Apple launches refreshed Mac App Store designed for OS X Yosemite
Apple late Wednesday began rolling out a redesign of its Mac App Store with new flat graphics, thinner font styles and a more open feel, in line with the latest OS X Yosemite release.
Refreshed Mac App Store (right) versus last version.
As seen in the screenshot above, the Mac App Store moves further toward a "flat design" aesthetic with the removal of shading and skeuomorphic assets like lighting effects left over from past Apple software.
Compared side-by-side, the new look delineates content with thin gray lines instead of shaded boxes with thick "shiny" headers. In some cases, like informational app sidebars, text is simply floating in free space, denoted as a group through paragraph formatting and font sizes.
Images, too, are slightly tweaked and no longer pop off the screen, but instead appear integrated into the page alongside release notes and hyperlinks, which are a few shades darker than surrounding text.
The background no longer sports a stippled gray granite-like look, replaced with a solid light gray color. The net result is a less cluttered interface that puts focus on imagery and content rather than page design elements, much akin to the look of Apple's new iTunes 12.
For now, the update appears to be rolling out in stages as some users have reported seeing the fresh design only intermittently, while others are now seeing it full time.
Apple is slowly transferring its entire collection of first-party apps and Internet services, including the Apple.com website, over to the spartan design theme introduced with iOS 7. The most recent changes came when OS X Yosemite rolled out in October.
Refreshed Mac App Store (right) versus last version.
As seen in the screenshot above, the Mac App Store moves further toward a "flat design" aesthetic with the removal of shading and skeuomorphic assets like lighting effects left over from past Apple software.
Compared side-by-side, the new look delineates content with thin gray lines instead of shaded boxes with thick "shiny" headers. In some cases, like informational app sidebars, text is simply floating in free space, denoted as a group through paragraph formatting and font sizes.
Images, too, are slightly tweaked and no longer pop off the screen, but instead appear integrated into the page alongside release notes and hyperlinks, which are a few shades darker than surrounding text.
The background no longer sports a stippled gray granite-like look, replaced with a solid light gray color. The net result is a less cluttered interface that puts focus on imagery and content rather than page design elements, much akin to the look of Apple's new iTunes 12.
For now, the update appears to be rolling out in stages as some users have reported seeing the fresh design only intermittently, while others are now seeing it full time.
Apple is slowly transferring its entire collection of first-party apps and Internet services, including the Apple.com website, over to the spartan design theme introduced with iOS 7. The most recent changes came when OS X Yosemite rolled out in October.
Comments
"text is simply floating in free space"
Yes, it puts the focus on Ive's non-existent understanding of user interface design, since it just removed all visual differentiation, any user interface elements that made it easier for users to navigate, scan, and choose quickly, forcing all of us to over-focus and read every element of text to browse for something we might want. This is similar to what happened to the OS X sidebar which forces you to read through every piece of information as there's no color and hardly any icon visual differentiation.
Brilliant, modern design seems to equal removing any user interface and just putting up a list that looks like it was made in MS Word by an accountant. It looks like it was designed by someone who has no clue about design. Yey!
Just pondering... (or just venting this time, Sorry.)
Here's an idea to take out the clutter from iTunes:
Why not have the mac, iPhone, iPad and ? watch apps in one unified App Store?
It does not make sense to me to have:
Just rebrand the Mac App Store to App Store in order to cater all.
Oh, and one more thing:
Can I move my .mac, .me and .icloud account to just one account? It is annoying having to sign in/out in order to update the different apps on my various accounts I accumulated through the years.
e.g. I always have to use my .mac account to upgrade iPhoto and iMovie. The Yosemite upgrade was on my .me account. It does get very cumbersome.
Perhaps Apple should make use of the touch id on your iPhone (via continuity)?
You think a SVP is designing user interfaces? I highly doubt it.
Honestly it doesn't look that different to me so maybe I need my eyes checked.
