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

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  • Reply 141 of 168
    hypoluxahypoluxa Posts: 694member
    I thought highly of Sir Ive up until iOS7's interface. I still don't understand his rabidly anti-skeuomorphic take on design. I hate the childish colors and overly-simplistic icon designs. It's a visual dumbing down, not a helpful simplification. Ive doesn't appear to have any grasp of the concept that typography has to be readable—that's its purpose outside of display work—not just to be "pretty." OS X seems to be turning more and more toward show-offy eye candy. (Please explain to me how transparency of windows helps improve the user experience, increases one's ease of use of the OS or increases productivity.) IMHO, OS X is being infected by the poor interface concepts in iOS. It's becoming bland, despite the garish colors.

    Someone mentioned that inconsistencies in the OS X interface will be addressed in time by Apple. I would hope so. But I would point out a  longstanding interface inconsistency in OS X: why do icons appear in color pretty much everywhere except for Finder window sidebars? I've resorted to a third-party hack to restore those icons to color. I find the color element important visually when rapidly selecting an icon. The interface team doesn't even seem to recognize this glitch. Weird.

    Sir Ive would choke, but I'm at the point that I'd welcome being to skin the entire interface. I used to think that Sir would be a natural eventual successor to the helm of the Good Ship Apple, but now it looks to me like he's fallen into the design-for-design's sake school of thought. Can no one at Apple challenge and perhaps override his decisions? If not, it speaks to a culture of yes men inside and outside of the design team at Apple. And I would argue that that's not a good thing.

    Couldn't agree more. I hope they give us the option to turn that transparency crap off in the System settings. Ive is a great industrial designer, but not so much in the graphic UI dept it seems...granted he may not be actually designing the UI, but is just the influencer/approver in the end.
  • Reply 142 of 168
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hypoluxa View Post



    Couldn't agree more. I hope they give us the option to turn that transparency crap off in the System settings.

    I think transparency makes sense (to a certain degree) when what is showing through is the user's content for the app it is showing through on, e.g. the way Safari content is visible through Safari's tool/title bar. But where it makes less sense is when what is showing through is something from a completely different app, or the desktop image. Transparency should strictly be within-app.

     

    But in both cases, how can you ensure a GUI will look good and be readable if there could be colours showing through and you don't know in advance what they will be? How do you avoid clashing colours? The only way is to make all the foreground stuff black (which doesn't clash with anything), but then you're really restricting yourself in terms of foreground design. And you have to think about whether the transparency is worth it at that point.

  • Reply 143 of 168
    pbpb Posts: 4,255member

    Quote:


    Originally Posted by iaeen View Post





    What features do these new file systems bring to the table? From the content of your post it sounds like they are less likely to corrupt data, but what other features do they have?

     

    There are many features mostly useful in a professional environment. You can have a look at the corresponding wiki entry for details.

     

    As far as the common user is concerned, here are the highlights: protection against data corruption (involving continuous integrity check and automatic repair), very efficient snapshots, vast performance improvements, pooled storage model, encryption. Apple apparently saw the great potential of ZFS and was actively involved in porting it to the Mac. The project was abandoned due to some licensing issues. If I remember correctly this happened in 2009. Today it exists as an independent project, MacZFS.

  • Reply 144 of 168
    pbpb Posts: 4,255member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by johnmcboston View Post



    I hope there is a setting to turn translucency off. W7 came with it here at work and it was beyond distracting having other things show through while you are trying to read text. I'm not sure exactly how this is supposed to be helpful to a user...

     

    When I read about translucency, I also feared that the Windows 7 horror was coming to OS X. Then I watched the part of the keynote where this was demoed. I can say that the Apple implementation is much better. Granted, I don't see the point to have transparency in the left pane. But even if it stays, it is sufficiently discreet to not become a serious problem.

  • Reply 145 of 168
    panupanu Posts: 135member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by renedekat View Post



    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.

    It is not surprising that the UI is inconsistent, and it will take a longer time for inconsistencies and bad design choices to disappear. The reason is that Apple's UI design is controlled by one person who answers to no one and needs no approval for his work. Even the queen said he is a genius and an expert, so who are we that he would consider our feedback? He has only one year of experience and zero training in designing software user interfaces. Industrial design and software UI design are two different disciplines that only have the word "design" in common. Jony Ive is a genius in one, but it will take a while for those skills to transfer to the other. He will eventually produce a non-controversial UI design that meets with universal acclaim, but since they've made him his own approval authority, it is going to take a long time.

     

    This situation is grossly unfair to Jony Ive in the long run. His career isn't going to be as stellar as if he had remained in his core expertise.

     

    In the meantime, my main concern is that my favorite company is getting confused. It's "keep it simple, stupid," not "keep it stupid, simple."

  • Reply 146 of 168
    nbiquitynbiquity Posts: 12member
    Arrrrrrrrrrgh!!! ...... Drattttttttttt!!!!!!

