The Dock "floor" is the worst UI idea Apple has ever had
OK.
So: the translucent menu bar doesn't bother me that much, I'll wait and see if it works for me.
The reflective floor on the Dock, on the other hand, is a grotesque aberration that must be done away with.
I realize Apple gets accused of functionless "eye candy" from time to time, but in fact there is almost always at least some kind of functional or work flow motivation for things morphing, bouncing, fading or zooming.
The Dock floor has no earthly reason to be, beyond a little flash. Worse, it's a particularly clunky, poorly thought out kind of flash that just kind of sits there and says "Hey! I'm vaguely 3D! And reflective! Whatever!"
Or so it seems to me. Can anyone think of an actual reason to do this to the Dock? I was a little unnerved by the TimeMachine interface-- mainly because it also features a very poorly implemented "3D" lower plane, one that does nothing but make the text there harder to read.
But at least that can make some kind of claim to being part of a "receding in time" metaphor, arbitrary though it may be.
But this? It must stop.
So: the translucent menu bar doesn't bother me that much, I'll wait and see if it works for me.
The reflective floor on the Dock, on the other hand, is a grotesque aberration that must be done away with.
I realize Apple gets accused of functionless "eye candy" from time to time, but in fact there is almost always at least some kind of functional or work flow motivation for things morphing, bouncing, fading or zooming.
The Dock floor has no earthly reason to be, beyond a little flash. Worse, it's a particularly clunky, poorly thought out kind of flash that just kind of sits there and says "Hey! I'm vaguely 3D! And reflective! Whatever!"
Or so it seems to me. Can anyone think of an actual reason to do this to the Dock? I was a little unnerved by the TimeMachine interface-- mainly because it also features a very poorly implemented "3D" lower plane, one that does nothing but make the text there harder to read.
But at least that can make some kind of claim to being part of a "receding in time" metaphor, arbitrary though it may be.
But this? It must stop.
Comments
OK.
So: the translucent menu bar doesn't bother me that much, I'll wait and see if it works for me.
The reflective floor on the Dock, on the other hand, is a grotesque aberration that must be done away with.
I realize Apple gets accused of functionless "eye candy" from time to time, but in fact there is almost always at least some kind of functional or work flow motivation for things morphing, bouncing, fading or zooming.
The Dock floor has no earthly reason to be, beyond a little flash. Worse, it's a particularly clunky, poorly thought out kind of flash that just kind of sits there and says "Hey! I'm vaguely 3D! And reflective! Whatever!"
Or so it seems to me. Can anyone think of an actual reason to do this to the Dock? I was a little unnerved by the TimeMachine interface-- mainly because it also features a very poorly implemented "3D" lower plane, one that does nothing but make the text there harder to read.
But at least that can make some kind of claim to being part of a "receding in time" metaphor, arbitrary though it may be.
But this? It must stop.
It's the reason that I've decided that enough is enough. Vista, here I come!!
Why not? So what if it's pure looks with no extra function? It looks cool. Why have a dock that is flat when we can have one that looks better? And don't follow up with "it will draw too much CPU/GPU power", because I know for a fact that even Tiger disables some of the eye-candy if your system can't handle it. For instance, Widgets don't ripple when activated unless you have at least 64MB of VRAM.
I can't think of another instance of basic UI stuff that was so clearly nothing but decorative, and awkwardly so.
Puffs of smoke, genie effects, widget ripples, pulsing buttons, jumping icons, drop shadows, etc.-- love 'em or hate 'em, they all actually provide feedback, of some sort.
The Dock is a primary UI element in OS X, so it's not like changing the color of the Apple icon or something.
It fundamentally changes the desktop metaphor, from more or less flat with flat windows lying on top of each other, to "3D space about an inch deep".
That's a pretty big deal, if you actually care about the consistency of your interface's metaphor, and that, in theory, is one of the big selling points of the fabled Mac "ease of use".
So my concern is that Apple does not, in fact, really care about that any more. That they feel it's just fine to willy-nilly throw in "3D-ish" elements that do nothing to clarify things for the user, just because they think it looks sort of cool.
That would be a bad thing.
That's a pretty big deal, if you actually care about your the consistency of your interface's metaphor, and that, in theory, is one of the big selling points of the fabled Mac "ease of use".
So my concern is that Apple does not, in fact, really care about that any more.
They just unified the whole UI and you're concerned about Apple not caring about consistency?
They just unified the whole UI and you're concerned about Apple not caring about consistency?
They unified the look of windows. There's a lot more to UI consistency than that.
Possibly as a precursor to abandoning the "desktop" metaphor altogether and going full 3D?
Who knows? I remain unmollified, for the time being, until someone can show me the plan.
Or rather use the second row behind the apps to hold recently opened documents in stack relating to that application.
They unified the look of windows. There's a lot more to UI consistency than that.
There is and on that part Mac OS X has been very consistant - and still is.
There is and on that part Mac OS X has been very consistant - and still is.
Well, that's my point, isn't it? Apple is adding 3D cues here and there (Time Machine, Cover Flow, the Dock floor) but there's no consistency to it at all.
Time Machine thinks we have infinite 3D space, CoverFlow figures an icons width worth, and the Dock believes it to be a few inches.
Stacks, on the other hand, still likes 2D space, as does Quick Look and pretty much every other element of UI. If the desktop has depth, wouldn't it make sense to let Stacks to do a "cover flow" sort of deal?
