I know it shouldn't, but this is pissing me off

westonm · April 16, 2003 10:07PM

Why Apple?

Finder:

iTunes:

Safari:

This seems like such a basic thing. All they do is clear a text entry field. Is there some reason why Apple would make these slightly different shades? As far as I know they all function the same... but, ugh

I mean, wouldn't it be like having radio buttons look slightly different?

kcmac · April 16, 2003 10:13PM

Same deal with the green/yellow/red lights on the iapps. It is a little unsettling.

I can live with it as I believe the pace to make OS X great is very furious. At some point, a lot of the little details will all come together.

cubedude · April 16, 2003 10:20PM

Also, its more important to fix bugs than things that most people never notice.(Not to be a jerk)

luca · April 16, 2003 10:26PM

Yeah, I see OS X as a really good version of System 7. System 7 was around for a LONG time and there were some really big changes that came about with its release and with the subsequent revisions. Came out in '91, wasn't replaced until '97... that's a long time. It got better, culminating in 7.6.1 which was quite stable and fast, and had a lot of features present in the later versions of the Classic Mac OS. But some of the earlier revisions, like 7.5.1, were really bad. I think right now we're at about the equivalent of 7.5.3 with OS X - pretty good, most of the major things worked out, but still a lot of room for improvement.

westonm · April 16, 2003 10:36PM

Quote:

Also, its more important to fix bugs than things that most people never notice.(Not to be a jerk)

I know. I would much rather have Apple fix bugs than this, but it just seems like such a little thing. One of those things you should get right on the first try (well maybe not Safari, being beta and all).

Ah well

blue2kdave · April 17, 2003 12:14AM

Actually my pet peeve is that the find field in iCal doesn't have an X at all. You have to manually select your selection and delete it to clear your search. Not a biggie, but totally inconsitent with the other apps.

kecksy · April 17, 2003 12:35AM

Ever since Jobs returned to Apple, Apple's software has been less consistent interface why. I think this has something to do with Steve dissolving a group within Apple which made sure all programs strictly adhered to HIG. Now programers have a lot more freedom to experiment, which I think is good, but you can also see some of the negative consequences.

hobbes · April 17, 2003 1:06AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kecksy

Ever since Jobs returned to Apple, Apple's software has been less consistent interface why. I think this has something to do with Steve dissolving a group within Apple which made sure all programs strictly adhered to HIG. Now programers have a lot more freedom to experiment, which I think is good, but you can also see some of the negative consequences.

I think the idea that the HIG group has been dissolved at Apple is a myth... but it's definitely true that UI teams on various groups have been given a lot more room for experimentation over the past few years. This approach seems to have its pros (lots of interesting things going on) and cons (dozens of little niggling and not-so-niggling differences and inconsistencies).

Does anyone have any inside information exactly how an application is developed at Apple? I assume there's a central team in charge of UE of OS X; can this team veto a UI decision made by another group? How does it all work?

All very Apple Internal and hush-hush, I know, but even the slightest glimmer of how it works would be most interesting.

stupider...likeafox · April 17, 2003 5:30AM

The point isn't that they *look* different. They should, in an ideal world, *be* the exact same thing . Duplication of code is the cause of this, inconsistent look and feel are merely a symptom.

Now every programmer (or DB admin) knows (or should) that code duplication is bad, nay, evil! This is enshrined in the rule Once and Once Only and the DRY principle (Don't Repeat Yourself). Breaking these rules leads to UI inconsistency, bugs and difficult-to-maintain spaghetti code.

So you might think this is an even worse problem than you think, but the truth is you need to experiment to innovate and this means duplication of effort and the occasional dead end.

Apple developers have the additional headache of bringing code designed originally for OS 9 (then OS 9 and X at the same time) up to the point were it can interoperate with pure OS X code. Sometimes, for various reasons, this just can't happen.

Apple is moving towards some beautiful coding, it's use of Obj-C, XML, open standards and open-source software is a *very* good thing. Once it fully breaks it ties with the legacy of OS 9 things will be much better.

der kopf · April 17, 2003 6:20AM

Know what? I didn't even know that these crosses had that purpose. For these little things, I do prefer the keyboard shortcuts. (tabbing to the text field and a quick cmd+a and delete is, to me at least, faster than mousing and clicking that teeny thing).

kim kap sol · April 17, 2003 7:02AM

Hopefully 10.3 will unify GUI elements like the clear search field 'x' icon which is becoming more common to apps.

And I really hate the fact that there is 6 billion different brushed-metal implementations now.

There's the super fake brushed-metal that started it all, QuickTime, then there's the semi-fake brushed-metal in iTunes. The real brushed-metal in AddressBook, iCal and Safari. Then there's the 'let's-keep-10.2-compatibility-brushed-metal' in iMovie and iPhoto...

Screw it, I've kind lost count and comprehension of the whole thing. I'm not even sure what I'm talking about anymore.

The latest look in brushed-metal is the embedded/receded glass button look shown in iMovie 3, iDVD 3, Safari 3.

But apps such as Address Book and iPhoto still have the protruding glass button look. As for iCal and iPhoto and other older brushed-metal apps, they still have the metallic buttons.

Is there going to be a more uniform GUI from Apple eventually? These are minor details but...ya know...it bothers me.

I know it shouldn't, but this is pissing me off

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