    After a few generations of screen reading people, Apple should know better than to default to a helvetica-like type face.
    I LIKE the wider and more open counters of the beta, but HATE the loss of girth of the lower case "r" and lower case "t". The current system font, Lucida Sans has better and wider lower case "r"s and "t"s

    I think it's a step backward for screen readability. Apple, why not swallow some pride and just adopt a modern typeface designed FOR the screen... like, for one example, say Microsoft's Calibri?
  • Reply 147 of 168
    nbiquitynbiquity Posts: 12member

    I agree with "photoeditor" —

    Helvetica doesn't work well as a small screen font, not without some changes. 

    Helvetica neue/olde however looks great in print, at certain larger sizes.  



    Microsoft spent some serious research effort in creating their screen fonts for Windows 7 and Office.

    I suggest that the Apple OS team look towards what Microsoft accomplished with Calibri, Consolas, Corbel as examples for improving on screen readability. 

  • Reply 148 of 168
    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.


     

    Not saying you're wrong, but I would be interested to know what aspects of Finder you find kludgy (specifically as compared to Windows and Linux file system browsers) and which aspects of the file system you find woeful (again, as compared to Win/Lin).

     

    What I got out of the keynote was that the aesthetic was much less the major 'new thing' that stuff like Continuity, iCloudDrive which is a 'catching' (and some may consider it 'surpassing') competing OS's feature, Family Sharing (which looks great to my wallet regardless of the OS's latest coat of UI paint), Instant Hotspot, etc.  The UI is very visible, but the concepts behind these new features are substantial.

  • Reply 149 of 168
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by nbiquity View Post

     

    I agree with "photoeditor" —

    Helvetica doesn't work well as a small screen font, not without some changes. 

    Helvetica neue/olde however looks great in print, at certain larger sizes.  



    Microsoft spent some serious research effort in creating their screen fonts for Windows 7 and Office.

    I suggest that the Apple OS team look towards what Microsoft accomplished with Calibri, Consolas, Corbel as examples for improving on screen readability. 


     

    http://daringfireball.net/2012/08/pixel_perfect and specifically footnote 1.  My impression from what I've seen of Windows' ClearType tuner (a wrench the end-user has to manually turn, as opposed to Apple's 'it just works' integrated hardware/software approach) and from what I read in that article that Apple's effort in OS fonts is something like an order of magnitude more careful and well thought out than Microsoft's.  And with retina iMacs in the rumor mill, I'd say system font readability concerns will be moot for Apple entirely in the near future.

  • Reply 150 of 168

    I was worried if they'd flatten OSX as much as iOS7, but I think they struck a good balance.  They left in affordances that I think iOS still needs to back off just a hair on the removal of (not entirely - iOS7 has grown on me, but just enough to indicate to the user exactly what's a tappable/actionable element on screen without entirely losing the flatter aesthetic).  Turning on affordances also results in the edges of such affordances being right up against the edge of the text it contains, which looks horrible.  I couldn't stand it so I retreated and turned the setting back off; I can get used to which things are interactive in the apps I use often.

     

    To me the fact that they added a setting called 'affordances' is a clear indicator that they went a bit too far.  There should never have to be such a setting.  It should be an integral aspect of the design.

  • Reply 151 of 168

    Yes but all they need to do is to activate the correct word just hit the Space Bar exactly as it's done in iOS....  It's nuts to think iOS is More Capable than OS X...

     

    Larry

  • Reply 152 of 168
    markboardmarkboard Posts: 18member
    After my HandsOn, Now i love the New UI truly amazing in all its flatter & translucent brand new looks :)
  • Reply 153 of 168
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Markboard View Post



    After my HandsOn, Now i love the New UI truly amazing in all its flatter & translucent brand new looks image

    What about the new icons though? Don't you think it would have been more consistent (and probably prettier) to make them all front-on like iOS?

     

    I understand why they would want to be quite conservative in changing GUI controls, I mean, professionals use these boxes for doing real work, and you don't want to pull the rug out from under them. But icons? There's no need to be conservative there. Icons are only used once, when launching an app, not hundreds of times in a workflow like a GUI control, where you don't want to break muscle memory. And people are smart enough in general to handle completely new icons.

  • Reply 154 of 168
    markboardmarkboard Posts: 18member

    When i said UI i bear in mind new icons' look too :) For me over time folks will be getting used to. Coming DPs the dark mode will be revealed to switch to :) 

     

    Edit: Folder icon looks non-native with that brighter blue :(

  • Reply 155 of 168
    clemynxclemynx Posts: 1,552member
    hypoluxa wrote: »
    Couldn't agree more. I hope they give us the option to turn that transparency crap off in the System settings. Ive is a great industrial designer, but not so much in the graphic UI dept it seems...granted he may not be actually designing the UI, but is just the influencer/approver in the end.
    I thought highly of Sir Ive up until iOS7's interface. I still don't understand his rabidly anti-skeuomorphic take on design. I hate the childish colors and overly-simplistic icon designs. It's a visual dumbing down, not a helpful simplification. Ive doesn't appear to have any grasp of the concept that typography has to be readable—that's its purpose outside of display work—not just to be "pretty." OS X seems to be turning more and more toward show-offy eye candy. (Please explain to me how transparency of windows helps improve the user experience, increases one's ease of use of the OS or increases productivity.)

