Pinnacle of UI design forthcoming (NOT)? Someone please stop these nice people before they lick mercury and die....

Not picking on Appleinsiders but they are a sampling of that which you hate:

"Mmmmm...I like it... the scroll bars would be rivulets of mercury floating in those troughs. I think that could look really slick."

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30949

Oh my holy sweet jumpin' mercy.

Actually, remember when you first loaded Aqua and you got that animation of the mercurial blue shapes calving to and fro? That was kind of arresting.

That's what these guys want. They saw that MOMENT of slickness, and want more. They want Aqua to really feel liquid. The visual theme and feeling Apple themselves TRIED to portray with that intro animation, never came to be. It was, like so much else here, a broken promise. I think that's what these folks are really reacting to. We got something not slick ENOUGH for them. I knew it. When you go the eye candy road, you'll have to keep changing themes for this type of squirrel attention-span audience. Who will ALWAYS be looking for a visual eye candy fix.

Aqua isn't liquid or slick to me at all... I don't read the scrollbars as mercury or even designer water in a trough. Heck, the trough doesn't even read as a trough. There are so many pooched and inconsistent lighting effects, every attempted "3-D" illusion is ruined. Especially when horizontal troughs meet vertical. Nah-ah, the whole thing reads like cheap plastic, filled in with stripes. Inconsistent modeling and lighting.

I can't shoot people down for WANTING beauty, WANTING a well-conceived or beautifully executed interesting theme. Especially when they're not getting it. When they're getting cheap crap.

Look, I'd never DESIGN a mercury interface, but I can see in my mind what they're after. And it could be cool for a game or something. Forms appearing, raising and lowering and morphing like the metal guy in T2. Buttons rising out of a mercury soup, resolving, then coalescing after the user click. Calving blobs like the Aqua intro. It would be a theme. It could be done. What you have to ask is why, and would it help get work done. Would it be there just to sit back and watch the morphing and go, wow... or could it be made to make friggin' SENSE? You have to ask about appropriateness. Mercurial visuals in a T2 metal guy game? Makes sense. In a graphic design studio where pros have to meet deadlines? What's the point?

That's where Apple is major-leage screwing up. They've lost logic and direction. They're trying to impress with eye candy because that's all they've got right now. But they're blowing it there too. They're hatching graphical themes that don't contribute to a pervasive metaphor or overall visual logic anymore. It's becoming junk drawer. Instead of ONE theme, it's many competing mini themes. A parade of fakery. There for no good reason. Aqua feels like fake plastic and stripes and blurriness... Panther is going to feel like cheap fake aluminum and plastic, PLUS stripes and blurriness. Crap is accreting.

Platinum? Doesn't feel like fake anything, because it ain't. Its modeling, such as it is, isn't trying to be trompe l'oeil squat. It maintains a kind of computery pixel identity that we all understand. I don't know about you, but I never once went: oh my GOD, what crap, what are these idiots trying to PULL!!! That grey solid color doesn't look at ALL like real platinum!

And let me remind everyone, I'm not anti-texture, anti-rendering. I friggin' LOVE that stuff. I'm a strata studio fan from way back. A texture aholic. I want my spaceships to look greasy and weatherbeaten in the starlight, and my wood-textures to have convincing grain. I want my crystal eye candy objects to cast convincing shadows... it's just that I don't need ANY OF THAT CRAP IN MY COMPUTER INTERFACE. No. Not if it gets in my way.

And Aqua has been nothing but one big smorgasbord of getting in my frikkin' way and slowing me down.

If this hypothetical Quicksilver interface were fast, readable, and worked... hell, the pervasive T2 metaphor might be goofy but could be made to make sense. I have the feeling it would be more trouble than it's worth. Why? Because that illusion doesn't really SAY enough about function to be useful. The morphingness might not really contribute to ease of use... although who knows. Never say never.

But it takes a solid conception. Great ideas. An allegiance to a set of ease-of-use principles. All of which are being lost.

These textures and eye candy effects are WAY TOO IMPORTANT to the platform. Function and intuitiveness and performance and attention to the end user need to be put back on top. Helping us, rather than hurting us. Assisting our work, making things clear and easy... instead of constant nut-driving and showing off.

I don't like the new Apple logo, and they're reinventing the wheel; what was wrong with the Aquaified logo?
First: Colored.
Then: Apple decided on single-color and started with red and then moved to blue.
Then: Apple moved to a flat grey. I perfer the Aquaified logo, but grey is all right.
Now: New chrome "uglified" logo.

