First look: Apple's new aesthetic for OS X Yosemite

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  • Reply 21 of 168
    cyniccynic Posts: 124member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Red Rogers View Post

     

     

    As for OS X Yosemite, I see mostly interface gimmicks or extensions of existing capabilities. In five years, half will vanish or be renamed. "Tick-tock" is becoming a worn-out cliché in the industry. As the article points out, many features are still inconsistent in implementation. You would expect Apple to have finally settled the OS down in the tock cycle, if that is what Yosemite is supposed to be. iOS 64-bit - different article, mate. OS X Mavericks huge performance tweaks - not really. More hyperbole than substance, I fear.

     

     

    For a "cynic" you sure sound like the marketing department at Apple. I do want to ask you one question:

     

    Just how many Computer Science Departments at US universities (or reputable international ones) will actually offer accredited classes in Swift as part of a CS or Engineering degree curriculum? Yeah, I seriously doubt it.

     

    Dev tools, new APIs, this trick or that - in the end, if they sell more Macs and iPads, then great. Still, the core technologies of what an OS is supposed to do seem to have been neglected yet again.

     

    What helped Apple reestablish itself and regain credibility and mindshare in the industry was its enthusiastic embrace of Unix and Intel. In recent years, they seem to be drifting back to the candy store mentality of the 90s with more proprietary technologies and a walled-garden approach. 

     

    Where is Apple's centre of gravity? No matter how big Apple may be presently, it still doesn't have the gravitational pull of the entire industry.

     

    I hope I'm wrong, as I have a lifetime (and small fortune) invested in Apple tech ....


     

     

    Well, I might not be serving my nickname any justice by posting as positively, however this is simply because I am truly psyched by those announcements. That's the only reason, and yes, the language itself is -that- great and I have to work with those things every day.

     

    First off, no university offers Swift courses yet, because the language is completely new and has just been announced by Apple. It does not matter how many universities (I don't know about US, I'm from Europe here) will teach Swift classes and how many accredited courses you get. This is not how this particular part of the industry works.

     

    I for one wouldn't care what you got in your CV or how many so called accredited courses you made for a specific language. Universities teach programming. If you've understood those concepts, picking up a new language should be a breeze, especially if you can keep on using existing, well established frameworks, which are much harder to get used to an learn over a language in most cases. What really matters is what you can do. And hostly, I haven't seen any known iOS or Mac shop actually caring much for paper qualification when looking for talent.

     

    However, if we play out your logic, iOS should have failed. The App Store should have failed, simply because no University was really caring about Objective-C nor offering any accredited courses for that. Neither is Apple, in comparison to Sun/Oracle, etc. By that logic, everyone should be developing for Android first and Android's app quality should be much higher, because they use a language that is being thought at Universities for over a decade. And still the opposite is true.

     

    Regarding Apple's credibility and Unix... I partially agree, because I'm coming from this field originally as well and I just love the fact that OS X is a certified Unix. However, I am not so sure this fact has anything to do with Apple's comeback. NeXT itself, while technologically brilliant and advanced, wasn't very successful and only serving a tiny niche of the overall enterprise market.

     

    I believe Apple managed to come back as strong as it did, because even so many years later, NeXT's tech was still as good and because Apple managed to integrate it and come up with a system that could actually compete. Also note that OS X, while being built on top of UNIX, wasn't UNIX certified until Leopard. So again, official accreditation is a nice thing, but I doubt it actually had anything to do with Apple's success.

     

    In fact, if we take a look at Apple's presence in the enterprise market and recent decisions such as axing the Xserve clearly show that Apple never really managed to penetrate enterprise in a noteworthy way, except for creative professionals.

     

    And yet, funnily enough, after failing in the enterprise, axing their only server model, refocusing their professional server OS into a small business server OS, Apple finally became dominant in enterprise, with mobile devices. Devices that were intended for consumers originally, tablets, which judging by some voices weren't even meant for content creation or "real work", devices which were supposed to be crushed by Android or tablet offerings meant for "real work" (Surface). None of this happened, enterprise and educators keep adopting iOS devices like crazy, despite the fact that you won't find any "Apple Certified Developers", despite using a language that is as old as PCs and nobody really teaches at large scale.

     

    ---

     

    What I am trying to say, and this applies to the file system theory as well is:

     

    People often take what currently exists and project those thoughts to Apple. People have been asking themselves why apple kept on using ObjC for a long time now. Why didn't Apple switch to something already established out there? Why not one of those many nice managed languages? The same goes for file systems. Sure, HFS needs an overhaul and there are probably more than a dozen better and more advanced file systems out there. However, considering all the ground work Apple has been doing and is still doing in terms of technology, I believe it would be foolish to assume Apple to just use ZFS or anything established out there. Apple sure knows HFS has its problems better than we do. I'm sure they're working on something new, perhaps along a more revamped OS core. At the same time I am sure that when Apple announced their new filesystem, which might not be similar to how we think of one these days, it will be as big a bang as their new programming language and it will make other filesystems out there cower in fear.

