Next-generation OS smackdown, circa '06.
So, come 2006 (or thereabouts), Microsoft will have at last caught up with OS X with Longhorn in the snazzy UI effects dept.
What can Apple do to advance the state of the art in UI? Can they have something twice as impressive as Longhorn in the next 2-3 years? Will they take a evolutionary strategy, advancing with significant ".1" updates every year, or will they additionally have a new Mac UI-project running in secret Infinite Loop labs on the side? Could Pixar play a role on such a project? Can the WIMP model be improved on, or will the next-next gen OS still WIMP-based?
Finally, is this an area that Apple should even be focusing on? Is a radically new, different interface model....a good business model? Should Apple be redirecting its interface resources and know-how and focusing instead on new consumer devices like the iPod? How important are snazzy effects to a successful OS strategy, anyway?
Let's hear your thoughts.
What can Apple do to advance the state of the art in UI? Can they have something twice as impressive as Longhorn in the next 2-3 years? Will they take a evolutionary strategy, advancing with significant ".1" updates every year, or will they additionally have a new Mac UI-project running in secret Infinite Loop labs on the side? Could Pixar play a role on such a project? Can the WIMP model be improved on, or will the next-next gen OS still WIMP-based?
Finally, is this an area that Apple should even be focusing on? Is a radically new, different interface model....a good business model? Should Apple be redirecting its interface resources and know-how and focusing instead on new consumer devices like the iPod? How important are snazzy effects to a successful OS strategy, anyway?
Let's hear your thoughts.
Comments
The desktop metaphor seems to be working pretty well. I say Apple should just continue to add in time-saving features and release some new iApps. There doesn't need to be a major redesign in the way we use computers. Productivity is the key. An OS can have as many snazzy effects as it wants, but it wont (shouldn't, at least) succeed unless it helps increase productivity.
Originally posted by hyperb0le
Effects are only good if they increase productivity. Expose is good. Having windows that look like glass is bad.
The desktop metaphor seems to be working pretty well. I say Apple should just continue to add in time-saving features and release some new iApps. There doesn't need to be a major redesign in the way we use computers. Productivity is the key. An OS can have as many snazzy effects as it wants, but it wont (shouldn't, at least) succeed unless it helps increase productivity.
What change in the current "desktop metaphor" do you think could be as great as the leap from the command line interface to the GUI? People keep bringing up the idea of some type of 3D interface but I just don't see it. It might look cool but how is it going increase my productivity. The current desktop seems like a natural because it is the way people work. To increase my productivity someone is going to have to come up with a way to make it even easier and faster for me to get to and manipulate my data. How are they going to do that? Is it going to be something like Tom Cruise used in Minority Report? Eliminate the mouse and use gestures.
Lets hear some ideas?
bob spears
And why not: today's GPUs are more than capable and every Mac now comes with one. I like to imagine a desktop environment where the color and temperature of the light change with the time of day. A gentle orange-red tinge to the edges of windows during sunset? Yeah, call me crazy but you know it'd be cooler than words.
2. Everyone talks about metadata but it's really just a means to an end. What's the end? Helping users manage the enormous quantities of real data we'll all be collecting over the course of our lives.
I want a system that actively assists me with organizing all my digital stuff. Remember the classic System folder? I could just drop a file (font, extension, control panel) onto its icon and the Finder knew right where to put it. Well why the hell doesn't everything work like that? I can drop or save a file into Documents and it just goes to the right place.
This system will handle versioning automagically. Nothing is thrown away or abandoned, everything is saved. If I want to see what my resume looked like two years ago I simply go to it and scrub backwards along the time axis. Documents present themselves as a single entity but can expand to reveal all prior revisions.
Of course this system will let me find things very easily and very, very quickly. Imagine the responsiveness of iTunes' library search working on the scope of your entire filesystem. Add a revamped file browser with intuitive filtering UI and real-time zooming for scanning through large sets of data.