What is Apple's focus if they keep changing the friggin' logo and aesthetics of Aqua every few months? Oh – it's a matter of branding, I guess. Sure. So then it *is* true that the UI is no more than a façade. One of its main purposes is to evoke reactions like we're seeing at AI which is analogous to watching a fashion show as the different parts of Aqua make their way down the runway. The season's new fashions are in. Other than hoping to draw out the oohs and ahhs, there seems to be no other point to the changes. This now from the people who used to sweat every pixel because of its meaning or affect in terms of usability or overall consistency. In the end, if Apple's UI designers were posting to AI it would be difficult to differentiate their comments from the "rivulets of mercury" ones. They certainly wouldn't be saying things like:

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I wish they'd just have a basic bitmapped Apple logo (like on startup) and use that **everywhere, forever** instead of pissing around with it every month.

Where's the continuity? Where's the brain-searing immediacy and recognisability?

I hate all the aquafied and chromified ugliness.

Straightforward bitmap (like on startup, like on the Apple emails) is the best they've ever done.

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Or…

Sorry, I think, this is butt-ugly, cheap looking and overstylized. Faux chrome on top of cheap plastics used to be a domain of korean designers - until apple introduced the APX base station. I have one and it looks positively shitty.
Now, we get this in the UI as well, hmm ok. As if Aqua wasn't pale enough already. Nothing against a little understatement, but chromed grey just looks pale and cheap at the same time.

Obviously, the world will not end because of this - but like the new X on the panther websites, this is an uglification.

And the piece de resistance:

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Well, on a semi-related note (I think I'm going on my third year of calling for this): how come they can do all this slick stuff in OS X (Genie Effect, soft shadows, transparency, that cool fast user switch in Panther with the desktop spinning around on a cube, etc.), BUT the best they can do when you pull something out of the dock is that LAME, graceless Wile. E. Coyote smoke cloud that looks right at home on an early 80's Atari game? Jeez...

Again, here's the solution: REALLY play up the whole "aqua" thing and when you pull something out of the dock, it fades away into pond ripples.

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It’s fascinating to me how OS X has thrown a monkey wrench into the style-over-substance debate. “What? No substance? But we’ve got Unix underneath.” That seems to be giving Apple tremendous license to goof-up the interface.

By nature I’m a substance sort of guy when it comes to many things, including movies, books, television, music and interfaces. A wise sage once told me that a prerequisite for making it in the music business these days – particularly if you’re a woman – is to be a looker, to be able to splash your photo on the front of the CD jewel case and have it look real nice. That AI discussion reminds me that there are those who like movies for nothing more than the special effects. I like special effects too but it’s the story that counts. Bad special effects won’t necessarily ruin a good story. If the special effects are good and they enhance the story (which, ideally, they should do) then all the better. There are instances, such as Jurassic Park, where the special effects ARE legitimately the story, but I think those cases are rare.

I think in this culture we’ve come to the point where style is substance and some of those things that we sages refer to as substance are merely written off as earlier styles. It’s almost a no-win situation trying to explain some of this stuff. I’m convinced that we’re just going to have to wait for the pendulum to swing back. Thalo thinks that day will be soon. I think it will be years in the coming.

Oh the laughs keep rolling.

But lookit. Lookit what the impulse is... people want strong design. Meaning. Consistency. Logic. They're getting none of it. Why? Because no ONE part of the theme went far enough.

As much as individually I actually LIKE things like the "poof" they don't work WITH anything else. That guy is right to say why Wile E. Coyote one place, and not elsewhere?

Me, I friggin' ADORE the simpler Apple logo on grey, the hypnotizer, the flat solid graphic design of the eNews headers. ASAP ("As SIMPLE As Possible). That's the theme that should be baseline Mac. Just as minimal and iconic and soothing as can be. I've said it before, but my freakin' DIGITAL CAMERA at this point has a better interface than the Mac. The IPOD has a better interface than the Mac. All because of simplicity, clarity, contrast, readability, usability. That's what pros want. Not garbage. Or simply give us back the legacy look. Then, what the fuck, let theme designers go wild with all the other crap. Just don't force it on ME.

As much as I laugh, the approaching MacLash is in almost every one of those posts.

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But lookit. Lookit what the impulse is... people want strong design. Meaning. Consistency.