     

    But hey, that's just my personal opinion. :)

  • Reply 22 of 168
    nobodyynobodyy Posts: 377member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Red Rogers View Post

     

    "OS X Mavericks huge performance tweaks - not really. More hyperbole than substance, I fear.

     

    - Just how many Computer Science Departments at US universities (or reputable international ones) will actually offer accredited classes in Swift as part of a CS or Engineering degree curriculum? Yeah, I seriously doubt it.

     

    Dev tools, new APIs, this trick or that - in the end, if they sell more Macs and iPads, then great. Still, the core technologies of what an OS is supposed to do seem to have been neglected yet again."


     

    This has got to be willfully misguided. 

     

    As it seems, you are not a developer, you have no had even the slightest crack at the under the hood improvements that exist within Yosemite nor iOS (other than public media) - or how the two OSs relate to each other in terms of development and infrastructure. Yosemite will be a technically solid release, building and expanding on the technologies in the direction Apple established back in 2007 with Lion and new ones with iOS 7 and Mavericks. There might be some new UI, but I guarantee that the team building it isn't working on core technologies - because another team exists solely to tackle those.

     

    Second: YES. Computer science departments will teach Swift as accredited classes, just like they've done with Objective-C and the iOS SDK. Why? Because people are making livings off of it, there is great technical knowledge not bound solely to Swift, and the main reason: ?Because people will pay to learn it in the hopes to making money in the long run and they want to learn it. Universities are just like any business, they will offer what people want, in order to get those pennies and fame. And people want to build iOS apps. iOS is popular and profitable, it's off base to say otherwise.

     

     

    Honestly, if your views are so negative towards the path Apple is taking, I don't see why you keep any money, let alone a lifetime's worth, sit in bed with them. 

  • Reply 23 of 168
    panupanu Posts: 135member
    There is a difference between reflected colors (such as on poster boards and computer hardware) and projected color (such as on a monitor). All this white would look great on a poster board, but it is painful to look at on a monitor.

    Apple does not use Mail internally, they use Outlook, which means they use Outlook Exchange running on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2. iCloud is hosted at least in part on Windows and Linux servers. They never used Pages, which is why they were out of touch with the users and made it over for fourth graders. This UI, which would look great on poster board in a meeting, is painful on a screen. So I wonder, does Jony Ive use a Mac?

    Why is Apple continuing with the only UI they have ever produced that is controversial? When have Mac users ever complained of eye pain and unreadability before? This is all unprecedented.

    I joked with an Apple Store employee that Apple uses PCs with Windows in Cupertino. I expected her to laugh dismissively. Instead, she looked worried and said, quietly, "I hope not."
  • Reply 24 of 168
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,382member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Red Rogers View Post

     

    I wish Apple would finally end this Sturm und Drang aesthetic metamorphosis and get on with revamping major parts of the OS. What I keep hoping for is another Leopard- Snow Leopard release cycle, catching - and surpassing - competing operating systems in core technologies. Instead, Apple seems to be focussing on window dressing and extensions, and less on major components that need updating or overhaul, like the woeful file system, kludgy Finder, and awkward networking. Losing focus, Apple.


     

    Priceless post. 

     

    "catching - and surpassing - competing operating systems in core technologies."

     

    Uh, what are the operating systems that OSX does not completely decimate in core technologies at this point? Windows? Every single OSX release improves the core technologies- and I'm sure Yosemite does to, even if they haven't mentioned anything. Losing focus? I've been watching Apple a long time, and I've never, ever seen them this focused. Yes, they're doing alot more, but there's a consistent theme in their actions, with a unified goal and a grand plan. If you think Apple doesn't have focus, I'm really curious as to who you believe does- All Microsoft and Google have been doing lately is throwing random shit at the wall with no rhyme or reason. 

  • Reply 25 of 168
    panupanu Posts: 135member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Panu View Post



    I joked with an Apple Store employee that Apple uses PCs with Windows in Cupertino. I expected her to laugh dismissively. Instead, she looked worried and said, quietly, "I hope not."

    Go to netcraft.com and check apple.com and icloud.com. They are not running on OS X. Army.mil used to run on OS X, but it doesn't any more.

  • Reply 26 of 168
    panupanu Posts: 135member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by cynic View Post

     

    Apple never really managed to penetrate enterprise in a noteworthy way, except for creative professionals.

     


    One enterprise that Apple never managed to penetrate is Apple.

  • Reply 27 of 168
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Nobodyy View Post

     

     

    This has got to be willfully misguided. 