I have to admit that the inability to merge our old MobileMe accounts with iCloud and AppStore accounts is incredibly baffling and inexplicably customer hostile. This wart destroys what should be very simple workflows when you have to remember which payment or delivery streams are tied to which account. I truly thought that having to deal with two different accounts was going to be a very temporary annoyance when the App Store and iCloud appeared on the scene. But no, this has lasted like a bad rash for several years now and there is no end in sight. What could possibly be the impediment on Apple's side to getting their s**t together on this? Those of us who were brave enough to jump into the MobileMe "experiment" will forever have to live with the pain and stigma via the fragmented way that we now have to interact with the current Apple ecosystem. We are the forgotten generation of customers that Apple doesn't want to deal with in an open and honest manner. All I can do is scratch my head and ask:
"Why Apple do you continue to punish us MobileMe'rs for your mistakes?"
On the new UI model: it's very white and is now a "sea of icons." Definitely a cleaner look with a much simpler and consistent aesthetic across the entire OS and product family that includes iOS. However, I found the previous shading/banding was rather helpful and not at all gratuitous fluff, especially when dealing with large collections. Also, the total lack of visual delineation between what is simply text and what is a clickable control element is a questionable choice, especially for newbies who aren't familiar with the navigation model. Just sitting back and looking at the presentation offers no visual clues or hints about how I should start to interact with the content. I have to start poking and actively discovering what is what and figure it out on my own. Maybe this is exactly Apple's intention, to provide no hints in an effort to force users to dive in and start discovering and learning on their own. Wax on - wax off. Once you do start poking around the scheme exposes itself so maybe it's not too bad to force the self discovery and learning step as part of the model. At least there's not a bunch of stuff buried behind right-click/context menus like on other operating systems. It's like navigating a web page where none of the hyperlinks are discernible as hyperlinks. Y'all good with that?
I'll punt for now and say "let's see how the UX plays out" for the next several months as more people find their way around the system and its simpler UI and starker and whiter aesthetic. Maybe it will be a raving success and Apple will be so delighted and empowered that they will spin off a few resources to finally fix the MobileMe account cluster fiasco.
One can dream.
With all the people that complain about Apple making software do too much? I think not. Besides, it's a rare person who uses iTunes to download apps.
Jony is clearly at fault for everything. No one ever considers if Craig happens to agree with him and has directed the team move in this direction. Personally, all the gloss looks dated now, and I like the new look.
I'm sure the SVPs provide strategic direction and ultimate sign off but they're not sitting at s computer designing UI themselves. It is amazing to me how much power people give one person at Apple (Ive). If software engineers and designers weren't on board with (or involved with from the beginning) these changes surely we'd be hearing about it via the rumor mill. We'd be hearing about software people leaving Apple or complaining up the chain that they didn't approve of what they were being asked to do. Believe me if that existed wonder boy Mark Gurman would be reporting (with glee) every rumor about infighting inside Apple. And others like Business Insider and BGR would jump on it immediately after.
I'm sure the SVPs provide strategic direction and ultimate sign off but they're not sitting at s computer designing UI themselves. It is amazing to me how much power people give one person at Apple (Ive). If software engineers and designers weren't on board with (or involved with from the beginning) these changes surely we'd be hearing about it via the rumor mill. We'd be hearing about software people leaving Apple or complaining up the chain that they didn't approve of what they were being asked to do. Believe me if that existed wonder boy Mark Gurman would be reporting (with glee) every rumor about infighting inside Apple. And others like Business Insider and BGR would jump on it immediately after.
Exactly. And listen to the sessions from the WWDC. The presenters are passionate about the new design choices. And have we even heard Ives talk directly about the new UI approach? I only recall him extolling the virtues of Apple hardware designs. If, for some reason, Ives had actually jumped into UI design, there would be videos of him explaining how great it is. He's not shy about explaining why stuff he and his team create is great.
In general I think Apple is going in the right direction with the new UI approach. I have quibbles here and there where I miss the "pop" and "fun" of the earlier styles, but overall the emphasis on more readable fonts and minimizing clutter is leading to improvements.