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You certainly force one to keep an open mind, and I’m trying to do so. So it’s to be accepted as a truism that there’s this deep yearning for such things as meaning and consistency? I can buy that. But which “religion” should we ascribe to in order to find it? What paradigm is going to show us The Way? Right now people are drinking at the idol of eye candy and the fatted calf they want to sacrifice is OS 9.

Isn’t it about time for some tough-love deprogramming? But, as is often the case, the deprogrammers are then scorned and derided as “unbelievers”. Show me the way to change or form attitudes without people digging deeper into what they already believe.

Mmmm.....fatted calf....



I like moof because it has light-dark-light meat.

I think they should "improve" Moof:

Show me the way to change or form attitudes without people digging deeper into what they already believe.

That's easy, Brad. Just have faith in the subject matter. Are science, nature and mathematics inherently interesting? Yes, to varying degrees among different people. But these subjects, no matter how inherently interesting, can have the life drained out of them by inept, uninspired and unimaginative teachers.

But if you have a deep respect for your audience and students, if you have a deep faith in the inherent interest of the subject matter, you'll get Mr. Wizard. You'll pass on the excitement, enthusiasm and charm of these subjects because you believe them to be exiting, interesting and important.

If you think people (particularly kids) are shallow and can't have anything but short attention spans, if you think the subject matter has to be hidden behind a façade of razzle dazzle so as not to bore people do death, then you end up with Bill Nye the Science Guy. You end up trivializing the important. You end up putting on your own show and obscuring the other, more interesting one. It's the difference between the MTV-like Sesame Street that ends up being a distraction from life and Mr. Rogers which ends up being an introduction to life because of his trust, faith and respect for children.

And just because we're now grown-ups, Brad, does not mean similar techniques have been abandoned. Just look at what they're doing with computer interfaces these days…

oh, poor moof. Sacrilege.

Tough love deprogrammers are never heroes at first. What? Take me away from my drugs, or cult, or bottle? Screw you, who are you to say it's bad for me? What're you, my FATHER? Stop patronizing me, I'm an adult and can make my own choices.

That's true. But remember, thalo.net doesn't bodily come into anybody's house and FORCE them not to use OS X, or to hate it. I'd venture to say, that expressing one's views and opinions is really a kind of soft deprogramming. We're heightening awareness of what crap is, but can we force people who are satisfied to suddenly stop being so? Nah-ah. I find it curious, though, how much impact a few simple criticisms of computer software end up having.

I mean, when people dis OS 9, guys like us don't flip out NEARLY as much as X-Men after you dis OS X. Which tells me they know we're right. Like when you tell a junkie that heroin is bad for them. They know it's true. But they resent YOU saying it. You'll get "I can quit anytime I want to" and "who the hell do you think you are?" They know the truth, they're just reluctant to admit it.

Because eye candy feels good to twiddlers and chimps, doesn't mean it's the best feature of OS X. It's certainly not so spectacularly attractive that I can crap-settle and overlook the serious problems with the Mac operating system. I simply see it's causing more harm than good. I don't CARE if people like it and if THEY are willing to pretend that OS X works and is fast. I know for myself that they are self-deluding. All the bullshit I've described over the years is in the process of coming home to roost. Panther will be a turning point. Everyone, and I mean everyone thinks those labels are utterly stupid. And when we all see firsthand that nothing is really improving but instead that Apple has done nothing but add a few more bells and whistles, even X-Men will start getting impatient.

The more Panther sucks, the more X-Critics will be born. The MacLash is coming, my brothers. I'm fed up with a platform that's worse and slower than Windows. Worse and slower than the legacy. I'm not willing to crap-settle. If OS X doesn't start SURPASSING the competition, or its own legacy, I'll simply fight the good fight and remain with the legacy until it does.

At the same time, I won't ignore actual improvements. For example, fixing the open/saves. That is long overdue. And if Panther does it, that will be a huge victory for our side. Fixing the speed issues, the interface, and the font rendering are next.

When the Mac OS is truly high-performance, and worthy of the G5's power, I'm there with bells on. But as long as that power's sole function is to drive happy horseshit and dupe digikids, no thanks.

[In response to my little thought balloon.]

"Yes, yes. All well and true, Brother Brad," brother thalo might say. "But I'm a Skinnerian behaviorist. All they need do is start acting like less-is-more. If they start adding it to OS X then all will be well."