If this isn't enough and Apple wants to really push the limits, they'll begin by ditching the concept of file paths altogether (Newton users: think soup). To a very slight extent I believe Apple has already started down this path in OS X.
I am not suggesting that files shouldn't have a 'location' (folder/directory), or that those locations can't be nested. Spatial metaphors are a perfectly reasonable means of organizing things. What I am suggesting is that a file can - and should - be organized/viewed/displayed by means other than (and in addition to) its location. Moreover, that location should be abstracted from the mechanics of the storage system. Among other things this would let me add a second hard drive to my system and immediately realize it not as 'another place' but simply 'more space'.
dglow
Originally posted by bspears
What change in the current "desktop metaphor" do you think could be as great as the leap from the command line interface to the GUI? People keep bringing up the idea of some type of 3D interface but I just don't see it. It might look cool but how is it going increase my productivity. The current desktop seems like a natural because it is the way people work. To increase my productivity someone is going to have to come up with a way to make it even easier and faster for me to get to and manipulate my data. How are they going to do that? Is it going to be something like Tom Cruise used in Minority Report? Eliminate the mouse and use gestures.
Lets hear some ideas?
bob spears
Well, if Apple can get iSight to interpret gestures (ala ToySight) without mistaking background movement as gestures (and possibly causing irreparable damage like deleting a file) and translate them into specific actions, it would be pretty neat.
Combined with a killer voice-recognition framework, this thing would really be like Star Trek...today!
Edit: Why are the forums so stinky today?
Close means exit.
It is very, very annoying to close a window then go into the the menu to exit out of the application. Or to click and hold on the dock icon to exit.
Come on Apple. Simple usability testing would reveal this obvious flaw.
And please, hold all the replies about how you do things. At the very least Apple should provide an option to do what I want.
And don't get me started about the home and end key behavior! Command left and right... ridiculous!
Originally posted by dglow
Great Ideas
As an example where this is a nice behavior: When I am working with AppleScript Studio Applicaitons I want to be able to quickly view the Scripting dictionaries of the application I am working with, and the easiest way of doing that is to have the script editor open and drag the icon of the application onto the dock icon for the Script Editor. I don't always want to have Script Editor windows open, and I don't want to have the icon in my dock permanently. The current behavior is perfect for this.
A second example is for OmniWeb. When I am not activly viewing any content I don't want to have widows cluttering up my workspace, but since it serves as my RSS checker, I do want the program running so that I can get updates through the dock icon.
To me Window's way of solving the last item (system tray items) is a bit clunky since it means that more files are spatted somewhere in the system (meaning more things to go wrong in install/upgrade/uninstall processes). That is even ignoring the nice features of the dock vs the application bar + launch tray + system tray.
All of that being said, there are a few apps from Apple that should close by themselves that don't. For example: Internet Connect. Since there is rarely a time where you are going to want multiple windows open (not never, just rarely), and it is not document-centric, it should exit when you close the window.
I was glad when they got this corrected for System Preferences.
Come on Apple. Simple usability testing would reveal this obvious flaw.
And please, hold all the replies about how you do things. At the very least Apple should provide an option to do what I want.
It's most definitely not a flaw. The only time it becomes an issue is with those who have started using the Mac after extensive Windows experience or vice versa.
Mac user who want to close an app will simply just quit the application knowing that the windows will shut. Sure Apple could make preference change options for every possible method of utilizing an application but do you really want to wade through the plethora of preference choices? I think neither way is wrong or right. It all despends on the application being used.
Now while I love X's technical underpinings I have to be as productive as possible at work and all the additional graphical fluff (transparency, shadows, way-to-heavy-antialiased type, transitions, icon-based dock) just gets in the way. Frills are fine for home use, but not for serious work IMO. I find I'm much more productive in OS 9 - it's fast, light(ish) and isn't in your face with a LOOK AT ME... LOOK AT MEEEEEE!!!! interface.