     

    As it seems, you are not a developer, you have no had even the slightest crack at the under the hood improvements that exist within Yosemite nor iOS (other than public media) - or how the two OSs relate to each other in terms of development and infrastructure. Yosemite will be a technically solid release, building and expanding on the technologies in the direction Apple established back in 2007 with Lion and new ones with iOS 7 and Mavericks. There might be some new UI, but I guarantee that the team building it isn't working on core technologies - because another team exists solely to tackle those.


     

    And you are? I have my copy of Mac OS X and iOS Internals right here, just in case.

     

    Apple is losing focus of the core functionalities of its desktop OS. Despite the recent release of the MacPro, OS X continues to be subsumed by iOS in many (every?) way(s). iCloud will replace local storage, eventually, and the Mac will devolve to just another iDevice if these trends continue.

     

    I, for one, don't want that to happen.

     

    Boiling frog alert.
  • Reply 28 of 168
    It's interesting that the author is surprised that the UI is inconsistent. We saw the same with last years first few iOS 7 beta's. It's work in progress and before the consumer release we'll see all of these inconsistencies disappear.
  • Reply 29 of 168
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,328member
    I'll reserve judgement for my own hands on and later betas. I have a fairly benign attitude about operating systems. As long as the vendor doesn't really screw them up and keeps releasing them for free I expect that much of what they do should fade into the background. I've never been disappointed with any OSX release of recent vintage but I still cannot find it in my heart to forgive Microsoft for what they did with Windows 8. In my opinion Microsoft violated the Hippocratic oath with Windows 8. If Windows 8 were a "hot mess" that would be an improvement over what it turned out to be. Yes, I've tried Windows 8.1 and continue to try to force myself to like it, but I just cannot see it as anything but a step backwards from Windows 7. What's this have to do with OSX? It should serve as as warning to not go overboard with aesthetics and "does good demo" oriented features and UI that destroys utility, functionality, familiarity., and intellectual investment. I shouldn't have the learn how to use a computer, it should learn how to please me. OSX gets most of this relationship correct while Windows 8 continues to abuse me.
  • Reply 30 of 168
    iaeeniaeen Posts: 588member
    red rogers wrote: »
    <span style="line-height:1.4em;">Yes, priceless. </span>
    I forgot how strong the kool-aide is in the forums on this site. <span style="line-height:1.4em;">I made a few tepid observations that were less than rabid Apple-patriotism, and shazaam, the religion police comes out in full force. Ad hominems are sure to follow.</span>


    "I'm sure Yosemite does to, even if they haven't mentioned anything." = religious belief

    "... but there's a consistent theme in their actions, with a unified goal and a grand plan" = marketing catchphrases



    And you are? I have my copy of Mac OS X and iOS Internals right here, just in case.

    Apple is losing focus of the core functionalities of its desktop OS. Despite the recent release of the MacPro, OS X continues to be subsumed by iOS in many (every?) way(s). iCloud will replace local storage, eventually, and the Mac will devolve to just another iDevice if these trends continue.

    I, for one, don't want that to happen.

    Boiling frog alert.

    You complain about non existent ad Hominum attacks, but that is exactly the core content of your post.

    In what way is being confident that Apple is continuing to do what they have always been doing (core improvements) a sign of religious fanaticism?

    The question still stands: who is doing better than Apple? What OS is better than OSX?
  • Reply 31 of 168
    pazuzupazuzu Posts: 1,728member
    Eew
    What does the spinning beach ball look like?
  • Reply 32 of 168
    pazuzupazuzu Posts: 1,728member
    xgman wrote: »
    So far I see a hot mess. I'm sure that will improve over time, but I really expected this would be a little further along by now.

    Remember- iOs7 was basically a beta until five months after release.
    I suggest not updating until at least 8.1 or expect endless aggravation.
  • Reply 33 of 168
    I vehemently disagree with the choice of typography on these OS redesigns. This is something that Steve Jobs would NOT have done, but more importantly it's something that's not easy to read, which is why he would not have done it. Ive knows good graphics a mile off, but mistakes text for another graphical element without acknowledging the basic reality that people have to read the stuff.

    Lucida Grande was thought about, carefully. Probably the only case of type selection that is similarly high profile over the past decade is the new Federal Highway Administration font, which is similarly extremely legible, even if not necessarily the prettiest from a graphical standpoint, and because of that legibility it is very easy on the eyes. Helvetica Neue is a display font, not a text font -- it's meant for advertising and for graphical effect. It flunks in usability.
  • Reply 34 of 168
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    Originally Posted by jkstexas View Post

    Ivy is GREATLY overrated as a UI designer.

     

    INSTEAD of being a complete and utter idiot, why not just NOT sign up on a website about a company you hate? Sounds simpler.

  • Reply 35 of 168
    nobodyynobodyy Posts: 377member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Red Rogers View Post

     

    And you are? I have my copy of Mac OS X and iOS Internals right here, just in case.