    "Form and function" doesn't mean you can't ornate your OS, look at iOS BEFORE Ive came.
    As long as form doesn't impede function and is done with taste, I don't see why you couldn't make it better.
    You say it's childish and too ornamental, then say you liked skeuomoprhic? How does this makes sense?
    Does transparency improve user experience? Maybe not (I think it might actually) but then, does it make the experience worse? I don't think so.
  • Reply 156 of 168
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by ClemyNX View Post







    "Form and function" doesn't mean you can't ornate your OS, look at iOS BEFORE Ive came.

    As long as form doesn't impede function and is done with taste, I don't see why you couldn't make it better.

    You say it's childish and too ornamental, then say you liked skeuomoprhic? How does this makes sense?

    Does transparency improve user experience? Maybe not (I think it might actually) but then, does it make the experience worse? I don't think so.

     

    I didn't say iOS 7 was "ornamental." Quite the opposite, and not in a way that strikes me as useful. You didn't understand what I wrote.

     

    I don't have any idea what your first sentence means. "Ornate" isn't a verb, and again, I didn't use the word ornate.

     

    If transparency doesn't "improve the user experience," apparently you are actually agreeing with my point about eye candy and a "show-off" visual element.

  • Reply 157 of 168
    ingsocingsoc Posts: 212member

    I absolutely love what I've seen of OS X Yosemite. I can't fault the feature improvements, which all feel necessary, and the aesthetic update is really welcome. As beautiful as OS X Mavericks is, there's no question that it's starting to feel a little old (it's all relative, of course).

     

    Yosemite really has a fresh feel to it, from what I can see. It isn't heavy-handed in its approach and it very much adheres to this general idea of putting the OS in the background: reducing clutter in small, subtle ways that put the apps at the front of the experience.

     

    I really love the transparencies, personally, and I'm glad that Apple moved back to a "flat" icon structure. Personally, this is the OS X design update I've been waiting for (at least in terms of aesthetics - I've been happy with the features that Apple have added to OS X progressively over the years anyway, and that doesn't look to change with Yosemite).

  • Reply 158 of 168
    clemynxclemynx Posts: 1,552member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by oirudleahcim View Post

     

     

    I didn't say iOS 7 was "ornamental." Quite the opposite, and not in a way that strikes me as useful. You didn't understand what I wrote.

     

    I don't have any idea what your first sentence means. "Ornate" isn't a verb, and again, I didn't use the word ornate.

     

    If transparency doesn't "improve the user experience," apparently you are actually agreeing with my point about eye candy and a "show-off" visual element.




    No, you didn't understand. I was talking about iOS 6 and it was perfectly clear in my sentence. I don't see how you can say that iOS is going to "eye-candy" when it was worse before.

  • Reply 159 of 168
    hypoluxahypoluxa Posts: 694member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ascii View Post

     

    I think transparency makes sense (to a certain degree) when what is showing through is the user's content for the app it is showing through on, e.g. the way Safari content is visible through Safari's tool/title bar. But where it makes less sense is when what is showing through is something from a completely different app, or the desktop image. Transparency should strictly be within-app.

     

    But in both cases, how can you ensure a GUI will look good and be readable if there could be colours showing through and you don't know in advance what they will be? How do you avoid clashing colours? The only way is to make all the foreground stuff black (which doesn't clash with anything), but then you're really restricting yourself in terms of foreground design. And you have to think about whether the transparency is worth it at that point.


    I think Apple has implemented it better than MS, but I don't really think it has any pertinent use/function besides 'eye candy' in th end. Giving one "depth" etc in the UI with the transprency, as Ive mentioned, doesnt really seem to me that useful. Apple in the past just 'greys out' the background window from the forground and having a simple drop shadow along the UI window. I like the simplicity of Yosimite, but the transparecy with menus etc is pointless and bad for legibilty. As fas the new system font.... I love Helevetica in print, but display, Ill have to play around with it before I make any final judgements. It seems like making the OS UI clean & simple would/could greatly help with the whole resolution independence that has been talked about over the last few years.

     

  • Reply 160 of 168
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    Quote:



    Originally Posted by hypoluxa View Post

     

    I think Apple has implemented it better than MS


    Really?  Seems almost exactly the same to me, and almost completely non-functional eye-candy in both cases.

     

    Not that there's anything particularly wrong with non-functional eye-candy, but call a spade a spade.

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