I keep asking - why couldn't Apple allow users to have the *option* of working in a fast and light OS 9-like environment? That was a huge mistake IMO.
C.
Originally posted by hyperb0le
Effects are only good if they increase productivity. Expose is good. Having windows that look like glass is bad.
Absolutely. I was being a bit flip saying Longhorn will at last catch up to OS X in snazzy effects -- after all, Longhorn will also be adding a database-driven metadata-loaded filesytem (albeit still currently rather sluggish), stacks, a new notification system, plus not to mention (alongside the aforementioned snazzy effects like drop shadows and windows with glass-like, semi-transparent edges) a slightly Expose-like alt-tab that tiles your windows up as you rifle through them.
Anyway, point being, it'd be foolish to think Longhorn won't add functionality along with the snazziness -- cool technology is only cool if it furthers a greater end, ideally ease-of-use, productivity, or at the very least aesthetics. Longhorn will surely still be overcomplicated, bloated with wizards, and chock full of MS marketing and sneaky Windows-only strategies like XAML, but even MS understands that (well, to some degree).
I'm not scared of Longhorn, by the way. Apple is full of incredibly smart people and there's nothing Jobs enjoys more than being just a liiiiiitle bit ahead of MS. So I expect great things from them in 2006. Dare I expect... insanely great?
The thing I'm curious about is... what, exactly? What are the big problems that need to be addressed, and even re-thought? Which leads to...
The desktop metaphor seems to be working pretty well. I say Apple should just continue to add in time-saving features and release some new iApps. There doesn't need to be a major redesign in the way we use computers.
I agree that WIMP isn't going away any time soon -- we sure won't come close to navigating in a fully 3-D Minority Report-like interface until (as mentioned) the gestural technology comes of age, and a very clear vocabulary is developed, and perhaps not even then.. But is all we have to look forward to visually in the next 3 years more realistic drop shadows, smoother animations, and more realistic textures? I can't help but think Apple needs to be cooking up something more impressive than that.
Originally posted by Concord
I find I'm much more productive in OS 9 - it's fast, light(ish) and isn't in your face with a LOOK AT ME... LOOK AT MEEEEEE!!!! interface.
You mustn't use too many apps at one time or there's no way you could make that claim. In all honesty though none of those frills slow work down given the human input rate is slower than the computer's response rate. If you dislike the dock just make it hide but personally I find a simple one click system that'll float over windows easier to use than minimising a half dozen things so I can hunt through via the desktop.
There's hardly any effect in OS X that isn't meant to give important visual feedback. And most of them are so subtle, you hardly notice them unless you really pay attention to them (such as the double-clicking an app or document file in the Finder.
10.0's Aqua used to be the 'look-at-me' type of interface...I admit. It was loud but it's purpose was to lure people to it.
10.3 interface was toned down lots.
One size does not fit all, and frankly there should be no "global option" to activate this sort of behavior, because it would have a lot of potential to screw up a lot of company's workflows in multi-user environments where machines have only one account, per IT policy.
Getting back to the original question, I think 10.4 will be the last version of OS X most likely. It will be replaced by what Apple will market as a completely new system (a ".0" version), although it will obviously have many things in common with OS X from a user perspective and a programmatic perspective. I think though, that the look will be enhanced significantly both in terms of more subtle but beautiful eye candy and flexibility / user customization out of the box.
This will enable them to legitimately market it as a new OS, and basically ensure that whatever MS comes out with, Apple's stuff will still look better perform more reliably on the whole. Either way, Longhorn is just vaporware / MS-initiated rumor in order to give the appearance that they have had "something new" in the pipeline, when in reality it probably got off the drawing board only recently.
Quitting an application by closing its window is only useful for non-document-based, modal applications. For example, iTunes and iPhoto qualify...
I find the fact that iTunes stays running in the background to be immensely useful.