I'm sure the SVPs provide strategic direction and ultimate sign off but they're not sitting at s computer designing UI themselves. It is amazing to me how much power people give one person at Apple (Ive). If software engineers and designers weren't on board with (or involved with from the beginning) these changes surely we'd be hearing about it via the rumor mill. We'd be hearing about software people leaving Apple or complaining up the chain that they didn't approve of what they were being asked to do. Believe me if that existed wonder boy Mark Gurman would be reporting (with glee) every rumor about infighting inside Apple. And others like Business Insider and BGR would jump on it immediately after.
Though your comment is reasonable, the SVPs don't have to design the UI, but they are certainly involved in the process and nothing goes out without their approval. That one person does have the power, something Steve Jobs insisted on, which is why designers, Jony Ive in particular have free reign, so that usability and good design would rule over engineering and not the other way around. He has the power and final say, which means he approved all of these changes.
He dictates the direction he wants to go in and designers follow accordingly. Why would designers complain? They're getting paid for putting rows of icons on a piece of paper and can say they're working under the great Sir Jony Ive. Also, their contractual agreements would ban them from speaking publicly anyway, but again, if you're getting paid and getting all the benefits for placing rows of icons on a Word document, what's to complain about. Along the way, you might get to redesign an App icon that everyone will use, which is cool, and the personal artwork you can do freelance at home.
What is certainly true is that usability has not been at the forefront of Apple's design for a while now. One look at OS X's sidebar is enough to see that (without going into so many other ugly and unusable areas that remind me of Windows). The iTunes user interface also leaves a lot to be desired, though thankfully the latest update fixed it a bit. But the Mac App Store redesign definitely takes the cake. Why fix what's not broken? They could have easily redesigned with their minimalist aesthetic while simultaneously keeping differentiating UI elements. If anything, that's simply sloppy, and I really hope, as someone else mentioned, that it's only part of the process of improving it (unlikely) and not their idea of a final design.
Just pondering...
I think that Jobs and Forstall, from a design standpoint, were becoming like Lee Iacocca in the 1980's at Chrysler. Any time the design guys tried to produce a more modern looking car (particularly the interior) he'd freak out and demand that velour seats with buttons, fake wood grain, etc, all be added back in. None of the designers were happy with those decisions.
I like it, apart from the tumbleweeds.
I've got a lot of tools out in my garage that I use for working on my house or garage. They are absolutely marvelous. Every time I pick one up to use it, it's unchanged from the time before. That, I like. The tool does precisely what I bought it to do. It doesn't need to change.
Not so with Apple's tool-like apps. They change for reasons that make no sense to me. Perhaps it is to enhance Jony Ives' already enormous ego. Perhaps it's make-work for people in some departments.
But whatever it is, it ticks me off. There's nothing, to my knowledge, that the new iTunes does that the old iTunes didn't do%u2014and certainly not anything I need it to do. The many, many changes are simply an irritation, much as if a socket wrench I use to work on my car suddenly grew a strange appendage.
Worst of all is the mindset that seems to underlie the changes in general. The mindset behind them seemed to be "We're smart, you're stupid. You must do it our way." That certainly explain why iTunes makes it so hard to do simple things. Hit one of the too-many buttons, and one thing doesn't change, several things change unbidden.
And weeks after this OS X upgrade was released, I'm still finding things I set and liked were changed. The upgrade should have respected all my preferences and not displayed this 'we know better than you' attitude.
By the way, when I was studying engineering, we call these sorts of changes "artsy, fartsy." They run counter to one of the most basic of all design principles, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Apple's target customer seems to be:
1. Stupid enough to go along with whatever Apple doesn't.
2. Childish enough to think pretty babbles are important.
3. So lacking in other things to do that he is delighted to have to a new toy to explore.
This is a legacy from the mid-1990s when, apart from a few creatives, the only people who bought Macs fit that description. Anyone with work to do turned to Windows. You still see that split in Apple's ads, which typically target twentyish but childish people at play. They jump up and down. They snap pictures. They never stay still. In short, they act like little children.