standard OS UI elements, then the visual inconsistency will lead to functional inconsistency.
* Maybe iTunes 7 wouldn't be so damn buggy if they'd spent more time on core functionality than on experimenting with the look of the UI elements?
Actually, this isn't true. You've probably heard of "Object Oriented Programming." It means that you can reuse code really efficiently.
In Cocoa, and I'm assuming in Carbon (I've never dealt with HIVIews though), it's really easy to adjust the drawing schemes of a control.
Typically, you either subclass it and override the drawing methods, or subclass it's "cell" and override it's drawing methods. (A cell is a side class that many objects use for drawing.)
All of the functionality remains the same, there's no restarting from scratch at all.
Apple has gone to great lengths to make this really, really easy most of the time.
If Apple are just "skinning" the standard OS widgets, how come the new iTunes scroll bars do not respect the "Apple Global Domain" AppleScrollBarVariant DoubleBoth option, unlike every single other scroll bar on my system?
iTunes is in it's own little world because of Windows compatibility. They've always had their own widgets anyway.
Actually, this isn't true. You've probably heard of "Object Oriented Programming." It means that you can reuse code really efficiently.
O.K., so I was wrong about "starting from scratch", but it seems the other things are still true. It still requires more effort than using the standard widgets, and can be buggy. Also, you could forget to "patch" all of the widgets; for example, iTunes 7's equaliser has a normal aqua tick box and drop-down menu.
Why should developers spend their time making pointless alterations to standard code, when all that does is change how something looks, rather than focusing on core functionality?