Sorry, I can't brush off the introduction of 3D space as a functioning part of the UI as a trivial change. We need to know what the metaphor is and it needs to be consistently applied.
Also the icon spacing is just as messy as it always was.
The reflection is sure to annoy me sooner or later.
Has anyone seen how the dock slides out? Is it straight up or into the window?
When I first saw it, I thought great they've removed the dock to leave just the icons and then I thought wtf is that white thing though? I would have been pretty happy with just the icons.
The transparent text on the menu bar is worse IMO. When something negatively affects usability then it's just wrong. Why didn't they remove the bar and leave the text completely opaque? They'd just have to make the text automatically colored the opposite from the desktop underneath. So lets say you had a black backdrop, the text would be white and vice versa. They could have left a faint outline of the menu itself.
The dock is impractical on the side because gravity should pull the icons downward? What about the Macintosh HD you have now, huh?
The dock reflection can manage to annoy you? What happens to you when you suffer a REAL problem?
You know what, you should all just stick with Tiger. That leaves one more copy for someone who can appreciate evolution and not squabble over the tiniest of details.
Wow. You people REALLY like to nitpick, huh? It's a damned UI, not the fate of your children! You are honestly going to tell me you dislike it because it's "not consistent"? The only way to be totally consistent is to keep it flat.
The dock is impractical on the side because gravity should pull the icons downward? What about the Macintosh HD you have now, huh?
The dock reflection can manage to annoy you? What happens to you when you suffer a REAL problem?
You know what, you should all just stick with Tiger. That leaves one more copy for someone who can appreciate evolution and not squabble over the tiniest of details.
On the other hand, do you stare at your kids for 12 hours a day? Are your kids reflective for no good reason? Don't get technical with me, Artoo!
Wow. You people REALLY like to nitpick, huh? It's a damned UI, not the fate of your children! You are honestly going to tell me you dislike it because it's "not consistent"? The only way to be totally consistent is to keep it flat. In that case, stick with Tiger. That leaves one more copy for someone who can appreciate evolution and not squabble over the tiniest of details.
I've explained my concerns in some detail. If you don't share them, feel free to not participate in this thread, noob.
I was a bit p'd off with the WWDC, the thing that annoyed me the most was that after the Desktop, Finder and QuickLook, the show was basically the same as last year. The same iChat, Mail, Dashboard, Core Animation, 64 Bit & TimeMachine demos. There were even the same jokes with the iChat demo. They were basically all scripted exactly the same and this seems a bit lazy to me, especially with the prices people were paying to go there.
i for one really like the new dock. i think it actually takes up less space because the icons aren't being boxed in. ........
I'm not sure we're even getting that. If you look at the screen shot at the Leopard site, you can see that the icons are sitting higher on the desktop than currently.
i for one really like the new dock. i think it actually takes up less space because the icons aren't being boxed in. I'm not so sure about the menu bar. I don't like the fact that it's transparent but the sub menu comes up in white, seems odd.
I was a bit p'd off with the WWDC, the thing that annoyed me the most was that after the Desktop, Finder and QuickLook, the show was basically the same as last year. The same iChat, Mail, Dashboard, Core Animation, 64 Bit & TimeMachine demos. There were even the same jokes with the iChat demo. They were basically all scripted exactly the same and this seems a bit lazy to me, especially with the prices people were paying to go there.
But you have to keep in mind that Apple was only one party at WWDC. It's like judging Battle Of The Bands poorly because one band played their old album.
I've explained my concerns in some detail. If you don't share them, feel free to not participate in this thread, noob.
I understand the underlying points of your concerns perfectly. What I don't understand is how the f*ck it can bother you enough to even be worth a post. It's like complaining about 10.2 and the little striations on the upper menu bar. Who in their right mind obsesses so much as to care about these little details? So what if the Dock and Time Machine don't give the same representation of three-dimensionality? Who said the Dock was even trying to reach to the rear limit of the desktop? Just because it's only "one inch deep" doesn't mean the whole desktop is.
But all that is immaterial, because it's all two-dimensional anyway. The longer you spend complaining about the "inconsistent three-dimensionality" is just more time you are spending not doing something productive.
i see what you mean. I think when I get mine, I'm going to fill it from end-to-end so that all the icons look like they're on a polished floor. I'm a bit OCD like that and think the dock looks stupid hanging out there, like a window ledge!
Actually, even though I'm against the whole thing for UI philosophical reasons, I agree that it would look better as an edge to edge deal and that those "corners" are particularly wrong-headed.
But you have to keep in mind that Apple was only one party at WWDC. It's like judging Battle Of The Bands poorly because one band played their old album.
I understand the underlying points of your concerns perfectly. What I don't understand is how the f*ck it can bother you enough to even be worth a post. It's like complaining about 10.2 and the little striations on the upper menu bar. Who in their right mind obsesses so much as to care about these little details? So what if the Dock and Time Machine don't give the same representation of three-dimensionality? Who said the Dock was even trying to reach to the rear limit of the desktop? Just because it's only "one inch deep" doesn't mean the whole desktop is.
But all that is immaterial, because it's all two-dimensional anyway. The longer you spend complaining about the "inconsistent three-dimensionality" is just more time you are spending not doing something productive.
I think it's fine that it works for you. I don't think it's fine that you feel the need to continue to post about how wrong it is to care.
If it's a waste of time to critique the UI, than what does that say about the time you're taking to critique me?