But Brother Brad might reply, "Where you see nothing but behavioral problems, I see Freudian complexes and Jungian archetypes out of whack. They can never just act less-is-more without the underlying faith, belief in, and respect for certain ideas, values and principles. What we don't need is another superficial façade. We need the real deal. That's why the Jobs component is so crucial in all this. If your goal is revenge on Sculley, proving that NeXT was right all along, and/or being a slave to pop culture (while thinking one its master) then you'll never actually get less-is-more.

<< When the Mac OS is truly high-performance, and worthy of the G5's power, I'm there with bells on. >>

I'd pay good money to see that.

Markle is starting to wonder why Brad has begun referring to himself in the third person....


Markle

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I'd pay good money to see that.

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Hey, me too. That's the point. Right now my wallet is clamped together tighter than a prom date's knees on cold vinyl seats.

I wish I could communicate to you just exactly how many of my dollars Apple Computer would have right now, if OS X was a worthy successor to the legacy. How HAPPY I would be to CONTINUE to buy or upgrade software from my favorite developers (Adobe, Quark, Macromedia, and others) if OS X, to put it delicately, didn't suck the big blue X.

The MOST I'm willing to spend right now, is the $129 or whatever for Panther. But while OS X remains crap, there is no way I'm going to waste any more money than I already have. Every, and I mean EVERY SINGLE so called "native" app I've gotten for X has been money down the toilet. That's for big-ticket apps as well as utilities. I've bought plenty. Quickeys, Drive10, Norton products, Adobe products, Orifice, Intuit products, Macromedia products, and on and on. All piss weak. Because the OS is piss weak.

And lookit, I'm a Quark jock. For ME not to have bought Quark at this point, means I reached my breaking point with OS X prior to the release of my most important app. I'm serious, I've had it. No more spendy until something starts being more pro-capable.

But fix the OS? Holy crap, I'd sell a kidney to get more money to give Apple. I want an office full of G5s with 23 incher Cinema Displays, for myself I want a 17 incher-- PowerBook all tricked out. I'd buy an iPod just to play with. I'd upgrade every app, Quark first... then buy Maya, and a few others I've got my eye on. All gladly.

If you ask a pro, me, why oh why have you stopped spending money? The answer is: Mac OS X. "Is it because it's UNIX, thalo?"
NO. It's because it's crap.

FINDERDAMNPOP

I need FINDERPOP for Mac OS X, especially with the otherwise terrific Apple wireless mouse, but it seems to be an insurmountable task to have system wide click-and-hold. Developers certainly are shying from it.

Man, it must be spaghetti inside Mac OS X...

Ittec bites, because I don't like needing to remember, (don't make me THINK), that it only works in the Finder, not system-wide, and Fruit Menu's similar Finder-click-and-hold is atrocious since it even does it in the scroll thumb or arrows. Duh.

I told Ittec that I'd pay $100 for system wide click-and-hold. (no reply)

Markle is starting to wonder why Brad has begun referring to himself in the third person....

LOL. I'll be sure to ask him.

HighHopes was wondering that very same thing about the Brads. HighHopes fears it may be a sign of mercury madness.

Nah, mercury madness makes you forget.... uh,... stuff.

Brother mighty, I don't like "needing to remember" either. What you're talking about is inconsistency. Like when you have to do the same thing different ways because it doesn't work the same in every situation. OS X is rife with that crap. Like, you have to know that a certain widget does this or that in such-and-such an app, but not another. That this service works here, but not there. That certain keyboard shortcuts are different or behave differently... That x or y function is broken (or easy to break) in apps a and b, but not c.

I call this NURSEMAIDING an OS. Where the burden is on the user to think FOR the operating system, accept (crap-settle) its inconsistencies, and assume everything is natural when THEY have to be the one to evolve a workaround for them.

Doc, it hurts when I...

"Cut and paste doesn't work between OS X and Classic? Well, don't cut and paste." Ludicrous. I get beachballs and unexpected quits when I... what? WORK?

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HighHopes was wondering that very same thing about the Brads. HighHopes fears it may be a sign of mercury madness.

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How would you be able to tell if someone was nuts from the words normally bandied about on an internet forum? A better question might be, how could you tell if anyone was sane? Anyway, as you all know, my self-appointed job here is to fill the gaps like Aqua stripes in a dialog. We can’t have no pregnant pauses. The show must go on. Ed McMahan must laugh even if the joke wasn’t all that funny. And it’s kinda fun just to play around in this Bizarro World of thalo.net where up is down and down is up and people can genuinely “think different” without getting their posts deleted.