Effects should not be distracting because they should be focused on the foreground action, or to call attention where needed from the background. The effects in OS X that don't pertain to this are optional, you can turn them off; things like changing desktops and iChat's alerts and status changes. Effects are not menat to improve productivity per se, they neer have been. Effects that serve the purpose of user orientation (that is, clarity, knowing hat's going on where) should be there, and shouldn't be optional. Turning everything into options makes a computer more complicated to use, defeating the point of turning off the effects for the sake of simplicity. One might appear more complicated, but the other truly is to use. Besides, OS X has certainly improved on their effects, it's already less distracting than the current Windows effects and so far is an order of magnitude less ditracting than Longhorn's demonstrated (which, to be fair, seem more hypothetical at this point) effects.
Anyway, back to the original topic, I find it so interesting how Apple develops its UI now. I remember all the hubbub when Apple under Jobs dissolved their HI team. We all thought that it meant the end of interface improvements to the Mac. (Though it seems some don't want any changes in the first place.
It's easier to think of these things by addressing immediate concerns and seeing how a small improvement might lead to a new concept and become more pervasive, find implementations in other areas. For example, we keep talking about smart playlist functionality in other apps like the Finder, Mail and so forth because it addresses how we like to organize by criteria on the fly, making the process more automated. To me, it still feels like the Dock is sort neither here-nor-there in terms of its role in the OS. So what is it, what do we need one for? I use mine simply to access certain tools or places system-wide very quickly. I use it less for window management, but it's nice to get things out of the way with it every so often. So it's a universal accessibility tool, either to get to things or to put them aside for the moment. I'm trying to wrack my brain for things I'd like to do more easily from the OS. If we keep track of this sort of stuff, we can probably get some idea of what Apple will improve. Problem is, we take how we work for granted, at least I do. It's harder to think about what we're missing when we learn to work with the limitations of the OS so well.
Originally posted by Telomar:
You mustn't use too many apps at one time or there's no way you could make that claim.
I keep open all the apps I need (PS, Quark, Suitcase, Acrobat, Filemaker, couple of Misc apps) - that's more ram dependent than anything else.
In all honesty though none of those frills slow work down given the human input rate is slower than the computer's response rate.
You're kidding, right? Maybe on a dual proc. G5, but certainly not on my 1.25 G4.
If you dislike the dock just make it hide but personally I find a simple one click system that'll float over windows easier to use than minimising a half dozen things so I can hunt through via the desktop.
It's not about "hiding" the dock (which I do) - it's about finding what you want quickly on it. When you regularly use, oh I don't know... 20 or so different apps it's easier to find stuff on the OS 9 Apple menu than dock. Especially when some have the same icon (Quark 4 and 5 for example) or similar themed icons (Adobe CS). I've got a folder on the dock now that acts like an apple menu but there will always be those little annoying pauses (the dock has to pop up, the folder menu has to slide open) that make you feel that you're wading in molassas.
Originally posted by kim kap sol:
Concord is talking out of his ass as usual.
There's hardly any effect in OS X that isn't meant to give important visual feedback. And most of them are so subtle, you hardly notice them unless you really pay attention to them (such as the double-clicking an app or document file in the Finder.
10.0's Aqua used to be the 'look-at-me' type of interface...I admit. It was loud but it's purpose was to lure people to it.
10.3 interface was toned down lots.
Well I don't have 10.3 so I can't speak to that. If they have toned it down - great but I still say Apple should have given users the option to turn that stuff off from the very beginning. I am, however, running 10.2.8. and I can tell you those animations, transitions and CPU-eating shadows are not "important user feedback". We certainly got along fine in 9 without them. And since working on the Mac pays my mortgage I feel I have the right to voice where I feel there is room for improvement.
Cheers,
C.
Originally posted by fiddler
I find the fact that iTunes stays running in the background to be immensely useful.
This is why iunes in windows need to run in the tray - had to say it
Close means exit.
No, close means close this window. Quit means exit this program. What's so difficult about typing Command-Q?
I hate it when an application exits if I close it's last window. It's a Windows concept and it is not needed under OS X, nor wanted.