     

    Apple is losing focus of the core functionalities of its desktop OS. Despite the recent release of the MacPro, OS X continues to be subsumed by iOS in many (every?) way(s). iCloud will replace local storage, eventually, and the Mac will devolve to just another iDevice if these trends continue. Boiling frog alert.

     

    I, for one, don't want that to happen.


     

    Yes, I have been a developer for several years and because of that, I can see our major differences in perspective.

     

    iCloud replacing local storage is a fantastic example. Is it bad? Will it be good? The future will tell, not the past - but with some of the technologies involving it released just yesterday, I am more than confident to say yes, it will be good and we can get to great. We will get the benefits of iCloud coupled with the benefits of a File System, an archaic interface that I would be overjoyed to leave behind for something superior. ?iCloud will also not replace shit until it shows it is capable of doing that.

    But how else are we supposed to work ourselves out of these boxes we created when we didn't have the tools, complexities, and access to the Internet we have today?

     

    The Mac will not devolve. It has not devolved, ever. It's changed, trying new things, replacing others that were not complete or satisfactory, but it has in no way devolved - I'm okay with progressive enhancement. Can I do everything I needed to do on a Mac 5 years ago? Yes, and plenty more, and faster. And don't forget that technologies that being developed for iOS are being merged into OS X and vise versa - my favorite being an oldie, Core Animation. Look yourself, there are plenty of Core technologies that started or were created for iOS but have advanced the OS X platform just as far. iOS and OS X are paternal sisters in some respect, only one has a Pixie cut (Cocoa Touch, Mobile UI) while the other has dreads (Cocoa, Desktop UI). (I know this is way simple and pushing, but it creates a nice but accurate mental picture.)

     

    I don't think you need to worry.  

  • Reply 36 of 168
    almondrocaalmondroca Posts: 179member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Red Rogers View Post

     

    Apple seems to be focussing on window dressing and extensions, and less on major components that need updating or overhaul, like the woeful file system, kludgy Finder, and awkward networking.


     

    One day (one day) we'll get a new Finder. It's good to see Apple paying attention to window dressings though. 

     

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by xgman View Post



    So far I see a hot mess.

     

    I think the "hot mess" was 10.2 (Jaguar) — 10.4 (Tiger) when Apple kept pinstripes next to brushed metal depending on the app/finder. Took them a while to phase out Aqua pinstripes.

  • Reply 37 of 168
    paxmanpaxman Posts: 4,729member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Red Rogers View Post

     

    I wish Apple would finally end this Sturm und Drang aesthetic metamorphosis and get on with revamping major parts of the OS. What I keep hoping for is another Leopard- Snow Leopard release cycle, catching - and surpassing - competing operating systems in core technologies. Instead, Apple seems to be focussing on window dressing and extensions, and less on major components that need updating or overhaul, like the woeful file system, kludgy Finder, and awkward networking. Losing focus, Apple.


    There are others who share your view on Snow Leopard but I am not sure that Apple is losing focus. Maybe all these changes is a sign of the exact opposite - or rather a sign of re-focussing. A certain amount of chaos always follows order and vice versa, its the inevitable way of growth and development. Remember that the Leopard / Snow Leopard type development has only ever happened once, so to say Apple is loosing its way because its going out on a limb (or several), seems wrong to me. Perhaps after Yosemite there will be a need for a clean-up iteration, but right now its all pretty exciting. 

  • Reply 38 of 168
    almondrocaalmondroca Posts: 179member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by photoeditor View Post



    I vehemently disagree with the choice of typography on these OS redesigns. This is something that Steve Jobs would NOT have done, but more importantly it's something that's not easy to read, which is why he would not have done it. Ive knows good graphics a mile off, but mistakes text for another graphical element without acknowledging the basic reality that people have to read the stuff.



    Lucida Grande was thought about, carefully. Probably the only case of type selection that is similarly high profile over the past decade is the new Federal Highway Administration font, which is similarly extremely legible, even if not necessarily the prettiest from a graphical standpoint, and because of that legibility it is very easy on the eyes. Helvetica Neue is a display font, not a text font -- it's meant for advertising and for graphical effect. It flunks in usability.

     

    I like Lucida Grande as well, but why do you think Helvetica Neue fails in legibility  and usability? Letterforms? X-heights?

  • Reply 39 of 168
    senna18senna18 Posts: 2member
    Will Spotlight be able to search NAS drives which is seriously missing at the moment?
  • Reply 40 of 168
    aruhligaruhlig Posts: 7member

    I noticed that all of the apps have lost the double arrows in the upper right corners to take the apps into full-screen mode. Is the interaction of multiple desktops, full-screen apps, and mission control still the same as it has been since (I believe) Lion? How to you take an app like iTunes or Safari or Calendar into full-screen mode?

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